The Hating Game

"I hate the way my hair looks,” “I love pizza but I hate anchovies.” The question of the day is “What’s wrong with a little well-placed hate?” Okay, pizza and hair gel are trivial but what about big things? Evil? Shouldn’t we hate evil? Saying I hate the devil can’t be bad. What about an unscrupulous boss or the neighbor who lets his poodle do a doodie in your yard? How about Barney or the Wiggles? Give me a break! If anything should be hated, it’s those guys.

God hates. It says so in the Bible. In Malachi 2:16, God states very clearly, “I hate divorce.” Deuteronomy 12:31 talks about all the detestable things God hates. That verse alone justifies a little bit of Wiggles-hate, don’tcha think? So there! It should be settled. There is a place for hating; be it little fishies on pizza or big purple dinosaurs. Hating is the bomb. “

Right now, you should be sitting at your computer, shouting out a great big, “AMEN!” Except for one major detail, it’s a ticking bomb and it’s strapped to our very souls.

Whatever you do, do not begin to think I’m getting preachy. Believe me; I’m not sitting on my high horse, passing judgment on anyone. At this very moment, I can give you a list of things that create a knot deep in my gut. Things that would easily be classified as "righteous indignation” and stamped, “JUSTIFIED!” I can create a separate, distinct list of things that bug me. The war in Iraq; bone heads that blindly criticize or support the war in Iraq, the way hurting people are falling through the cracks at a mega-church I attended twenty years ago (okay, that’s an old one). I’ve been able to keep so many chips balanced on my shoulder simultaneously that someone should call the newspapers. I’m just getting started. I’ve got a third list (I like to call this my “Barney” list) of things that just drive me crazy; shallow things, like the guy with the dog or the kewpie-doll way a co-worker smiles at me every time I pass his cubicle. How about people who use the word, “irregardless?” If I ever go postal, it will be after I've heard that word twice in the same meeting, I’m sure.

But this doesn’t make sense. If God is Lord of my life, why do I have knots in my stomach? If He is holding me in His arms, why aren’t the chips falling off my shoulders? (Side note: These are not issues of God’s power, but of my submission.) One thing God has revealed to me this week is that the key word in the term “righteous indignation” is the first word not the second and that’s my problem right there.

So I’ve got a big steaming pile of this on my plate and it’s not very tasty. Drop me a comment. I’d love to hear what you have to say. Don’t make me beg. I hate it when people do that.