Monday, March 31, 2008
Extreme Measures
"Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, 'By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.' Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.
Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: 'Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.'
'When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.'"
- Luke 11: 14 - 23
Peace and blessings,
Last month I watched an episode of "Wife Swap" that was extremely hilarious and entertaining. I've watched episodes before and for the most part they too have been hilariously entertaining. This one, however, was particularly interesting because both of the families were Christian. Keeping true to the show's tradition, these families differed greatly in terms of some of their views on managing a household and raising children. One family was very liberal with the husband being a seminary graduate and being an at-home dad while his wife worked. They didn't appear to really instill Christian values to their children, but instead encouraged them to be individual thinkers. The other family was more "traditional" in that the husband was the provider and their children had to follow strict behavioral rules.
I don't really need to recap the rest of the show or explain the outcome to illustrate my point, which is that in my opinion, these two households represented (in one form or another) two major types of Christian thought prevalent throughout America. One type is the traditional Christian thought and the other is the more liberal/contemporary Christian thought. Once these types of thought are "hijacked" by the media, they take on an over-exaggerated form of their own. As a result, these ways of thought are put forth as extreme opposites of one another. What this episode of "Wife Swap" and the above scripture has showed me is that we must be careful to not be so quick to a) become so polarized in our own views that we neglect some of the essentials of the gospel (Matthew 28:18-19) and b) be so "open" with everything that we dilute some of the essentials of the gospel.
The question is not how do we choose between the traditional and the liberal, but how do we use elements of both to maximize the effectiveness and relevance of the gospel to a constantly changing, yet remarkably stable world. For instance, we are constantly evolving with regards to medical, technological, and scientific developments, and with regards to our understanding of how and why humans think, feel, and acts in the ways we do. At the same time, however, sins and vices such as murder, lust, greed, envy, jealousy, betrayal, pride and so forth has been around since the beginning of time, and is just as prevalent today. We must seek God for discernment regarding which aspects of our Christian faith and thought that could potentially be rethought and which aspects cannot. Reflecting on my personal experiences, I have been blessed to have great pastors who have given me tools to discern some of these differences. The deity and tri-unity of The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is an accepted fact of the Christian faith and cannot be changed. How Christians should interact with others is something that has and continues to be revisited and changed when appropriate (e.g. slavery, anti-semitism, racial/gender discrimination, homophobia, economic exploitation). However, I would argue that anyone who practiced or practice hate with regards to any of these groups and claim to be doing so in the name of Christianity is not really following Christ in the first place.
What do you think? Do you think that certain areas of Christian thought or too polarized? God bless, take care and speekonit...
Labels: Christianity, family, unity
Monday, October 16, 2006
The Unpredictability of Prayer
Peace and blessings,
I wanted to share something with you, something that God revealed to me a few about 6 months ago. But first, I have to add some contextual background...
About a week and a half ago, my girl told me about an interesting phenomena she observed while at Kaiser. Basically, she was telling me how she watched a woman who, after having an unpleasant interaction with a woman of a different race, kept telling her young son (who by girl thinks could not be any older than 7 years old) that the other woman was mean. In particular, the mother kept telling her child something to the effect that "see, now that's a mean, mean woman," and so forth. Moreover, the mother made sure that her voice was extremely soft and her demeaner was overly nice, as to provide her son with a sharp contrast between the nice, sweet mother and the mean woman of another race. After my girl told me exactly why this observation upset her so much (namely because she felt that the mother was using her influence as his mother to convince her son that the other woman was mean), we came up with the following "theory" regarding the development of prejudice and/or racist attitudes among children. In particular, the idea that the development of prejudice and/or racist beliefs within a child may result from the child's learned association between a person of another race and another trait. Further, this association (and thus its affects on the child's development of discriminatory attitudes) is stronger when the child learns this association from an influencial authority figure (e.g. his mother, etc...).
How does this incident relate to prayer you might ask? I provide this story as contextual background because as a child, I underwent a similar process in which I came to associate a behavior with an influential person in my life. That person was my great aunt. She's a matriarch of the family in that all of my cousins and I grew up over her house, as she would babysit all of us. She also one of the most annointed, sweet, and "filled with the holy ghost" type folks I have ever met. In fact, I truly believe that she is an angel, always providing the family with the type of love and spiritual guidance we always need but rarely know how to ask for it or truly appreciate it. Every day, she would pray over all of us( her children, myself and our cousins). In addition, she would spend hours in her room praying to God. As a look back, i realize that she provided me with a great deal of the spiritual foundation that I working to strenghten today.
