“Dad! I ate thirty peanuts!”
My daughter was beaming and my wife and I were joining her elation.
“Wow! That’s amazing!” I declared.
It was amazing only if one knew that my daughter suffers from a severe peanut allergy. She had twice been to the hospital emergency room with a severe anaphylactic reaction. When our pediatrician told us of a peanut desensitization program that had been successful with several of her patients, we decided to try. Through slow and careful introduction to peanuts and related nuts, she was able to build her tolerance. Today, after over a year, she can eat thirty peanuts without any allergic symptoms when, prior to the treatments, just a touch of a peanut could trigger a reaction. However, it is not a permanent solution. My daughter will need to continue the densisitization for the rest of her life.
If only we could desensitize ourselves to other harmful things in our lives. “Sticks and stones may break our bones but names will never hurt me.” Seemingly sage advice but the reality is names and labels do hurt. Everyone has a different tipping point, a point at which their personal line of decency has been crossed. However, the self-appointed politically correct pundits of the media and internet influencers strive to sanitize our language and strip it of any possible gender references, racial, economic, or cultural biases. They are the arbiters of what is acceptable. Even if some language is not offensive, judgment has already been pronounced. If one inadvertently uses an offensive term, they will be shamed on social media and various other media outlets. There are certainly names and labels that should never be used but eventually there will be gray areas that will be acceptable to one group but others will feel disenfranchised. What should be the proper course of action? Do we become desensitized to the continued political correctness or do we embrace it, leading to ever more finer distinctions of language and further divisions?
For I will then restore pure speech to the peoples so that all of them may call on the name of the LORD and serve him with a single purpose.
Zephaniah 3:9 (CSB)
Like attempting to overcome a peanut allergy, we can never be completely desensitized to the nuances of our words and speech since there will never be a language that will satisfy everyone. Thanks be to God when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to this world, our language and speech will finally be sanitized and cleansed and restored to the purity and dignity that God originally intended. He is the source of perfect morality and therefore only He is qualified to be the Judge and giver of our language. There will be no more shades of gray, only harmony and perfection in serving and living for Him. We will be sensitized to seeing the world and others through the perfect lens of God’s eyes.
Praise God!
Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.
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