"...Hide not thyself from thine own flesh." Isaiah 58:7.

Needing to renew her driver's license, Edith joined the line lead-ing to the counters where such business was taken care of at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Imme-diately in front of hear was a teenager and his moth-er. His attitude toward her became clear within about 30 seconds, for he spoke loudly to her with arrogance, disrespect, and rudeness, seeming not to care whether others heard him or what they thought of him. His mother seemed accustomed to such verbal abuse and said little; when she spoke, it was with resignation, without convic-tion or courage.

What was happening here? There are always many sides to every story, and certainly this boy and his mother had their own story, which was unknown to the onlookers. The experience of each hu­man being is complex, and books have been written about why diffi culties arise between parents and children. But let's take a few moments to examine the spec-trum of experience that exists between human beings of all ages and see if we can fi nd a key to the blessings. How nice it would be to know that we can walk this road of life with success!

Our circleof life

No matter what country one lives in or to what family he belongs, there are cer-tain generalities we can make concern-ing the individual. Beginning at birth, everyone has basic physical, mental, and spiritual needs. When those needs are met, he has the best possibilities to be a productive individual and to find satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment. When they are not, he must somehow compensate for what is missing, or he may be unbalanced in some way. And in a sinful world, we have to recognize that everyone has his strengths and weaknesses, either from birth or from

his environment.

Within the family social structure that God gave, there is a wide range of pos­sibilities, from infancy to old age. With Him at the center, the family is the very best place for social development. There the baby receives its physical nourish-ment, intellectual challenge, and spiri­tual foundation. The young child is guided in his learning and develops wisdom, based on divine principles (cause and effect, sowing and reaping, personal responsibility). The adoles-cent tries out his wings and practices using his experience. The adult shapes the character of those entrusted to his care and teaches the principles he was taught, while growing in maturity. He grandparents share the wisdom gained from trial, struggle, defeat, and victory, all the while receiving back the love and care of the younger family members.

Sociologists have recognized the great importance of intergenerational friend-ships. Writing in USA Weekend, March 19-21, 1999, Mary Pipher wrote: "Ten people ages two to 80 grouped together will fall into a natural age hierarchy that nurtures and teaches them all. For our own mental and social health, we need to reconnect the age groups....

"Once I was in a rest home when a visitor showed up with a baby. She was immediately surrounded. People who hadn't gotten out of bed in a week

suddenly were ringing for a wheelchair. Even those who had seemed comatose woke up to watch the child. Babies have an amazing power to comfort and heal.

"Grandparents are a spe-cial case. They give grandchil-dren a feeling of security and continuity. As my husband put it, 'My grandparents gave me a deep sense that things would turn out right in the end.' Grandchildren speak of attention they don't get from harried parents. 'My parents were always telling me to hurry up, and my grandparents told me to slow down,' one friend said. A teacher told me she can tell which kids have relationships with grandparents: they are quieter, calmer, more trusting." -Read- ers's Digest, November 1998.

Our choice

Now let's go back to the boy at the begin­ning of our story and see what we can learn from this incident. Without sitting down and actually talking with him and his mother, we can only guess why he acted as he did in public. Furthermore, to evaluate the relationship between him and his mother, one would need to ob­serve them at home and in various set-tings and get to know them before being able to understand somewhat why the boy showed such disrespect for her.

Do people who are 20 years or so apart simply have little in common and therefore are automatically in conflict with each other? Or are the times and technology changing so rapidly that peo­ple born several years apart understand things differently? If that were the case, then why do little children and older folks generally get along so well? They may be anywhere from 30 to 70 or more years apart. No, the so-called "genera-tion gap" has to be caused by something else. We need to take a look at personal attitudes.

We can say that every person choos-es what attitude he will take toward the world around him. And, basically, every person chooses one of two directions:

(1) selfi shness or (2) unselfi shness. Real-istically, probably no one is totally self-ish or totally unselfi sh; we operate on a spectrum somewhere between total self-

Children start out life being self-cen-tered; that is natural, because a baby's world revolves around himself until he is taught otherwise. And here is a key. Unselfi shness is taught, like other things, by precept and example. Parents dem­onstrate unselfishness to their children by loving them and providing for their needs. But they need to teach unselfi sh­ness also by precept, training children away from selfishness toward unselfish­ness, which is also love.

Friendship is based on unselfishness or love; self-centeredness kills friend­ship. The day will come when the friend­ship will end. Oh, people may still con­tinue in some kind of relationship, but it is neither friendship nor love. In fact, if in a family, even one member is governed by selfishness, it always has a negative effect on the other family members. The result may not be as instant or dramatic as happened in the fi rst family on earth, but it will at least cause confl ict and un-happiness.

Choose unselfi shness

What the boy was demonstrating that day was extreme self-centeredness. Was he happy treating his mother disrespect-fully? One could tell he was angry and accusatory; he was far from happy. Was what he wanted so important that he would treat her so unkindly? It appeared that she wasn't denying him anything. Why did he feel entitled to be so rude an uncaring? That is the nature of selfish­ness. It has no concept of or concern for how others feel.

