Runaway Love - When Hell is a Place Called Home

This is one of the most powerful music videos I have ever seen (of course, on the one hand that isn't saying much because I rarely watch music videos).

One of my first reactions to that was remembering a class I had in seminary taught by Joel Hunter of Northland Community Church down in the Orlando area.  Joel told us pastor wannabees not to tell people what to do or how to run their lives because we just don't know about what they have gone through to speak intelligently about what they need to do.  Of course he followed this up by encouraging us to spend a good deal of time listening so we could then speak wisely, but he was emphasizing that we need to be slow to speak because most folks have a lot going on that we just don't know about.  It also reminded me of a time when some students were egging Steve Brown on to say something about some minister who had gone off the rails.  Steve basically said "settle down, you don't know what kind of demons that guy is facing."

As I watched this I was reminded of the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of times I have made snap judgments about people and assumed I knew what was best for them when I really didn't know what was going on.  This reminded me that there are lots of people living in their own private little hell, and we need avoid being hellish to them. 

HT - How God Messed Up My Religion

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