Monday, February 28, 2022

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY AND HIS UKRAINE

 Volodymyr Zelensky: President is not an icon, hang pictures of your  children in offices and look them in the eyes before every decision - 1TV

There is more to the example of the courage of President Volodymyr Zelensky remaining in his beloved country to fight for its life - more even than a Jew fighting for the many who might hate him.
 
His example is beginning to pry open the narrowed slats of our eyes to principles that our Western world has rejected, principles that might even be greater than our own lives. Why would someone put his life and the lives of his fellow countrymen at stake if this life is all that we have? How can our principles be greater than our lives, which can be snuffed in a moment? Why not lay down before Putin and become Russians?
 
There is only one possible answer to these questions. There must be another place where the principles, which stir our hearts, will be fulfilled and given their due recognition.
 
But shouldn’t “love” direct us to turn the other cheek before any oppressor or bully? Should dignity and justice demand that a nation run and hide or stand against injustice and bullying. Shouldn’t a husband defend his family and daughters against those who would grab them away into sex slavery? Even Jesus acknowledged that it is the expected duty of the husband to defend his family:
 
·       “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.” (Matthew 24:42-43)
 
Does love conquer all? It depends on our definition of “love.” Love isn’t an indiscriminate substance that you can apply equally to everything. Instead, love must start at home. A man must love his own before the family of his neighbors:
 
·       Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)
 
Love begins at home and then radiates out to those closest. The same principle pertains to our neighbors, neighborhood, and even to our nation.
 
Zelensky has illuminated this principle for the world to see. Love sometimes requires heroism and even sacrifice.
 
Are there causes greater than our own lives? I think that the heroic example of the Ukraine has given us a mighty and persuasive “yes.”

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