This is an “and” to Toto’s recent blog about Thank God and Justice For All.
If you are human, there is something about those two blogs you found disturbing. They were written to be disturbing — to jolt us out of our comfort zone, to surface what we are feeling and to consider WHY in light of our worldview. What Toto described is at the root why so few teams ever become close to being truly ONE.
I believe our forefathers understood this when they wrote “ONE nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.”
The order matters. If you believe you must have justice in this world before you can have liberty, you will always be emotionally enslaved to someone else.
In the Anger Trap, Dr. Les Carter puts it this way: “In large measure, emotional dependency operates on a subconscious level. By that I mean most people do not sit on the side of the bed each morning thinking, ‘OK, who am I going to hand my emotional stability to today?’ We do not consciously plan to become dependent upon others, but it happens whether we are aware of it or not. People who are seeking to lessen the intensity of their anger help themselves immensely if they learn to become CONSCIOUS of the presence of dependency so they can then make adjustments in their thoughts and behaviors. Primarily they need to adjust their CORE BELIEFS about personal worth. (p. 76).”
When we put ourselves “under God”, we can have liberty apart from the injustice in this world. And that’s something we can truly “Thank God” for. If you aren’t experiencing liberty, your problem isn’t someone else, it’s your worldview. Viktor Frankl discovered his liberty in a concentration camp long before being liberated by the Allies.
God, please remind me regularly in humility that if I am not perfect — how can I expect that from others? AND, God please remind me regularly that because I am made in your image, my justice thread WILL be routinely tweaked by others. AND, God please remind me why FORGIVENESS leads to liberty because it sets aside my dependence on others for justice and on you alone for your perfect justice in your perfect timing. AND, God please remind me regularly in humility how much you have forgiven me. AND that I can choose with humility AND courage to speak the truth in love — that communicating this forgiveness to others is a way of giving away the gift of liberty and justice for all.
Which leads to greater ONEness — something truly to “Thank God” for.
BUILT TO LEAD 
Thanks for taking that one “home”
MM