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July 19, 2012

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Why does God allow evil?

God hates evil, so why does He allow it?  Since God is only good, He can only allow it as long as something good will come from it either immediately or in the long term.

After living several decades on this earth and going through many experiences, I think that I am qualified to say that sometimes we humans don’t know our upside from our downside.  Sometimes we get the goofiest ideas and we adamantly persist in the idea that we’re right.  Our goofy ideas are going to lead us into a pit.  Our kind and loving Father can only look at us in amazement and sigh.  Then He has to set about arranging situations to get us back on the real right path.  His methods at times are intended to shock us out of our stupor.

That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it, but we cannot see how to navigate our way in this dark world.  God has to constantly rearrange us.  Sometimes difficult circumstances are the only thing that will lead us back to Him.

On a grander scale, it’s the same with humankind.  We, of our own selves would ultimately destroy ourselves with our ignorant ‘knowledge.’  We use our brains for all kinds of research that ends up creating things that will kill us better.  Nowadays, we have engineered seeds, engineered everything, ‘new and improved’ things that God originally created perfect.  How can you improve on perfect?  We humans think we can.  Foolish.

As a consequence, we can only see the error of our ways when our own foolishness turns around to bite us in the proverbial butt.  We can only reject evil and choose good, if we see the consequences of evil and make a conscious choice to act positively in our lives.  As a result, the consequences of our bad choices surround us.

Even people who are not religious are able to see what’s wrong and make decisions to do good.  They see the wrongs in this world and they decide that they will help out their neighbor or contribute to a cause.  A lot of good happens because someone read about trouble somewhere in the world and people want to help alleviate some of the pain. A lot of people are realizing that some things were better before technology made them more ‘perfect.’   Each one of us has inside ourselves the ability to make our own choices against the evil that we see both in ourselves and in our world.

In the end God does not so much allow evil, but rather He wonders: why do we?

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June 22, 2012

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Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother?

Luke 10:25 – 29 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?  And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.   And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.   But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

We all love the answer Jesus gave, the story of a  man who was injured.  The religious people passed him by and only a Samaritan man, who was considered unworthy, stopped to help.   The good book also says that God gives to all life and breath and he has made of one blood all nations of men.  He has also decided when and where they would live on this earth.  Why?  So that they would have the best chance that they could possibly have to find God.  (Ac 17:25 – 27)

So, who is my neighbor?  Who is my brother?  When we were children, in our all white neighborhood, we used to tell Polish jokes.  We also used to make fun of certain other nationalities.  Then I began to teach English to a variety of foreign people.  Over the years of my career, God has allowed students from almost every nation to sit in my classroom.  There have been multiple misunderstandings due to differences in culture, but as the years go by meeting students from all over the world has become  a treasure to me, a wonderful lifetime lesson in finding out who my  brother and my neighbor are.  Over and over I had to face the very people that I used to make fun of.  As children, we sometimes would insult one another by calling one another a certain race of supposedly small people in Africa.  Then one day I found myself face to face with a student who came from that very tribe, which is properly called the Batwa and whose people are lovely and actually not all that small.   I had to admit to God that I had been prejudiced and spoke about things concerning which I had no knowledge.

After many years of such experiences, God has allowed me to see his nature in all of my wonderful students.  At times they don’t get along.  Their cultural differences are too great in subtle ways that they don’t recognize and sometimes won’t admit even when someone points it out to them.  The Hispanics are quick to answer and the Asians prefer to wait a moment.  Is either one wrong?  No!  They are just different.  Imagine if God’s world were only like Oz, everything just green.  It would look lovely, but think of all the other colors that we wouldn’t even know that we were missing.  Our God is a great God.  We are created in His image.  His image is not just flat or one-sided.  God has an infinite number of exquisitely wonderful qualities that are displayed in His creation.  If we could begin to appreciate those differences in each other and celebrate them, we would not only get along a whole lot better, but also we would begin to know our Father and Creator.  We would become rich in our experience and wisdom.  We’d really learn to live Jesus’ words about loving our neighbor.