Although as a child I didn't fully understand what the Christian walk would entail, or who God was for that matter, But started emulating my aunt's prayer behavior for two reasons. One was that you simply couldn't grow up in her house hold and not talk to God, lol. The other, and more important reason, was that even though I didn't quite know what she was doing or why, I knew HER. I knew that she always had my best interests at heart, and whoever she was praying to must be pretty important, because she truly was (and still is, of course) a strong, wise, and beautiful person. So, whenever I would be experiencing hardships, i would get on my knees and attempt to talk to God. Out of the many things I would pray for ( and out of a need to preserve my character I'm not going to name all of them, lol), the thing that I prayed for the most was for my parents to stop arguing. When I was younger, they used to argue all the time, and I was scared that they were going to get a divorce. Despite many nights of praying, my parents continued to argue (and in some instances the arguments got worse). Once my sister came into the picture and was old enough to realize what was going on, I became less concerned with how the arguing affected me, and more concerned with how I could prevent it from affecting her.
Now plenty years have passed and I've gotten older. Further, I have come to know for myself, the same God that my aunt so fervently prayed to day in and day out. Although I could now say that I had a personal relationship with God, at times I would still feel that because my parents didn't stop arguing, that God did not answer my prayer. However recently, out of nowwhere, it was if God spoke to me and was like "look at the bigger picture." I thought about my fellings regarding the answering of prayer, and how sometimes when I would tell others to trust God I would feel like a hypocrite because deep down I felt like that one my sincerest prayers as a child did not get answered. However, as I widened my perspective of who God is and the extent of our relationship, it became clear that many times when i pray, my "prayer-scope" is limited due to the limitations of my human nature and rationality. Because my parents didn't go from arguing to "the Huxtables," I thought that God "dropped the ball" with regards to that prayer. Despite my doubting of God, he nevertheless reminded me that He did in fact answer my prayer, but He answered it HIS way, which was in much broader scope than I had initially perceived. Even though in my prayer I wanted my parents to stop arguing, what I really wanted (e.g. my heart desired) was for my parents to stay together. By the grace of God they just recently celebrated their 23rd anniversary and I don't have to spit out divorce statistics to illustrate how much of a blessing that is.
So in sum, it took alot of wrestling and growth to realize that God answers all your prayers (assuming they are in accordance with His will), but He does so His way. Further, His way is the way that has our best interests in mind. So if I've learned anything from this realization, is that not only does God answers prayers, but that if we feel like we have been constantly praying to God for something to no avail, then it probably means that our "prayer scope" is too small, and that when God answers it, He's going to do so in a way that 1) gives Him the glory and 2) goes over and above what we thought we wanted or needed. Until next time, speekonit...
I wanted to share something with you, something that God revealed to me a few about 6 months ago. But first, I have to add some contextual background...
About a week and a half ago, my girl told me about an interesting phenomena she observed while at Kaiser. Basically, she was telling me how she watched a woman who, after having an unpleasant interaction with a woman of a different race, kept telling her young son (who by girl thinks could not be any older than 7 years old) that the other woman was mean. In particular, the mother kept telling her child something to the effect that "see, now that's a mean, mean woman," and so forth. Moreover, the mother made sure that her voice was extremely soft and her demeaner was overly nice, as to provide her son with a sharp contrast between the nice, sweet mother and the mean woman of another race. After my girl told me exactly why this observation upset her so much (namely because she felt that the mother was using her influence as his mother to convince her son that the other woman was mean), we came up with the following "theory" regarding the development of prejudice and/or racist attitudes among children. In particular, the idea that the development of prejudice and/or racist beliefs within a child may result from the child's learned association between a person of another race and another trait. Further, this association (and thus its affects on the child's development of discriminatory attitudes) is stronger when the child learns this association from an influencial authority figure (e.g. his mother, etc...).
How does this incident relate to prayer you might ask? I provide this story as contextual background because as a child, I underwent a similar process in which I came to associate a behavior with an influential person in my life. That person was my great aunt. She's a matriarch of the family in that all of my cousins and I grew up over her house, as she would babysit all of us. She also one of the most annointed, sweet, and "filled with the holy ghost" type folks I have ever met. In fact, I truly believe that she is an angel, always providing the family with the type of love and spiritual guidance we always need but rarely know how to ask for it or truly appreciate it. Every day, she would pray over all of us( her children, myself and our cousins). In addition, she would spend hours in her room praying to God. As a look back, i realize that she provided me with a great deal of the spiritual foundation that I working to strenghten today.
