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whollyyours317
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Name: Jennifer
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Interests: my amazing husband - my friends - my family - writing - road trips - Passion - good books - snow - youth ministry - piano - worship times with my friends - Apple computers - the color pink - Starbucks
Industry: writing and youth ministry
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/7/2005
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| What religion warps, humanitarian aid will not remedyLast night Greg & I watched The Kite Runner. I know, I should have read the book, but there are too many books on my to-read list and not enough movies on my to-watch list, and... we watched the movie.
I have to say, first of all, that as much as I would like to take issue with a lot of things about our government, the more I learn about others', the more appreciative I am of this democratic republic.
But that wasn't all that crossed my mind as I watched this difficult-to-watch film. I saw the horrors that religion can cause. As I watched the Taliban member call for the stoning of the adulterous couple, knowing that he himself was a pedophile, I thought, This is what religion leads to.
It reminded me of the religious leaders bringing an adulterous woman to Jesus and saying that the law said to stone her; what did He say? I've always loved Jesus' response: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (Jn. 8:7).
No one found themselves at odds with Jesus more than the religious people. Jesus never verbally attacked prostitutes, tax collectors, murderers, or any other kind of "sinner," but He called the religious leaders a "brood of vipers" (Mt. 23:33). As I watch the Taliban, I think of the Pharisees, and I think, An apt description. No wonder Jesus would not put up with them. Religion is about rules and rituals and trying to somehow earn a right standing with God, and it always morphs into hierarchies and battles and hypocrisy, because, of course, none of us can be all that good religiously.
Jesus, on the other hand, was all about relationships. His laws summed up to love God and love people (Mt. 22:38-39). Unlike any religion up to that time or since, Jesus wasn't trying to tell people how they could earn favor with God. He was God come to find us because we couldn't find Him on our own. He had come to rescue us, be the remedy, take our punishment upon Him... so that we didn't have to try the rule-keeping, ritual-following road to hypocrisy.
And so Jesus is the remedy--the ONLY remedy--for religion gone wrong.
With all due respect to the intro to the movie by "The Kite Runner"s author, all of the humanitarian aid, money, and education in the world will not fix the problems in Afghanistan or anywhere else. The evil runs deeper. The problem is larger. The pain is bigger. Unless the very worldview of a faulty religion and corrupt leadership is changed at the core, the injustice will persist despite humanitarian aid, and we waste our money.
Like the atheist who somehow understood that God was fixing what humanitarian aid could not in Africa (see my last post), only Jesus brings the remedy to what is most needed in countries run by corrupt Muslim governments.
And He calls us to bring that remedy.
"Where there is pain, let there be grace.
Where there is suffering, bring serenity.
For those afraid, help them be brave.
Where there is misery, bring expectancy.
And surely we can change,
surely we can change,
something.
Oh the world's about to change,
the whole world's about to change..."
--David Crowder Band, "Surely We Can Change"
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| An Atheist on Why Africa Needs GodMy friend Megan (a missionary in Uganda) sent me the link to this very refreshingly honest and surprising article about why he, an atheist who grew up in Africa, sees the need for Christian evangelism, not just physical aid, in Africa.
"But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.
"Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good."
Read the rest of the article here... it's worth the read!
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| The Shack: My Two CentsWhat would happen if you encountered God face-to-face in a shack?
That's the gist of William P. Young's speculation in his book "The Shack." His main character, Mack, had a young daughter who was kidnapped and brutally killed, and since that fateful day Mack has dealt with "The Great Sadness" and has questioned God's goodness. Then one day he gets a note from "Papa" (God) inviting him to a meeting at the shack--the very place where they found the evidence of his missing daughter's death.
I read this book after a couple friends told me a should. I don't always feel the need to read the books "everybody's reading," but sometimes I want to be in on the conversations and see what all the hype is about. And there's quite a bit of hype about this one.
Unwarranted, I think. It could be that the $6 I paid the library in late fees (oops!) has given me a bad taste for the book, but I think it's more than that. Aside from a few somewhat-significant theological differences (Tim Challies covers them pretty well in his review, which I encourage you to check out if you want a more involved theological review--especially what he says about the Trinity, submission, free will, and Scripture), there was one thing that bothered me the most.
It just doesn't seem to line up with the biblical stories of people encountering God.
Not that it's heretical, really. It might come close sometimes, but it's often too vague for me to really be sure of what he's getting at (other than that Young is definitely not a Calvinist). But one big thing is missing.
He doesn't fall on his face.
When the great prophet Isaiah "saw the Lord" (Isa. 6:1), his response was "uh-oh... I'm a goner" (my paraphrase). The glory and splendor was too much; he saw his sin as too great and thought he would die. But God in His grace took away his sin and allowed him to see and live.
