Why?

When we are sick, we go to the doctor.  We go because we want to know why we are sick and how we are to become well.  We ask questions and we listen to her advice, and we follow through and take the steps needed to become well again.

When our cars give problems, we take them to the mechanic.  We ask questions and we listen to his advice and hand over the money so he will fix it. It hurts, but we do it because we want the cars to run right.

We recognize when we are physically ill and when our cars need repair, so why can we not see our own sinfulness and take the steps to clear our consciences and be free of our offenses against God and our neighbor?

Why do we, every week, carry our burdens of sin into church and out again without taking the steps to have them removed?  We go through the motions of singing hymns, taking communion, praying, and listening to sermons, then we continue on with the same old sins and habits that are detrimental to our spiritual health.

The answer came to me when I read an article, yesterday, about three women who worked for Douglas Karpen, the notorious abortionist in Texas.  They all witnessed this man’s methods of pulling out alive babies, wrenching their necks as though they were just farm chickens on slaughtering day. They saw the man throw the babies into the trash can and they did nothing, because they thought it was legal!

One of the assistants said, “I thought, well, it’s an abortion you know, that’s what he does, but I wasn’t aware that it was illegal…Most of the time we would see him where the fetus would come completely out and of course, the fetus would still be alive.”

Maybe too many of us think this way; that if some action or activity is declared legal by our courts or our congress, by golly it must be right. Or maybe too many of us assume that our pet habits are right because they feel right. Feeling right about something takes precedence in our minds regardless of what the Bible says and what the Church teaches.

So we carry on supporting and practicing whatever we want because it’s legal and it feels right. Our burdens become too heavy to carry, but instead of confessing our sins, we work to legalize more of them in hopes that we will feel good.

This ramble I have written has just answered another question I have been pondering for some time: Why is the pharmaceutical industry booming and why is there a drug store on every corner of every city in this country?

In the heat of the battle

Then the angel said to me, "Don't be afraid, Daniel, for from the very first day you applied your mind to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. I have come in response to your words.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand.....” Dan. 10: 12-14

Do you ever wonder what is happening in the heavenlies? I would bet that if we could see with our eyes what goes on around us in the spirit realm, we would faint dead away. That is exactly what Daniel did when the angel came before him, three weeks after he started a fast in hopes of gaining understanding of a vision God had given him. As soon as Daniel saw the angel, he fell on his face and fell “into a deep sleep”.

According to the angel, help would have arrived as soon as Daniel “applied his mind to understand”, but the angel was detained by a demon who contended with him for the whole three weeks of Daniel’s fast.

After fighting the demon alone, another angel named Michael came to help the one who was assigned to speak to Daniel.

Clearly, the prince of this world does not want any of God’s children to set their minds on anything God would have them understand. He would rather we all just set our brains in idle and content ourselves with the things of this age.

I am very much guilty of this malady.  Facebook, Pinterest, gmail, and news take up far too much of my brain time, but as soon as I set my mind to understand God, He is so gracious to commune with me. 

Any effort I make to hear God, is an assault on the devil. My times of meditation and prayer are times when I am also in the battle with the angels of heaven.

I have to always keep in mind that the “ho hum” syndrome I often feel when I focus on God is a major strike against me. Too often it is a successful attempt by the devil to divert my attention to focus on innocuous things.

But when I dodge this temptation and instead sit quietly before the Lord, above me the battle rages as God’s legions strike against the spirits who are warring against me, my friends, my family, and everyone else God puts on my heart to pray for.

Prodigal sons

A man had two sons.  The older one was hard working and responsible, and he always played by the rules.  The younger was a bit of a trouble maker and was all about himself. One day the younger boy made an outrageous demand for an inheritance that was not to be his until his father passed away.  His attitude towards his father was: I don’t really care about you or your business, I just want the money and I will be on my way.

Incredibly, the father, without argument, gave the boy what he asked for.  The boy took off and lived it up for as long as he could. 

In the meantime, the older boy continued to work the farm and play by the rules.  He never asked for anything.  He just doggedly did what he was supposed to do.  The father continued his work, but always with his eye on the horizon waiting for the day when the younger boy would come home.

The day finally came when the father’s eye caught a figure in the distance.  He instinctively knew who it was.  With a heart full of compassion he ran to meet the boy.  He knew that for this young man to come home on his own accord meant he was truly sorry for hurting him and wasting his inheritance. 

Before the son could utter his apologies, the father had him dressed in the finest robe and wearing a family heirloom on his finger.  Oh, what a happy day it turned out to be until the responsible, hardworking, play-by-the-rules son got wind of what had happened.

Feeling very insulted, he accused his father of treating him unfairly by treating the younger son with leniency.  I envision him saying, “I have never asked anything from you and have worked hard for you all these years without any kind of thanks from you, Dad. Then this good-for-nothing comes back and you give him everything as though he is as good as me.”  

“Son,” the father implores, “you know everything I have is at your disposal.  I have never denied you anything.  But your brother, whom I love as much as I love you, is sorry. He was dead to us, now he’s alive and we can be family again.”

