Understanding People

What a humongous undertaking!

That of understanding people,

Just take a look at the Biblical twelve

Known as Jesus’ disciples.

What a motley group they were

Yet being with the Saviour!

But that is the human nature

Out of which comes such behavior.

They contended with one another

For the highest rank

And when the pressure was on

To the lowest they also sank.

Judas betrayed the Master

And Peter denied him too,

The other disciples stood afar off

Opting for the distant view.

Even a mother was involved

Concerning her two dear boys

And requested the highest positions

In order to complete her joy.

Look at the Israelites’ unbelief

After all the miracles,

By now you see how difficult it is

Trying to understand people.

Adam and Eve in the garden

With everything that they need

Gave it up in a fleeting moment

When overcome by greed.

And just in case we forget

Lucifer with his position in heaven

Threw it all away

When by selfish ambition-driven.

And I could go on and on

Through the Bible, Old and New

Of the many similar instances,

We know they are quite a few.

  

And then we come to our time

With all the stuff we’ve got

But understanding people is no easier,

We have a mental block.

The heart of man is deceitful

So says the Word of God

And the desperate wickedness that’s in it

Has been engineered by the Fraud.

It’s Satan’s way of destroying us

And that we must understand

And he is bound to succeed

Unless we take the Master’s hand.

An impossible task it is

To understand a human soul,

We would never understand people

Even if we grow to be very old.

But God knows the human heart

He is the one that understands,

And one day we will know one another

When we reach the heavenly land.

Until then it will be impossible

To even nearly understand people,

For sure, if you ever understand me

That would be a colossal miracle.

One can only understand people

When he gets to understand himself

And that undertaking is so huge

It will destroy his mental health.

So stop moaning and groaning

About this special inability,

You are no less an achiever

Than those that practise psychiatry.

They too are immense failures

At trying to understand people,

Having never understood themselves

They too are part of the trouble.

Stewart Russell © April 2019