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August 29, 2011

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Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

People love what they talk about.  We all know this to be true.  When a person talks about themselves all the time, it makes us feel uncomfortable because they seem to be full of themselves.  When someone talks incessantly about sports, we understand that that person really loves sports.  They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t love it.  Someone who loves cooking will undoubtedly talk about it all the time.  If we take that further, we can examine ourselves and know what it is that we love.

I have to begin with myself.  If I talk about myself all the time, I love myself and am not considerate of others.  Do I speak all the time about my work?  Do I only talk about my children?  What is it that occupies my mind all day?  What I take the time to talk about is inevitably what is on my mind during the day.  Is my mind on God?  Does God and godly things come out of my mouth easily?  Or am I talking constantly about my trips to the mall and about the latest things that I would like to purchase?

I have known quite a few different kinds of religious people.  Some spoke of God religiously, showing that they really loved religion and appearing to be religious more than God.  However, I also knew a person who spoke genuinely of God and godly issues with a very soft and humble spirit of love.  I was and am sure that person truly loved God.  It made me think about what is on my mind.  What does my mind stray to when I’m driving to work or taking a walk?  When I have problems, do I consider how God feels about them and frame my conversations with that in mind?

Life in God is always interesting.  There’s always a new revelation around the corner.  There’s always something more to be learned about life here on earth and how God leads us through our daily trials.  When my mind is on God, it comes out of my mouth.

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August 16, 2011

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A Word Fitly Spoken

Recently I went to a family reunion for my parents’ 90th birthdays.  About a month after that we went to a family wedding on my husband’s side of the family.  Giving each event a perfunctory glance, one might say it’s all about food, flowers, music, cake, cookies and a lot of chatter.  However, there is so much more going on.  The Scriptures encourage us to get together with the family of God.  Why?  These experiences with my natural family made the answer abundantly clear to me.

On the surface, a white bridal runner, home made Italian cookies piled high on the dessert table, luscious carrot cake with ivory frosting, champagne toasts and many clinkings of glasses while the young couple reward us with a kiss.  But beneath the white roses (with just a hint of pink), wishes of congratulations and happy smiles runs a current of issues: hearts that ache due to broken relationships.  Faces marked by rivers of tears now slightly dried from their recent rivers flowing down.  Hearts bruised from life’s fiery trials, looking for answers, praying for hope.

Amidst all of these hidden hurts, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver (Pr 25:11).   We have in our hearts and tongues the power to heal a heart and give someone hope.  A measure of friendship lessens the depth of the creases where tears have worn deep crevasses.  One young life looking for direction, another looking for hope.  Even a quick prayer costs me nothing but my time and yet the results are enormous.  How can we know of these situations if we don’t get together with our brothers and sisters?  When we see each other, so much is going on.  Where the threads of our relationships have been torn, they are being stitched back together.  Patches are sown over places made bare from the daily wear and tear of life.  Restorations and connections are happening even under the surface.  God is not idle.  If we give Him just a bit of our time and effort, He’ll run with it and stretch it out to last a lifetime.  Especially in difficult times, much is accomplished.

Hebrews 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

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August 10, 2011

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Why does mankind allow evil?

There is a generation of God’s wrath.  By looking at the day’s headlines, we could surmise that this generation is it.  Hoodlums, hooligans, just looking for an excuse to create mayhem.  However, God’s wrath is an appearance.  God Himself is like liquid love.  His love is like a mother bear roaring after those that might harm her precious cubs.  We associate wrath with anger, but God is incapable of the kind of anger we see as humans.  His wrath is His burning love.  His only desire is to help further our life in God.  Every single thing that God does is for our benefit.  Therefore, His apparent wrath can only manifest if we force it and if it will in some way benefit mankind.  The tipping point, where evil is overwhelming the good, is coming to a head, perhaps forcing God to step in and do something to save the righteous that remain.

