Bullying is in the news — disgusting examples of people tormented to the point of desperation, even suicide.

It crops up in schools, workplaces and the military.

People are asking “What must we do to achieve a society free from bullying?”

* * *

Once upon a time this man was driving somewhere (let’s say to Sydney) and became lost.

Seeing a little boy playing by the roadside, he asked, “How do I get to Sydney from here ?”

The boy replied, “Mister, if you want to go to Sydney, you don’t start here.”

* * *

That’s our problem.

To get rid of bullying, it’s no good starting with a society like ours.

Our society is wall-to-wall bullying — some obvious, some disguised.

Advertising is bullying. Peer pressure is bullying. The message being that if you don’t own one of these . . .  or if you don’t look like this celebrity . . .  or if you don’t conform with trendy fashions of thought and dress, then you are an idiot.

Such thinking is what people base their lives on.

It’s no good resolving to “do one’s own thing”.

Too late. You’ve already been bullied into believing that your thing is what the media/ peer group etc. tell you it is.

* * *

The one alternative to being squeezed into the mould of bully-society’s mindset is to join your will to the will of God.

Obey him in everything — his standards are totally out of this world.

Saint Paul wrote in one of his letters in the Bible:

“I urge you, my brothers . . . offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God . . . Do not let yourselves be conformed to this contemporary world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God . . . .”

This is practical — more than fancy words.

Bullies might make you dead, but they can never make you surrender your will – not once God has taken it over.