Although as a child I didn't fully understand what the Christian walk would entail, or who God was for that matter, But started emulating my aunt's prayer behavior for two reasons. One was that you simply couldn't grow up in her house hold and not talk to God, lol. The other, and more important reason, was that even though I didn't quite know what she was doing or why, I knew HER. I knew that she always had my best interests at heart, and whoever she was praying to must be pretty important, because she truly was (and still is, of course) a strong, wise, and beautiful person. So, whenever I would be experiencing hardships, i would get on my knees and attempt to talk to God. Out of the many things I would pray for ( and out of a need to preserve my character I'm not going to name all of them, lol), the thing that I prayed for the most was for my parents to stop arguing. When I was younger, they used to argue all the time, and I was scared that they were going to get a divorce. Despite many nights of praying, my parents continued to argue (and in some instances the arguments got worse). Once my sister came into the picture and was old enough to realize what was going on, I became less concerned with how the arguing affected me, and more concerned with how I could prevent it from affecting her.
Now plenty years have passed and I've gotten older. Further, I have come to know for myself, the same God that my aunt so fervently prayed to day in and day out. Although I could now say that I had a personal relationship with God, at times I would still feel that because my parents didn't stop arguing, that God did not answer my prayer. However recently, out of nowwhere, it was if God spoke to me and was like "look at the bigger picture." I thought about my fellings regarding the answering of prayer, and how sometimes when I would tell others to trust God I would feel like a hypocrite because deep down I felt like that one my sincerest prayers as a child did not get answered. However, as I widened my perspective of who God is and the extent of our relationship, it became clear that many times when i pray, my "prayer-scope" is limited due to the limitations of my human nature and rationality. Because my parents didn't go from arguing to "the Huxtables," I thought that God "dropped the ball" with regards to that prayer. Despite my doubting of God, he nevertheless reminded me that He did in fact answer my prayer, but He answered it HIS way, which was in much broader scope than I had initially perceived. Even though in my prayer I wanted my parents to stop arguing, what I really wanted (e.g. my heart desired) was for my parents to stay together. By the grace of God they just recently celebrated their 23rd anniversary and I don't have to spit out divorce statistics to illustrate how much of a blessing that is.
So in sum, it took alot of wrestling and growth to realize that God answers all your prayers (assuming they are in accordance with His will), but He does so His way. Further, His way is the way that has our best interests in mind. So if I've learned anything from this realization, is that not only does God answers prayers, but that if we feel like we have been constantly praying to God for something to no avail, then it probably means that our "prayer scope" is too small, and that when God answers it, He's going to do so in a way that 1) gives Him the glory and 2) goes over and above what we thought we wanted or needed. Until next time, speekonit...
Labels: children, family, God, learn, parents, prayer, prejudice, racism, spiritual
Friday, December 09, 2005
The Drought in Malawi, Africa
It has been estimated that about 5 million citizens in Malawi will need food to last them until April 2006, because they are suffering from a severe drought, resulting in them not having any food. Once I saw the video of a family in Malawi eating termites, I was motivated to create a space for people to pray for issues plaguing us in the U.S. and abroad. To the left is a link to the transcripts of that report. I plan on putting up links to various topics to prompt discussion on this blog. Often I see or read about things, have passionate reactions to them, yet feel that as an individual student, there are times when there isn't much I can do to alleviate the situation. I realized however that for poverty for example, it is about much more than giving money to a stranger here and there. There is power in prayer, and I can testify that where I currently am in my life is a direct result of the prayers of my family, friends, and those who came before me. Therefore, it is my hope that people who view this blog will contribute to it by praying for these issues. Regardless of the political beefs or whatever else is going on between governments, things should NEVER get to the point where families have to eat termites. It seems like after all this time on this earth, we still do not understand the value of all human life. Even if the government in Malawi is experiencing political conflict, other countries are too wealthy to allow families to starve like this. I mean there was a child who couldn't be no older than 1 or 2 being fed termites by his or her mother. I understand that the families have to do what they must in order to provide for them and their children, and given the impoverished conditions they are in, I admire them for their courage and love for themselves and their children. Speaking of the families, the CNN correspondent describing the families' methods as "primitive" upset almost as much as the video itself. For one, what is primitive about creatively coming up with a way of getting food for your children? Second, even if the methods could be interpreted as primitive (which I highly doubt because to me there was nothing primitive about it), what does that have to do with the bigger picture? Oh wait, I almost forgot, that when it comes to the big picture (i.e. the value of all human life), we tend to drop the ball. If a family had no food, and was not receiving any local or international assistance, how else are they supposed to survive? When thinking about this situation, I can't help but think of the beatitudes and the various accounts in the bible when Jesus would heal (as well as direct His disciples to heal) those who were sick and impoverished. I pray that God will bless everyone in Malawi suffering from this drought and provide for them, especially when those who are aware of their plight and have the means to alleviate it, do nothing. Peace, blessings, and I'm interested in people posting their prayers and/or opinions on this issue. So speekonit...
Labels: African, children, drought, family, food, Malawi, politcal conflictm, poverty, prayer, starvation, suffering, wealth
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