A lot of people wonder why God even allows evil.  But the true question seems to be, why do humans allow it?  For thousands of years, God has been so patient and kind, waiting for mankind to understand just a few basic ideas of practical living.  Love God first.  Do unto other people what you would have them do unto you.  Take care of your earth because it is the gift of God to feed you and to heal you.  Be kind to all of God’s creation because He made it and therefore it’s good.  There have been a few who understood and lived His life while they were here on earth.  Many of them were horribly persecuted by those that didn’t want to live that same kind of life.

Basically we have screwed up so badly.  We can’t just point the finger at youthful hooligans and say that they are the problem.  They are more of a symptom than the core of the problem.  Every area of human life is in a shambles: religion, government, education, agriculture, justice, family life.  The list is very long.  Can you think of any area of human life that isn’t in total disarray?  I can’t.  Oh yes, there are exceptions here and there, but the major part of our civilization apparently cannot be recovered.  If we don’t fix it, we force God out of His heavens.  We force Him to come and fix what we won’t.  Isaiah 64:1, 2 says: “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at they presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make they name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!”  If He has to come down and fix things, He will come with flaming fury.  If we force His hand, He will come “with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgments upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds … (Jude 14, 15)”

God’s heart of liquid love is broken because of the hurt being done to innocent people.  His heart aches for someone, or someones, to start a revival of basic human decency.  He has never left anyone without any hope.  There will always be the story of Jonah.  Ninevah was to be destroyed, but they repented and our holy and almighty God changed His mind and did not destroy them.  In Malachi, He ends the Old Testament with this warning: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”  It is a dreadful thought.  A study of God’s curses show that He is exquisitely precise and righteous.  In the modern vernacular, He knows how to nail you.  However, in the warning is also an exceptionally bright promise.  If the heart changes and fathers and children once again love and respect each other, then, like the great city of Ninevah, we can touch the heart of our awesome Father and He will turn away His anger for “the curse causeless shall not come.”  (Proverbs 26:2)

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August 7, 2011

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As a Man Thinketh

There is a little book called “As a Man Thinketh.”  It was written by James Allen.  It contains a wonderful truth about the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  It says that our circumstances are a reflection of our interior state and that we have power over those circumstances.  If we would wish to improve the situations that are a part of our lives, we should look interiorly and change the things that we find there that are impoverished or base in nature.  When we change those things, our outside situations must follow suit.  The Bible teaches us the same lesson.  Moses caused the sinning Hebrews to drink of the very golden calf that they had made.  Later on during their journey, he made a serpent on a pole and they had to look at their own sin and admit what they had done.  When they did that, they were healed of the plague that was afflicting them.  Jesus taught us the same lesson.  He was crucified when in fact it was our sins that deserved such a death.  By looking at him on the cross, seeing our own sins and acknowledging them, we are healed.

Our country has sinned and our sin is staring us in the face.  We need to look at it and acknowledge it.  Our nation owes 14 trillion dollars.  How is that even possible?  How could we ever pay back such a debt?  The answer is that we don’t intend to pay it back.  We have become a nation of credit card users.  We buy without any limits.  When you look at such a situation and try to analyze it, you can see that most of the time greed is at the root of much of our debt.  We want something and don’t have the money at the moment to pay for it so we just charge it because it is so easy.  Our parents’ generation and generations previous to them waited until they had the money to buy something.  It took patience and self control to wait.  Our plastic credit card generation has lost those qualities.  There is no patience needed any more, so no one possesses this wonderful quality.  There is no need to have self control.  Everyone feels that they are due whatever they want.

Therefore our country is the same as us.  We are angry at our legislators and our government for their wild spending and yet we do the same.  God cannot continue to bless our nation.  That doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us.  He DOES love us.  He is in supreme control of everything but He cannot allow us to continue on such a path.  That path is leading to our downfall.  Our present situation is the result of our own free will actions.  It is not God’s fault that we are in trouble.  We can only point the finger at ourselves.  We must correct ourselves first.  When we do, our nation will reflect this change in our nature and follow suit.  We have to acknowledge our sins and change.

