The Focus on Negativity and Being Without.

I was asked recently, “why is there so much negativity from people,” and the context was how many and how quickly people started tearing down Charlie Kirk.

As with many things, I’ve been pondering it and I can’t give just a simple one or two word answer. Well, I can but you won’t like it. 42, there you go lol. No, seriously, I’ll try to give two, maybe more examples. We’ll see how it goes.

There is something in our nature, I’m not entirely sure what, maybe it’s back to the whole “knowledge of good and evil” thing, but we have some seriously flawed perceptions. We, as a whole, LOVE to see a hero fall. We like helping them and assisting their descent. Why? Chances are it brings them back down to our level. Ever hear that saying “your spirit irritates their demons”? A lot of truth in that. I wanna be very clear; I’m not talking about folks with a very high and false opinion of themselves. I’m talking about people who have achieved some form of greatness, even if it’s simply content of character, that many others simply haven’t or won’t achieve. If someone is honest, we call them a liar or a cheat. In many cases, it may not even be some form of greatness, but simply tearing down someone for most any reason. Remember high school? You’ll get made fun of for being a virgin, for not being a virgin, who you slept with, who you didn’t sleep with - there’s simply no societal or socially correct answer - so choose God’s standard and ignore the others.

Back on topic, for whatever reason, we tear others down to somehow feel better about ourselves. Wow, what a stupid concept. Rather than seeing something as a virtue, or even a standard of achievement, we’d rather knock them down. I’ll come back to this.

We also have a huge problem celebrating mediocrity. Elevating ourselves or others to a higher perspective than what is earned or warranted. Ever see someone wrap their whole identity around independence? “I work and pay my own bills, I’m something special.” No, you’re the average adult. Not trying to take anyone down, but to be above average, you kinda need to be above average. Let’s not even get started on the dating “marketplace value.” Lemme just say inflation is rampant.

So why do we do this? Why do we tear down those who, for lack of better phrasing, have done better, then simultaneously elevate everything from mediocrity to even poor behavior, a criminal lifestyle, or even a sinful - disobedient lifestyle? I would argue the root cause would be a false perception of ourselves. We want to set ourselves as the “standard”, the defining aspect of comparison. We tear down others who may have outpaced us, and in the same breath, look down upon others we think we’re better than.

Going back to the previous, let’s look at Jesus’s life and ministry. The people, the masses, loved Jesus as long as they believed He was serving them. The masses followed Him, as long as He was feeding them and performing miracles. Yet in His hometown, He was just Joseph’s son, and when given the choice between Jesus and Barabas……, well we know how that went. The religious leaders were constantly speaking Him down, challenging and trying to trap his theology, rather than recognizing their own texts.

See any similarities between Christ and Kirk? Being VERY clear: I’m not saying that they are one in the same, that Kirk was perfect, a savior, divine, or without ANY faults. Not saying any of that. Christ taught a message of repentance and deliverance which went against the prevailing ideologies of the time, and in many cases Kirk spoke Christ’s message - going against the prevailing ideologies of our time.

Kirk was not without fault, he was human. However, the message he spoke was one of questioning and rejecting many of the premises accepted today. He also taught that our core, fundamental, moral beliefs on a spiritual/soul/eternal level should shape your political standing - not that your political ideology should shape your core, fundamental beliefs.

He also knew that you can’t have two or more fundamentally opposing, contradictory ideologies be simultaneously true at the same time. Charlie gave his life to Christ and he was not only saved, but changed - as per his own words. He believed in the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ. So he believed when Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father except through Me.” Have you noticed how many will say that message alone is divisive: but to say ANYTHING ELSE - from there being multiple gods, multiple paths, to no God at all - is somehow not only NOT divisive but even acceptable?!?!?

Getting back, I went a little into Kirk because of the context of the question, but I believe much of it goes deeper. So why is there such a focus on negativity? I do think a portion of that goes to the knowledge of good and evil and us trying to set ourselves as the standard of greatness. But the majority goes back to the Garden incident…..

Some very significant things happened with the eating of the fruit. As believers we know that’s when sin entered the world. While I did say several, I want to focus on two main aspects.

One: the serpent got Eve to question if God really meant what He said. Go back and look at Genesis 3. God said don’t eat it, don’t even touch it, or you will die. She KNEW this because she repeated it to the serpent. The serpent said not true. She not only believed the lie, in doing so questions God’s Word, but was enticed by her eyes. Right there the serpent got her to not only question and doubt God, but to CRAVE what was forbidden…..

Which is the second point. The serpent got Eve to forget ALL about EVERYTHING else they had, and focus on the one thing they didn’t. These two things have plagued humanity ever since. We question and doubt God, even His existence, and rather than being grateful and content with what we do have, we’re constantly looking at what we don’t.

So how does this bring negativity? It’s kinda self explanatory. By removing our focus from God, our beliefs falter, our faith suffers, and by constantly looking to what we don’t have, we’ve become a severely discontented, disobedient, and totally ungrateful group of people.

See how it all ties together? When we set ourselves as the standard, rather than God, it’s an insufficient basis. We don’t want others higher than us, because that points out our lacking. Yet we want to elevate ourselves over others, because that hides our lacking.

It’s really a very stupid concept, knowing all the while we can put our faith and trust in Christ and BE MADE sufficient even in our inadequacies. Yet we still try our hand at playing god and wonder why things are as they are. As I said, it’s a stupid concept.

To change the aspects of negativity, we’re gonna have to do what Christ said - to walk in love. More often than not, that love contains more correction than we appreciate - for ourselves yes, others as well. So if we want to change the negativity, we gotta change our focus