Honor

In the movie "To kill a mocking bird", Gregory Peck patiently tried to explain to his daughter scout, why people hate. She'd already seen it all around her: a strange boy who had condemned himself to a hermit's life for not being the same as everyone else, and a poor boy at school whose only crime seemed to be being poor. Then, looming over all of them, the innocent man already hung for nothing more than being someone no one else wanted around. Someone they feared because they could not understand ~ and hate became the easiest way out.

Somehow in his gentle explanation, Peck's character managed to sum up life's pursuit in much the same way that Jesus did two thousand years earlier: "Do to others as you would have them do to you". It was as simple and as complicated as that. Even we who are not children listening on someones knee know that it's much easier said than done. But when all is said and done, it really is the truth of life, the embodiment of what Micah says when he declares what God requires of us: " To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (6:8).

Who can forget that incredible courtroom scene ~ a place where hate collided with the truth and Atticus Finch was in the fight of his life? As a simple lawyer, he knew the not so simple truth. When it would have been easier to walk away, easier to let hate take over all reason and go back home, away from all these unreasonable souls consumed by their own prejudices, he did the right thing. He stayed and he fought for a friend. He fought for innocence lost and for the innocence found again. Maybe deep down he knew that what he helped others find in themselves meant that he, too, could keep it alive in himself.

There are no easy answers. And even in the movies, there isn't always a happy ending. Being true to his word, Atticus found, didn't guarantee happiness. It didn't even guarantee fairness. Yet it was still a lesson worth teaching his daughter, his neighbor, his enemies, his friends. He said it was a sin to kill a mockingbird because mockingbirds just go busily about their lives and do nothing to hurt us. God gives the same warning when it comes to all people. Let go of the hurt and the "eye for an eye". ...Love is all you need after all. And love can cover a multitude of sins.

God's greatest commandment was to Love, in love is forgiveness, healing and hope. In love we find our desire to do what we know is right in our "Knower" in our soul, God's will in our lives, hearts and all our ways. As we grow closer to the Lord in relationship it is his gentle nudge to our spirit that helps us over come our old reactions, habits and hangups. thus allowing those areas in our lives that has kept us tied to pain and sin be finally freed and healed by him. Teaching us his grace and mercy so then we can be more graceful and mercy giving with others.


CHALLENGE :

Sometimes doing the right thing is the hardest thing. Write about a time in your life in which you made that honorable choice with the Lords leading and how it healed and or transformed you leading to more grace for others and yourself.