This is such a simple pervasive question, one that we have all pondered many times but it is more likely that a child has a better handle on the answer than do most adults.  When you ask your child why he doesn’t get along with the neighbor child he will probably tell you that the neighbor child is mean and selfish.  However, if you ask an adult the same question about their neighbor it may take hours to hear the list of complaints, a list so long that it will bog you down in a quagmire of their unforgiveness, a place that looks like the many winding passages from the Legend of Zelda, a never ending tunnel of turns without an escape from the darkness of man’s grumbling sinful soul.

I use to think that people didn’t get along with one another because they didn’t understand one another.  I thought man was basically good and if we just communicated our need to one another the goodness inside us would compel us to pitch in and help one another, curing all the problems and unhappiness in the world.  This was my philosophy that I pursued for the first 30 years of my life.  I thought if I could please people and give them what they wanted, they would be happy and show me favor.  However, one day my pleasing house came tumbling down when my wife that I thought I was pleasing wanted a divorce and the boss I thought I was pleasing fired me.  What happened?  I had believed in the goodness of man so why didn’t the goodness of man believe in me?

At this point I did what most people do, I went to a psychiatrist and read some self-help books but instead of settling for a quick answer and moving on with my life, I was compelled to analyze the answers I was receiving and see if they explained the “root” cause of the problem.  You see, I am a computer system analysis by profession and uncovering the root cause of a problem and programming around the root cause is what prevents the problem from happening again.  So why did trying to please people backfire and have the opposite effect intended?  Were the people I was trying to please dishonest about what they liked or was I not able to give them what they liked or was I dishonest to myself in thinking I could get through life by trying to be a people pleaser?  This was a most disturbing question, one I started to regret I asked because the tide of truth started turning on me and tell me I was dishonest with myself and something was fundamentally wrong with my approach to life.

Perhaps if I had continued psychoanalysis or taken some medication or drank enough alcohol I could have overcome my disillusionment concerning what I had done with my life.  But thank God, my state of depression actually helped my concentration and see through the fallacies and contradictions of man’s philosophies about life.  I started to read philosophy books incessantly.  I went to bookstores and flee malls and bought all kinds of books and read and read and read but there were so many contradictions among “the experts” and nothing I read satisfied my curiosity for the truth.  Then one day a lady at work explained that I was born with a sin nature that guided me and I needed to have God’s Holy Spirit in me to guide me.  Wow, it was like everything clicked into place and I realized, of course, that is why I choose wrongly, I don’t have God’s Spirit in me to help me choose correctly.  And that is why I feel alone, confused and unloved, not because I need the company and love of others but because I need to the company and love of God.  I started to read the Bible, the gospel of John, and things started to make sense and God started speaking to me, telling me this was the truth.  I asked the Lord Jesus to save me from my sins and He came into my heart and brought me peace and the joy of my salvation.  Immediately, I wanted everyone to know I had found the “good news of salvation in Jesus Christ”, the cure to root of all man’s problems!  But after many attempts to explain the answer and the joy of my conversion to others, I discovered that most people do not know they are sick with sin and they find the cure of Christ offensive.

You see, God is often called the great physician because He is able to perform miracles of physical healing beyond the explanation of doctors but God is also the great psychiatrist who is able to cure the root cause of despair, anxiety and destructive behavior in a person’s life beyond the explanation of a psychiatrist.  And God is also the great scientist who created the cosmos, the earth and life on earth.  God caused everything to appear out of nothing.  He is the answer to why there is so much information in DNA and why each species is “unique” in design and can not be cross breed like a cat-dog.  God defines the code for life and He is the One who orchestrates the processes of life.  And if you are wondering what “force” hold planets in orbit (we call it gravity) or what force hold atoms together the answer is once again, God.  He is the the “unifying force” that holds are matter together and yet somehow God eludes the scientist searching to control the force.  It is good to seek answers to the questions of life but it is not good to suppress the “truth” when God clearly explains them.

God has also created an unseen Spiritual world, where His throne resides and Satan and the Angels reside.  Plus God has also created an unseen Soul world, where our soul and our thoughts are processed and held together for eternity.  More importantly God is able to do something the physician, scientist and psychiatrist can never do, He is able to give a person eternal life, a life of purpose and meaning.  To the person that accepts Christ as their person Lord and Savior, God is able to come and live in the person and have a personal, one on one relationship with that person and within that person.  It is a beautiful ever lasting relationship that is beyond anything this world has to offer.  But for those who don’t choose to be born again in Jesus Christ, they will die eternally separated from Christ.  This existence is a Spiritual place of torment called the “Lake of Fire”, a place where a person is held forever captive to their own deluded thoughts.

So if you are still wondering “why can’t we all just get along?“, it is because you and I are “sinners”.  We are born with a self indulgent nature that is unable to get along with God and unable to get along with one another.  Even a born again Christian with God living inside Him, has to deny his sinful nature in order to allow the God nature inside him to love his neighbor the way God would love him.  This is not a guarantee that he will get along with the person but at least he will get along with God and that’s all that really matters because God deals with people who don’t get along with Him.  And quite frankly, if you are living a Godly life and you are making a stand for the truth of God’s word and you are being a witness for the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ, you will not get along with others but you will be persecuted by others because you believe the absolute truth of Jesus Christ.

2 Timothy 3:12 “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

Therefore, if you call yourself a Christian and yet you never have a conflict over how you view the world compared to how your unsaved family and friends view the world, or if you are unconcerned about the fallen sinful state of the world, or you think the goodness of man can give a person purpose and meaning for their life, then you better reevaluate whether or not you have been born again in Christ Jesus and have God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in you to convict you of the truth of God’s word or you better pray to God for forgiveness of your sin for compromising with the world, the flesh and the Devil.  This is the most serious issue facing the church!  Are we going to be found standing up against the world and standing upon the word of God as a witness against sin when Christ returns?  

A love for man without a love for repentance from sin is a condemnation of your fellow man … not love.  Moreover, until a born again Christian is with Jesus Christ in heaven (saved from the presence of sin) he will continue to experience the trails of this life and the difficulties of getting along with others.  Fortunately, for the born again Christian, he can see, by faith, an end in sight to the question purposed by this article and he can look forward to a time when people will be able to get along with one another.  But for those lost in their sin, I am sorry to say that the goodness of man is the pernicious lie that will not save you but will only lead you to eternal death and separation from God, a place that looks like the many winding passages from the Legend of Zelda, a never ending tunnel of turns without an escape from the darkness of man’s grumbling sinful soul.

– Rogersings

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