The Sunday Sermonette: It Started At Versailles.  

     World War I was a meat grinder! Its vicious teeth devoured over 16 million lives. It gnawed away many of Europe’s empires and saw the abdication of the German Kaiser and the Russian Czar. Due to four vicious years of death and destruction, animosity toward Germany overflowed in 1919 at the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty ended the war, but its aftermath was blamed solely on Germany. And because it was, Germany was saddled with war guilt and forced to pay reparations for the horrors it had created.

     The Allies’ bitterness over the losses in human life and livelihoods boiled over into a seething hatred for all things German. The treaty’s terms were so harsh that the country staggered into the 1920s with worthless money, a lackluster government, and great public unrest. The Allies didn’t realize that their hatred would be the catalyst for a hatred of another kind—the Nazis. Bitterness created hate, and those two evils fed the oncoming fires of World War II.

     In our everyday lives, bitterness and hate are meat grinders, too. They both have sharp teeth that can ravage your heart, consuming all that is loving and kind. Because of hurt and pain created by the words and actions of family and friends, those we work with, or those in politics, don’t we, too, write our own version of the Treaty of Versailles? That treaty created chaos. And the razor-sharp teeth of our own bitterness and hate create the same thing.

     Please don’t let these two evils grind away your heart. If mentioning someone’s name provokes bitterness or hate, pray for the godly strength to forgive it and move forward. If the unkind words or actions of family, a lifelong friend, or others generate bitterness, which can morph into hate, seek counsel with the offending party and pray for a solution to the problem. If we allow a meat grinder to munch away at our hearts, we will find that we have been ground into the dust of which we are made. Bitterness? Hate? Pray to Father God for help. 

     Ponder this and go forth.