There are those who believe that the citizens of this great nation are victims. In a few cases that may be true. But I like what Michael Medved says every day on his radio broadcast. “We are not victims!” It is hard to understand how any citizen of this great country could feel that they are a victim, when we have a higher standard of living than nearly every other country in the world. Even the poor in this country are rich based on the standard of living in most other countries on this beautiful earth. There are groups of people and organizations who have a victim mentality. A depressive mentality that may cause them to complain, lose hope and/or give up, when in reality they are only a victim in their own minds because they may not have ‘as much’ as their neighbor. Aside from the above there are many ‘real’ victims. There is even an academic discipline related to the study of victims. It is referred to as Victimology. One aspect of their study is referred to as ‘victim facilitation.’ They study the elements that make one person more accessible, vulnerable, or more likely to be attacked or who are just more prone to accidents than another. An interesting example was written in a Miami, Florida newspaper a few years ago. The article relates the story of a young man who had been severely burned two different times in his life.
When he was a young boy, a playmate of his doused him with gasoline and set him afire, and he was badly disfigured. Years later, when he was 23, he was hunting with a friend. While making bullets, he was squatting over a bowl of gunpowder near their open camp fire when a spark from the fire ignited the gunpowder. When the gunpowder went off, he said, “No! God couldn’t do this to me again!” Later, in the hospital, the young man’s question was,
“Why does God hate me?” The young man believed that God has a hand in every major event in one’s life, either good or bad. What a sad and even diabolical way of looking at our God. It reminds me of the very common statement made by many Christians in their prayers and sermons. They often include the phrase, “If it be thy will.” Based on my understanding of God, it would never be His will that we are maimed or suffer. He has a pure love for us as we are precious in His sight. Our agency gives us the freedom to place ourselves in circumstances that can become harmful to us. This earth was created by Him as a training place, necessary for our progressive and eternal education and we knew before we came (pre mortality) that it would not be easy. We knew that there would be many snares and traps set for us by Satan. Devices that would entice us away from faith in the Father. One such device is to make it appear that God is to blame for our hardships and suffering.
The young man became a victim when he facilitated his own suffering by having a bowl of gunpowder next to an open campfire. In his mind, however, God sent the spark to the bowl of gunpowder to make him suffer. With that belief he was also a victim of Satan’s trap.
I’m not sure that I have ever met a person who wasn’t a victim at one time or another in their life. Usually the young, the old and the helpless are prime victims of the cruel, the desperate, the bully or even a plain and simple accident. I remember as a young 5th grader that there was a 6th grade bully that took pleasure in pushing younger kids around. He was large for a 6th grader, and in my minds eye, he even had a five o’clock shadow.
I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he were shaving as a 6th grader. I remember how I went out of my way to make sure that I was out of his way. Had the young victim of the gunpowder accident gone out of his way to avoid the campfire, he, too, would have no reason to blame another. It is very true that sometimes we become victims of our own and sometimes other’s ignorance. Regardless of the suffering we go through in life, the key is to maintain a healthy and positive attitude, heal and then go on with our lives. But never ever blame God, because He had nothing to do with it.