FRIDAY THOUGHTS: POWER GAMES

Someone is listening to your every word. 

You may not know it, because you're too busy impressing the people in your circle who think the same way you do. 

Your plans involve human beings. 

You, however, feel superior to others, so your plans often ignore the wants and needs of your fellow man. 

Your bold, brash, arrogant, thoughtlessly spoken words may sound great to you, but they're making someone else very anxious and afraid--

someone who may be weary; 

someone who may not be stable; 

someone who is oppressed; 

someone who means you no harm; 

someone who just wants to live in peace. 

Your words and actions are relentless, selfish, and inconsiderate. 

Those who hear you, feel they must find a way to fight back, but they are not as powerful as you are.

Finally, those who are shaken by your words and actions, become enraged. 

Those who you have bullied and disregarded, because they are not like you, or because you feel entitled to what they have, just SNAP. 

You blame them for responding to their fear; 

for demanding their rights to exist; 

for feeling they have to do something--anything-- to get your attention and make you stop, and see their humanity.

What are leaders of nations saying and doing that is striking fear into the hearts of men and women, who then feel they have no alternative than to lash out in deadly ways? 

What is it, for which leaders and governments must acknowledge, apologize, and repent? 

No one is ever angry for nothing. 

Things don't just happen. 

Someone is doing or saying something offensive, provocative, and dangerous. 

There are reasons why people do what they do, but too often we are only preoccupied with the reaction--not the action that led to it. 

Someone foolishly started a ball rolling, but never dreamed it would result in such destruction.

The atrocities we often see are the ANSWERS to what people in high places have started. 

The people in high places, however, are safe. 

Their families are safe. 

Innocents celebrating in the streets, or just going about their daily routines, are not.

Woe to leaders in--any capacity--who see human beings as dispensable pawns in their power games.