I met a man yesterday, whether a friend or a foe, I can not tell. I am not sure if he is male or female but he is one of the 7. 9 billion people on earth. Just one man, I must emphasis and he offered his unsolicited view on an area of my life. He is not the Messiah or the Sent One, at least as far as I can decipher. He is not the Creator nor the Maker. He has not done any research on me, my past, my future, he had not collated any data, he was not a researcher. He hardly knows me and our encounters have been few and brief, yet he offered his view, on what authority I wondered, whether it was just a hunch, a thoughtless expression of unsolicited view or an overflow of inconceivable ignorant and arrogant pomposity I would never know. All I know was that one man offered his view. A negative prognosis and my spirit dropped. He offered his truth, he will argue, without a doubt it is his truth, but how does his truth line up with ‘the truth’ and the views of the other 7.9 billion people?
We live in a free world and a man is entitled to his views, freedom of speech also gives him the liberty of expression however there is no compulsion on imbibing by anyone. Yet we hold ourselves captive to the view of just one man. We assimilate, we ruminate, we turn it over and over in our mind, we regurgitate and we embrace as the ultimate truth, as the gospel and we become troubled, discouraged, despondent and hopeless and the thoughtless view of just one disgruntled man becomes our very own negative self fulfilling prophecy. Someone said to me, ‘but it wasn’t just one man, there were a couple of them, a few, actually about a 100 people echoing the same downtrodden drum beat’. and I replied ‘and so what!’ that is 1.26582278e-8 of the population’ now everyone one is looking at me ‘that number makes no sense, we don’t understand ’ and that is exactly my point, the view of one man contrary to the positive vision, upbeat view and projections for our lives is irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. If we can truly grasp this, we will be freer and floaty human beings. Am I suggesting we should become headstrong and never consider other people’s views? Absolutely not. Am I saying we can never be wrong? I will never say that. Am I suggesting that criticism and cautions are always detrimental? No. However I am saying everything in its right place, we are not to give more weight to the view of one person or a few people than we ought. People are entitled to their views and we are entitled to our acceptance or not. Hopefully we will apply all due diligence, openness, discernment and honesty in our consideration.
All men are not created equal, some are more equal than others. Some express there view with such force, other with a meek voice, some have the platform, the presence, the power, the position and the followership, some raise their voice, clench their fist, vibrate, gyrate, stamp their feet, get angry, point the finger, claim you are averse to the truth, yet it is just the view of one man in 7.9 billion people or if you are lucky the view of 1.26582278e-8 of the population! An insignificant number. We are not to think of ourselves or any man more highly than we ought to. All men and their views including ours are to be considered with sober judgement and faith, a view that is not of faith is to be discounted.
It is just the view of one man!
Beautiful Ivory 