Bullying must be stopped

Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. 2 For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3)

Last week, we had a meeting at the church that was well-attended by the community and by several T.V. stations. We started conversation about bullying. The discussion was centered around the question, “What can we do?” Several great ideas were discussed, questions were asked and answered, and people were made aware of a problem that has been around since Cain and Abel. Bullying is not new. It is not exclusive to London only. Other schools face bullying on an everyday basis. It is a problem that businesses face as well as the society in which we live. Like I said, bullying isn’t new. But what happened in our community last week, put a face to bullying and increased our awareness about a problem that we have.

This past Wednesday night, the discussion continued at Crossroads Community Church. The meeting wasn’t as well attended as the first. However, we did talk about bullying. And we did talk about the first step that we can take to do something about it. The first step we can take deals with prayer. Each one of us who are concerned about bullying should also be concerned about praying for it. Not that bullying would continue…but that bullying would stop. First of all, we need to pray and ask God if we have trouble with being a bully. See, if we “judge” someone else, Jesus says we should not do that. And how many times in our lives, do we “judge.” We judge someone else for the way they live their life because it isn’t the way we live our life. But, “if you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t be throwing stones.” (By the way, that’s not original with me.) And yet, many times, we are the victim of bullying because someone else doesn’t agree with the way we do or don’t do something.

Maybe if we kept our own doorstep clean first, that would help the problem of bullying. Then, after we have prayed about the way we live our life, we need to pray for others. In specific, we can pray for our kids. The children that attend the London city schools need our prayers. We can pray for their safety and protection. We can pray that those who have tendencies to bully would stop. We can pray for our superintendent, the principles, the teachers and staff. We can pray that our schools would be a safe place and a place of learning for our children. We can pray that God would begin to work in only the way that He can work. It might seem like a little thing for us to do…but it is a start. Would you pray for the things I have suggested? Your prayers are needed and they are appreciated. Thank you.

Pastor Thad Gifford can be reached at (740) 852-7800 or sermon8er@aol.com.