”And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the people of my seed gathered together in multitudes against the seed of my brethren; and they were gathered together in battle. And the angel spake unto me, saying, ‘Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw; yea, even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are hell.” (vs. 15-16)
The battles he saw in vision were nearly 1000 years in the future. And like every war before and since, they met the description of “the seed of one brother gathered against the seed of another brother”, “filthy water”, and the depths thereof were hellish. Every. Single. Tragic one.
Why does that description fit? Because we are all brothers and sisters. Children of God. And because warring requires “hard hearts”, which are created when we succumb to “the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men...” (vs. 17). The devil deals in distrust coupled with fear that hardens hearts, which hearts, because of that distrust and fear, become prone to lash out in hatred or violence in words as well as deeds.
As Dieter Uchtorf said, when he described a study made of two different combinations of groups of people in conflict, “They discovered that “each side felt their own group [was] motivated by love more than hate, but when asked why their rival group [was] involved in the conflict, [they] pointed to hate as [the other] group’s motivating factor. *
“In other words, each group thought of themselves as the “good guys”—fair, kind, and truthful. By contrast, they saw their rivals as the “bad guys”—uninformed, dishonest, even evil. They silenced those they did not like. They shamed and demonized them. They considered them inferior—even less than human. Once you degrade a group of people, you are more likely to justify words and acts of violence against them.“ **
So, I must be watchful of my heart, to turn it to the Lord and to charity, and not to overpowering fear, nor hate, nor worry, nor anxiety, nor indulgence in disdain or disregard for “the seed of my brother” no matter how horribly he is behaving, both in my daily interactions as well as in large scale conflicts in society. Turning to charity and the Lord frees me to act wisely, and taste the fruit, and share it, and not drown in hellish depths. Hopefully even when they swirl around me.
“...and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided. The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.”
~ Exodus 14:21-22
Towering waters on either side, and yet passing to safety on dry land.
* Boston College, “Study Finds Intractable Conflicts Stem from Misunderstanding of Motivation,” ScienceDaily, Nov. 4, 2014, sciencedaily.com.
** Dieter Uchtdorf, “Three Sisters”, October 2017
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