It Gets Better

What a wonderful project and what a wonderful video to promote it.  While the video talks about homosexuality, it could be about lots of things, couldn’t it?  Almost all of us are put down, bullied, abused or harassed at some point in our lives.  And this seems to be especially a problem in our Middle School and High School years.  Where you are right now!

The message of this video is so important.  It does get better!  As hard as life is now, it won’t always be.  There is a future out there for you that is as bright as the sun, as bright as the grace and love of God.  Sure there will always be mean people, but most of the bullies grow up, and the ones who don’t loose most of their ability to cause us pain. 

Discussion Starters:

• Have you been bullied or put down?
• Have you ever realized that you were being a bully?
•       -    If so do you know why you were doing it?
• Who is responsible for dealing with bullying?

What the Bible Says:

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  1 John 4:7

³¹Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, ³²and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:31-32

⁷So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:7-10.

The life God wants for us isn’t a life of pain and suffering. God didn’t create us to hurt one another, make fun of one another, or to be victims of one another. God created us to live a full, wonderful, rich life. God created us to have live and to have it abundantly! 

Sometimes the way we talk about God doesn’t make that sound true.  We talk a lot about what God doesn’t want us to do, or what we need to do because of our faith, as if God just put us here to boss around and to judge.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  God put us here to love and to be loved, to live life to the fullest, and experience all the good things that he has thought up for us. Certainly God has given boundaries to our lives (rules and commandments) but even these are given so that we can truly have an abundant life. 

Some of those boundaries are about how we treat others, what we say about them, what we do to them, because God knows how destructive gossiping, criticizing, and bullying can be. God wants us to love one another – to love one another as much as he loves us!

Discussion Starters:

• God wants us to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving, is that hard or easy to do?
• The video encourages us to hold on because things do get better. How can we help one another hold on?
• Who can we turn to when we are struggling with how others are treating us?
• What do you think Jesus’ abundant life looks like? Feels like?
• How can we work together to have the life that Jesus has promised us?

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, you know the pain we often feel because of our treatment at the hands of others. You know how much words can hurt, how rejection can suffocate, and how scorn can kill.  Fill our lives with people who love, accept and affirm us, who can remind us how precious we are, especially to you. And dear Lord, teach us to see the worth of others, and to love those who feel like no one else does.  In your name we pray, Amen.