There are times when one is really un-justly treated, and he is severely tempted to treat others with anger, impatience, disrespect, or even sarcasm. But a friend will never act that way. Here is the great opportunity God extends to us. In the Scriptures, over and over again and in many different ways, He commands us to be unselfish in our dealings with one another, both inside and outside the fam­ily, both inside and outside the church. For example: "Be ye kind one to anoth­er, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath for-given you." Ephesians 4:32. This is em-bodied in His command to "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

There is no generation gap when one seeks to understand and be kind to oth­ers. We are free to choose our attitude toward those around us. We can choose unselfishness and give joy to them, in which case we have the assistance of all the agencies of Heaven; or we can choose selfishness and shed misery wherever we go, in which case we have the assis­tance of the agencies of darkness.

Sometimes it seems like unselfish­ness is just too diffi cult to practice con-sistently. We have to give in to our feel ings once in a while-so we think. But this is not the way of God. He gives us the greatest victories when we resolve under all circumstances to be covered by His righteousness and forget self. And more, the principie of sowing and reaping operates here. God more than compensates us for every unselfi sh act. May He grant every young person the precious treasure of friendship-unself-ishness and love-and all the blessings that accompany it. Barbara Watts, U.S.A. SW

YOU LIVE
ONLY ONCE

(,(,A nd as it is appointed unto me

“Aonce to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salva-tion" Hebrews 9:27, 28.

Since the beginning of time, man has sought an answer for the mystery of death, and as a result many theories and explanations have arisen regarding this event which every human being will have to face sooner or later.

Many ancient civilizations believed in life after death, a reason that was suffi-cient enough to cause the pharaohs in ancient Egypt to be buried along- side with their possessions since they clear-ly believed that these would be neces-sary in their after life. Other cultures, the Greek, for instance, believed in the underworld where souls were car-ried away by a boatman to the opposite edge of a river, there they were watched by a mythological fi gure in the shape of a monstrous dog with three heads and a serpent's tail named Cerberus, who was there to prevent the living from entering into his abode, and the dead from escaping and get-ting out.

Contemporary man does not believe in myth nor in offering food to the dead, notwith-standing,heis not oblivious to the perplexing enigmaof death.To replace those

ancient beliefs and practices many peo-ple now believe in the platonic theory of the immortality of the soul, even though this belief goes against all Biblical teach-ings which clearly state: "The soul that sinneth it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:20) Oth-ers prefer to believe in the popular east-ern belief of reincarnation, which states that after man dies, his soul comes into contact with "higher" spirits, he is then born again with a certain "karma" or destiny that he must fulfi ll on this earth in order to perfect his character and be-gin his purification. This process is re-peated many times as is necessary until

On account of the situation in the world 'today' practically on the verge of destruction, this theory proves to be false, because if it were true there would be so many be-ings hovering in the last stages of

 

reincarnation, manifesting great spiritu-al power, thus, enabling them to be in control of the world or to change the course of events.

It is not necessary for this to continue being a mystery, since the word of God is very clear on this point: people live, die, and then face the judgment "And as it is appointed unto men, once to die, but after this the judgment." The only op-portunity we have to develop a perfect character is in this life and for this reason we have been given an example: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became a man so that we may learn how a man in connection with God can lead a holy life. Jesus Himself gives us the power to overcome weaknesses of the flesh and presents His righteousness to the father on our behalf each time we sin, provid-ing that we repent and approach Him with a contrite heart.

On our own we cannot "work out our own salvation" nor change a single fea-ture of our character. He who shed His blood to take away the roots of sin in us says: "without me ye can do nothing" John 5: 15. Since we are lacking in righ­teousness, "there is not one just, no not one (Romans 3:10) and "our righteous-ness is as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6), our only hope lies in presenting ourselves just as we are before the God of mercy, without trying to cover our shame. By completely trusting in His infinite love and grace, the relief and joy that we will feel upon knowing that our sins have been forgiven will be unlike any other. Peace shall fi ll our hearts as we hear the Lord speaking to our conscience:

"go Since we only have one life, we should be careful how we live it, because eventually we shall be judged by the heavenly courts. The apostle Paul constantly tells us to "Awake to righteousness, and sin not..." 1 Corinthians 15: 34. "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober" 1 Thes-salonians 5:6. Peter sub-stantially confirmed this: "But the end of all things is at hand, be ye there¬fore sober, and watch unto prayer"

1 Peter 4: 7. “…the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness…!” 2 Peter 3:10, 11.

The prophet Daniel had the privi- privilege to see in a vision a scene of the lege judgment: “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fi ery fl ame, and his wheels as burning fire…thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thou- thousand times ten thousand stood before sand him: the judgment was set, and the
books were opened” Daniel 7:9, 10.

This same privilege was given to one of the writers of the New Testament who describes the vision he had when he found himself exiled on the isle of Patmos: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before; and the books were opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were in them: and they judged every man according to their works” Revelation 20:10, 11.

In view of these events, and the fact that the standard of righteousness that we are called to live by is called the law of liberty: “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be
judged by the law of liberty”, we should reach the same conclusion that wise king Solomon reached “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into udgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14) and join the psalmist in saying: “Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end” Psalms 119:33. Amen.