When John, arguably the man closest to Jesus on earth, saw a vision of the risen, glorified Jesus, he fell on his face (Rev. 1:17) and Jesus had to touch him and raise him to his feet. In fact, throughout Scripture, we see seraphim covering their faces and feet, angels falling on their faces, and people bowing down at the presence of God.
When Job (another man with a lot of hurt who questioned why God had allowed it to happen) heard from God, he--like Mack in "The Shack"--was given more questions than answers, learned more about God than about his situation... but the differences in the responses of "God" in The Shack compared to God in the book of Job are profound. In Young's writing, God spends most of his time trying to show Mack that he is loved and that God is good. In Job, we hear God say, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?... Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?" (Job 38:4, 34-35).
The God we find in Young's book does not seem that big. Nice, perhaps wise, and a good cook... but no one's falling facedown. There's a conspicuous lack of glory. And the lack of glory makes the love seem not as meaningful.
That's not the God I know.
It's part of Him, perhaps. Like I said, the book's not heretical. It rattles some cages that probably need rattling and has a few profound things to say, but not enough to warrant most of the hype I've heard. Young wants to take God out of the box most people have for Him, and I can respect that. But I wonder about some of the ways he chooses to do it. Yes, God could show up as an African woman if He wanted, I suppose, but you've got to wonder why He never does this in Scripture. Mack is startled to realize that all of his mental pictures of God had always been "very white and very male," and well, the white is probably something from his culture, but male... that's likely because God is called "He" throughout ALL of Scripture... and don't you think God probably has His reasons?
Read the book if you want to know one man's perception of God. But if you truly want to know GOD, the best book I'd suggest is the one He wrote about Himself. | | |
| IntegrationThere’s a leftover salad in my fridge. Most of it is probably still good, but the tomatoes are moldy. Even though I could potentially just pick out the tomatoes, I’ll toss the whole thing. Their juice is probably on everything, and now I just don’t trust it all.
The salad, I guess, lacks integrity.
I’ve been thinking a lot about integrity lately. Erwin McManus says "integrity" has to do with "integration," and I think that’s true. I have integrity to the extent that the character of God has been integrated into my life. It sounds so basic. But it’s so counter to the way we think.
I’ve been writing goals for personal growth at the beginning of every year for a long time. And I did for 2009, too. But I think my attitude toward them has changed this year. In the past I’ve often had over-arching themes to my goals. “I really feel like God is stretching me in the area of prayer this year.” Or, “I’m feeling challenged to work on my relationship with others this year.”
And probably God does work on certain areas of our lives at times because He knows we can’t handle working on everything all at once. But I still wonder if I’ve been missing something in the way I look at it.
The more I get to know God, the more I grow in Him, the more I find that everything is intertwined. Things just don’t separate neatly in boxes like I thought. I can’t focus on prayer and ignore my relationships with others. My love for Him needs to change the way I relate to people. And I can’t love others well without loving Him well.
I wonder if sometimes we make goals about longer quiet times, praying more, etc. because it makes us feel better about ourselves while ignoring the real litmus test of our love for God: the way we treat people.
John (arguably the man closest to Jesus when He was on earth), wrote, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20–21).
In other words, something is wrong if we’re having longer quiet times but the way we treat out family, friends, neighbors, and enemies isn’t changing. We can’t actually be loving God more if it doesn’t lead us to love people more. The way I spend my money is inexorably connected to the words I speak, and my relationship with my husband by necessity is tied to my relationship with God. My life is a whole.
Like I said, I still wrote goals this year. Still small, specific ones, about my time with God, my finances, and my ministry. I still think growing in the little areas helps… after all, integrity is formed in the nitty-gritty areas of life few people see.
But success for me is no longer found in checking goals off a list. It’s in seeing that today, perhaps, I am more like Jesus than I was yesterday. His heart is integrating with mine, and I am growing in integrity. Slowly.
Integrity may be a slow, painful, lifelong process with a lot of glitches along the way, but I am on that path, longing for the day when all my life will be integrated with God. And nothing will be rotten.
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| Vote for life, liberty, America.
I'm sick of this election stuff; I really am. I'm ready for Nov 4 to come and go so we can talk about something else and receive other emails in our inboxes. I've never been big on politics, and I'm sure I haven't written a political post before. But at the risk of just adding to the noise, can I voice a few things that concern me?
I'm sick of hearing people say they want to vote for Obama because they want change. What does that even mean? I don't want change. I want certain improvements--I know we can do better--and change is part of that. Granted. But change can be good or bad, and I certainly don't want bad change. I'm also sick of pro-lifers getting criticized for voting based on only "one issue." So can I explain what I think about as I vote this year?