Jesus does not go on with the story.  We don’t know how that drama played out, but this same drama is repeated in our own families and church families all the time. 

We can ask ourselves, are we the sons and daughters who take off looking for something better only to find we are wasting our lives and need to return to our Father? Or are we the responsible, smug children who have been there all along and think we are better than the others because we have never left the farm?

Is it true?

So the stats page on my blog says people from around the world are reading this blog.  Is it so, or is this some "tomfoolery" and no one is on the other end but a hard drive scanning sites?
Leave a comment if you are people.

Paralyzing Discontentment

First Timothy 6 says that the love of money is the root of all evils.  I have heard that quoted countless times, and I have also heard it misquoted countless times to say: Money is the root of all evils. 

Since money is an inanimate object, it cannot be evil; just as the internet or guns or knives cannot be evil.  These things become what their owners are.  If the owner of a gun is evil, the gun will be used for evil.  The internet in the hands of good people produces good things. And so on.

I have thought often about the love of money verse, and as I was reading it again today, I noticed something else.  Four verses ahead of it is the verse which says: But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out. 

That says to me that I can be godly but still be discontent.  That is a bad combination because, for me, the discontentment pretty much turns me into a worthless blob on quests for artificial happiness. 

So why on God’s green earth would I become discontent?  It would be the same reason, I think, as it was for Eve.  She had it all yet she became, I think, bored. And this bred discontentment. The serpent used these human foibles and tempted her with more.  More knowledge, more freedom, more power, and more excitement.

So the serpent continues to tempt us all to want more of what we don’t have, or of what we have little of.  We think that if we have more widgets and money we will be content.  But it is not so.  Watch one episode of Entertainment Tonight and see that the Hollywood Types have more trouble than the average person even though they have everything.  They are rich and pretty but they are unhappy and discontent. Their marriages don’t last, they are picked up for drunk driving, they are on drugs, their facelifts have fallen... the list goes on and on.

Timothy’s words ring so true:  For they that will become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition.

Recognizing and repenting of my tendency to be discontent for no good reason helps me refocus my sights on what is important and what God wants me to be and what He wants me to do with the time and resources He has given me.

God is able

A man is in the august years of his life.  He spent most of those years hitting the bottle, terrorizing his family, and hating the Church.  At the same time, he worked hard  trying to make a living but he drank the money as fast as he made it.

Even though this man showed no desire to change, his family believed that some day his heart would soften and that he would be happy.  Years have gone by and now the family can see the evidence of what they had hoped for all these decades. 

The man has changed.  Slowly, the compulsive habits have loosened their grip on him. His eyes light up when the children and grandchildren come over. These days he even turns on his wife’s favorite radio Bible program and listens with her. 

One day, after many gentle attempts over the years by his son-in-law asking him if he would like to say the blessing over a family meal, the man did!  It was not the typical salutation, petition, and closing prayer most of us utter.  It was more like a little speech spoken by the patriarch of the family.   It did not start out with “Dear Lord” nor did it end with “In Jesus Name” but it was an honest, heartfelt gladness for the gathering of family and friends.  It was a bold and brave attempt done by a man who for so long had declared himself an enemy of Jesus and the family of God. 

It was the kind of prayer where the great cloud of witnesses hush their praises and bend their ears to hear the words of someone who is finally coming home to the arms of God.  The angels in heaven rejoiced when they heard the man’s thanksgiving. And God himself was present at the family table. 

St. Peter wrote that God does not wish anyone to be lost but that all will come to repentance. God will do whatever it takes to redeem us all. 

Praise God that He is patient with all of us and is able to soften the hardest of hearts.  

Always be thankful

Today the sun is shining and there is a warm breeze blowing from the south.  A chorus of birds, crickets, and frogs is the only sound that breaks the silence, and it is easy to be thankful for my surroundings. 

We, especially in this part of the country, are so blessed.  We are sheltered from so many bad things that happen all over the world.  The destructive weather, earthquakes, tsunamis, and escalating crime are not headliners in our small communities and I hope we recognize this and send our thanks to God for that protection.

And while we give thanks for those good things, it’s pleasing to God when we also give thanks for things that are not so good.  Our personal trials are blessings because they make us stronger in our faith.  The idiosyncrasies  we often chastise ourselves over keep us humble and remind us that we are weak humans who need God.

Small, annoying things like mosquitoes, dogs that dig holes in the flower beds, dead car batteries, traffic, and difficult family members grow our patience, and if we didn’t have these things to contend with we would remain immature.

Corrie TenBoom, in her account of the Nazi occupation in Holland, grumbled many times over the bed bugs in the beds of the prison camp where she and her sister were imprisoned.  When Betsy showed her that those bed bugs kept the prison guards out of their bunk house, she realize God sent them as a gift to the women.  Because there was less monitoring of their activity, the women were free to sing and pray and read the Bible each night.  I want to be just as mindful of difficult circumstances as Betsy and pray:

Thank you Lord for all you have blessed us with.  Thank you for those trials which pull us towards you, and thank you for the gifts that show us how much you love us.  Help us never to take anything for granted but to see everything with eyes of gratitude.