Most of the personalities we’ve featured in this series have been fighters for justice. It takes a fighter to change the status quo—to bring justice to an unjust world. But did God intend for us to fight with anger, as so many do?
Speaking personally, I get terribly angry when I see things that are wrong. I want to fight the injustice. But does God want us to have such anger as part of our service to him? Didn’t he tell us to love all—even our enemy?
How can we overcome injustice when we ourselves become the problem? How can we bring peace to the world when we have anger in our hearts? How can we love when we hurt so much?
When we treat people with anger, we’ll most likely receive an angry response. This is certainly not a solution for peace.
Think back to some of the giants of history you’ve been reading about in this series. Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, and Nelson Mandela. The love and forgiveness they brought to their work made a big difference in the world. Can we learn to keep such love within us when we battle injustice?
One purpose for this series is to help readers overcome low self-esteem and gain confidence. But there’s a danger that too much confidence will take away the humility God calls us to have. Can we fight the wrongs in the world with a humble heart? Gandhi did. Mother Teresa did. And our Lord Jesus did, of course.
Advocates for mental health can make changes, not only by making mental illness understood and accepted, but by learning to understand those who don’t understand yet. There has to be a coming together.
Consider Nelson Mandela. He brought the blacks and whites of his nation together after years of atrocities. Instead of revenge and retribution for what the white South Africans had done to him and his people he chose to forgive. That’s a humble attitude to take, one that ended up bringing peace. It’s an attitude all of us who advocate for lessening the stigma of mental health can learn from.
In 2009 I wrote Understanding People Who Do Not Understand. It’s edited and reproduced here and in the next post:
“As a person living with bipolar disorder, I used to feel frustrated that so many people did not understand mental illness. I was angry that people didn’t even try to empathize. But through my writing and educating others, I’ve learned that the problem does not lie with healthy people alone. It also lies with those of us who themselves live with mental illness. We share the onus of making the world a friendlier place for people like ourselves.”
For more see Part 21
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