Where Has Respect Gone?

I have recently been troubled as I watch our culture slip further and further away from respect. I get more and more upset when I see those my age and younger behave as if no one matters but them - as if no opinion matters but theirs. I want to scream, "REALLY? Do you really thing that you are that important?"

"A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." Proverbs 18:2

I guess I should not expect individuals who do not know Christ to be respectful (although, there was a time in our country when even the lost were respectful) but the new trend that I see that is so disturbing to me is the lack of respect found in those who claim to follow Jesus. I observe people who say with their lips that they desire God and desire to follow Him and yet act with great disrespect to others (authority figures, businesses, the law, peers, other's property, even their own property). They say things to individuals that they have no business saying. They send emails they have no business sending. They show up late for everything screaming, "my time is more important than yours!" They leave trash all over the place when they are 10 feet from a trash can. They talk over others eager to tell their own stories. They never say "please" and "thank you" or "yes sir/ma'am" or "no sir/ma'am". The list could go on and on.

Maybe I'm just being old fashioned at 36 years old but I don't think so. If there was ever a time for respect, its now. If there was ever a better time for Christians to be different than the world, its now. And what better way to shine that to be respectful - to put forth a new and different attitude than is prevailing in our culture that says, "Hey, it's not about me".

I don't believe a new level of respect would solve all the world's problems but I do believe if Christians were intensely selfless and respectful, it would shine the light of Christ into a very disrespectful and dark world!

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. "
2 Timothy 3:1-5