Different types of stability

Just a quick comment on the news that the leader of Egypt for the last 30 years, Hosni Mubarak, has stepped down. There have been demonstrations (mostly peaceful) for the last 18 days in the country and their biggest demand was that Mr. Mubarak give up his post as President (although he was really a dictator). He offered a number of concessions but the demonstrators didn't give up. But today, he finally gave in. I am hoping and praying that this will be a good thing. It's in the hands of the Egyptian people and the Egyptian military now.

But my comment here is prompted by an article I saw in the New York Times, "History Upends Icon of Stability in Egypt". Usually, we think of stability as a good thing. It is if the situation is a good one. But when you have no job, your family is starving or you are being persecuted for your beliefs, you don't want stability. You want change. Depending on how bad your situation is, you may want a revolution. Well, things must have been pretty bad for the majority of people in Egypt because they had a revolution of sorts. We in the West look at this situation as unstable and, thus, bad because it might affect our oil supplies or it might have a bad effect on our ally Israel. But that's because we're look at it from a distance.

I'm sure the people of Egypt want stability again. But this time, they want the good kind of stability. We can only hope. I pray that their stability will include peace with their neighbors (especially Israel) and peace and more prosperity for the people of the ancient country of Egypt.