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The foundation of America, right? I just want to keep it that way!
I will vote for LIFE.
I don't like it that people die of preventable causes. It bothers me that so many children around the world die of hunger, or sickness from bad water, or AIDS inherited from their parents, or malaria. But I absolutely hate it that over a million babies are killed every year in the US for the convenience of their parents. We're fighting cancer and hunger and disease and bad water. We make laws against murder and genocide and abuse. But somehow we think this is OK?
Obama has not only voted consistently pro-choice, but he voted against a bill that would protect babies whose abortions failed and who were actually born alive.1 He votes for killing them. Does that make sense, even from a liberal standpoint? Right now, according to our laws, the only thing that differentiates a "fetus" from a "baby" is that a baby has been born--has come out of the womb. Obviously babies can be born months early and live just fine. But in Obama's mind, if it's a baby the parents would rather have dead, and the abortion didn't work, you can kill her after she's born anyhow. Well, if that's ethically OK, what's wrong with a parent deciding a week or two later that they don't want the baby and killing him or her then? What makes that baby less of a human than a one-month-old? A two-year-old? You or me?
We are talking about human life. We are talking about values. America has throughout history (imperfectly, of course, but still) been a place people of all types can come for refuge and find opportunities for life. Why are we denying that to these babies? Obama said, "I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." That is the value he puts on infant life--"a punishment."2 (Please note the irony in that he doesn't want his daughter punished with a baby if she makes a mistake, but he'd be fine with his innocent granddaughter punished with death because of the mistake and choice of his daughter.) One wonders about the values he's teaching with this viewpoint, too... especially when you add the fact that he voted in favor of teaching comprehensive sex education in Kindergarten3 and voted against notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions.4]
This is about more than just pro-life vs. pro-choice. It's more than just "one issue." This is about the way we view life, whether it is valuable, whether it is worth rescuing even if it is inconvenient or costly or unpopular. What right do we have to talk about saving the dying children in Africa when we will not even save or our, or even call it wrong to kill them? I will vote for life.
I will vote for LIBERTY.
This has been what's set America apart since its inception--freedom! Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms, freedom to live our lives apart from the needlessly tight control of a too-big government. America was started to be free of governments that tried to tax too much and control too much. Obama wants to raise taxes by billions of dollars (some have said his proposals would amount to a $2 trillion tax increase5--in a time when our economy is already at one of our lowest points) in order to make the government bigger. I have a problem with that.6
He wants to reduce our liberty to spend out money how we please by increasing social security tax, death tax, capital gains tax, and other taxes. Where is it going? In part to fund drivers licenses, welfare, and social security for illegal aliens [i.e. those not paying taxes].7
He wants to reduce the liberty of companies, health care providers, and individuals by making a government health care plan.8 Excuse me, but when did the government become an expert in health care? Give me a break! I have two questions for you. 1) Has this proven to be a good thing for any other country that's tried it? (Ask the Canadians if you're not sure.) 2) Has the government proven to be efficient in its current tasks? I don't know about you, but when I think about going to a government office like, say, social security, I think of long lines, technology that's a few decades behind, unfriendly and bored faces, high fees because they can, lack of options, and wasted time. So when I think about combining this with my healthcare... yikes! I believe in healthcare that people can afford. But it is not the government's place to start this program.
He wants to reduce people's liberty to bear arms. The National Rifle Association said he "would be the most anti-gun president in American history."9
He wants to reduce the liberty of the states to make their own laws--a major principle of our consititution and government since the beginning. Dobson points out, "[Obama] has promised that "the first thing I'd do as president" would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act.10 The FOCA is a devastating piece of legislation that would overturn nearly every local, state, and federal anti-abortion law passed in the last 40 years. In fact, it's so broadly written that legal analysts suggest the bill may prevent institutions and physicians from refusing to provide abortion services by invoking the conscience clause."10
I believe in America. I believe in the values on which our nation was founded. I do not want to see them destroyed in our frenzied desire for "change." So please, as you vote this year (and I hope you do vote!), consider what things are of real value, and vote for them.
And then take heart in the fact that God is sovereign over nations and powers, and He has used the worst of them for His own ends.
"He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord." (Ps. 112:7).
SOURCES:
1,2,3,10: Focus on the Family Action newsletter
4,7,8: Bill Brown Weighs In
5: Pajamas Media
6: Our government is already much bigger than it was ever intended to be. I ran across this site in looking for a good picture, and I concur.
9: National Rifle Association
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