Julie Lyles Carr shares some experiences in her life that influenced her to stand up for others facing hard situations, situations that also affected her differently-abled daughters in their lives. It’s important for us to stand in the gap and protect people who are made fun of, or bullied for their differences. Let’s be part of a change for GOOD, coming alongside with a rally cry of support for those who face meanness by the hands of others.
What’s New!
Monday Story:
- Two of my kids having differences. Being made fun of for my skinny legs, my personality, all kinds of things. Sometimes you’re the one being made fun of…and sometimes you’re the one doing it. There was a group of boys who made fun of Elisha for having a bald head. And people made fun of Jesus, they bullied him, for being the Kind of the Jews.
Tuesday Key Verse:
- Proverbs 17: 5 – Mocking the poor is mocking the God who made them. He will punish those who rejoice at others’ misfortunes.
Wednesday Prayer:
- God, help me be kind to those who are having a hard time, who aren’t fitting in, who others make fun of. Help me remember that You created all people, and that being unkind to someone You created is being unkind to you. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Thursday Question:
- What is something people have made fun of you for?
Friday Fun Fact:
- Q: How many people are made fun of in school?
- A: 1 in 5 kids ages 12-18 say they’ve been made fun of, that they’ve been bullied.
Show Notes:
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Transcription:
Let me tell you something that was pretty much what I experienced a lot in elementary school and middle school. This doesn’t sound like much of a problem now, but back then I was really small for my age. I had really skinny legs. I got made fun of all the time. I got made fun of for how I looked, I got made fun of for my personality. I got made fun of because my desk was messy. I got made fun of because of my penmanship, I got made fun of for all kinds of things. I’m Julie Lyles Carr, and this has God on the Go, where we help you make the minutes matter and we’ve been talking about what it means to go against the crowd. And one of the things that I remember as I look back was the sense of when it felt like the crowd was against me, that for some reason I had fallen from the graces of my classmates. And now anything about me that they didn’t like or they thought was different or they thought was off, I was going to be made fun of for.
I think that’s part of why as I got older, I got really passionate about protecting other people who were often being made fun of by the crowd. And within my own family. I have two daughters who are differently abled. One has hearing loss and one has something called cerebral palsy, and they sometimes have experienced, unfortunately, people making fun of them, the crowd going against them because of the way that they’re different. When we follow Jesus, one of the things that we can do is go against the crowd and protect others, and not just others that we agree with. I’m talking about protecting others when we don’t always agree with what’s going on, but we’re not going to allow others to make fun of them simply because they’re different.
Check out this interesting fact. Guess how many people have been made fun of in school. As it turns out, one in five kids between the ages of 12 and 18 say they have been made fun of that they’ve been bullied. Being bullied is when you are teased or you are excluded or people are just plain old mean to you because there’s something about you that’s different and they use that as an excuse to often be cruel. Now, we read about in the Bible times that people were making fun of others, and we also read about what a godly response is to those who are making fun of others, when the crowd is going against someone.
In the Old Testament, for example, there was a group of boys who made fun of a prophet, the prophet Elijah, because he was balding. They made fun of the fact that he was losing his hair, something that Elijah had no control over. He had nothing to do with, and yet that crowd of boys went against him. Jesus had to stand up for people who the crowd was coming against as well. One time there was a woman who was caught in a crime and she was guilty of the crime, but the leaders who brought her to Jesus were so excited to see him join forces with them, that they would all come against this woman, and Jesus did something that they didn’t expect. He went against the crowd. He protected this woman. He made sure she was cared for. He got the crowd away from her, and then he told her to go and send no more, to not make the same mistakes again. And then of course, as we get close to this time of Easter that’s coming up soon, we remember how Jesus was bullied, how the crowd came against him, how they mocked him. In all of it, what does God say to us about protecting others, about not going along with the crowd and making fun of those who are different?
Proverbs 17:5 says, mocking the poor is mocking the God who made them. He will punish those who rejoice at others’ misfortunes. Have you ever had the experience where somebody’s leaning back in their chair and your class and then they tip over and everybody laughs at them? Or somebody drops their tray in the cafeteria and everybody starts teasing them? Those are the moments that can be really easy to go with the crowd because we’re surprised. Or sometimes something is kind of funny or sometimes the crowd comes against somebody who has done something wrong, and it can be really tempting to want to be right in there with the crowd going, yeah, you shouldn’t have done that. But the example that God shows us is that when we make fun of someone, we’re making fun of God because God is the One who created them. We go against the crowd when we protect others well.
I would love to send you some trivia questions and some discussion questions and things like that. So, if you will text the word go, that’s GO to 8 9 4 1 9. That’ll put you on our text stream and we can get that out to you so you can continue this conversation this week. God on the go is sponsored by George Fox University, where each student will be known personally, academically and spiritually. I’ll see you next week.