There are many other areas in which we have sinned.  We have left God out of everything.  We have murdered millions of babies before they had a chance to be born.  We have bought into so many of satan’s lies.  He has seduced us away from our faith and our love for others.  Returning to the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule will get us back on the right path.  It takes just a change of heart.  Our dear Father is so willing to help us along.  He is so willing for us to change and to live right.  He is so desirous to find a nation that will love Him and obey Him.  He would love to bless that nation and make an example of it so that others could follow in its path.  We can do it.

The little book called “As a Man Thinketh” is online in its entirety.  It can be found at the following website:

http://jamesallen.wwwhubs.com/think.htm

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July 24, 2011

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The Handwriting on the Wall

Our civilization as we know it is no longer sustainable.  You don’t need to look far to discover this sad fact.  Our system of education is imploding.  Our government can no longer govern properly.  Our system of agriculture is killing us and is causing massive pollution and erosion of precious topsoil.  If you examine every section of our modern society, it is corrupt and rotten.  Isaiah put it best in chapter one when he said, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises and putrifying sores…”

We have to ask ourselves why and even so the answer is staring us blankly and yet accusingly in the face.  We are at fault.  God created this earth a beautiful paradise, but in a few short years (compared to the length of our planet’s existence) we have destroyed it and are coming close to destroying mankind from it.  Again, we can look to Isaiah for the reason: “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.”  It’s true that we, the human race, have devolved.  Most recently we have produced monsters that prey on innocents, that kill hundreds of people and call it God.  How can these things be?  It is disheartening and disturbing.

However, rather than go on about the deficiencies of our modern life, we need to look for solutions and find a way out of what has become a society ready to plunge into great darkness.  Perhaps we can’t save the whole, but we can save ourselves.  We can individually turn back to God.  We can live by His laws.  He did not give us thousands of laws.  He gave us ten and then gave us one that encompasses all: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  I would not like people to gossip about me or hurt me in any way.  Let the change begin with me.  Each individual can only do it for himself and pray that it catches on and others will see that such a life is bountifully blessed.

I can begin to respect God’s creation and live in harmony with it.  Yes, it is mine to use but to use wisely.  God said, “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”  He did not say to steal its riches and deplete its resources until there is nothing left for future generations.  God put the man in the garden to dress it and KEEP it.  We have not been good stewards of this gift of the earth.  The only solution is to acknowledge our fault.  We cannot put the blame on anyone else.  We have done this thing.  Then we have to turn to God for the solutions.  He has an answer.  He is really willing for us to make it.  And, if God be for us, who can be against us?  No one.  No thing.  We can do it.  There is a little time for us to change.  Let’s change now!

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March 14, 2011

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The Solution to our environmental problems

A friend recently posted a very heart wrenching video on youtube about the environment.  As I write these sentences, more and more of the Amazon rain forest is being destroyed.  More of the world’s oceans are being polluted.  The runoff from the large industrial farms in the American midwest is producing dead zones in large sections of the Gulf of Mexico.  Right now, nuclear power facilities in Japan are in jeopardy of failing.  So much of what God created is being destroyed.  Many species of plants and animals are disappearing from off this earth forever.  The question is: what can be done about it?  Why don’t we try to stop it?

If you examine these problems and try to understand what is causing them, you have to see that they are all eventually caused by greed, selfishness and hate.  The greed of large corporations for more profits leads to a lot of our global pollution and environmental destruction.  However, it’s too easy to put all the blame on large corporations or some nameless face in the corporate world.  The greed starts here at home.  How am I still greedy?  How am I still selfish?  How much hate do I still have resident in me?  It’s hard to look at myself and see all of those things that I hate in others, but that’s where it starts and, as the famous phrase points out, ‘the buck stops here.’

Jesus told us to get the beam out of our own eye before we try to get the mote out of someone else’s eye.  How can I see clearly unless I get that thing out of myself?  Ultimately, I have no control over others.  I can’t force them to change themselves.  The only one I can change is me.  However, if we all take that step to get rid of the things inside of us that are in opposition to God’s heavenly kingdom, then that kingdom can be established on this earth.  Then we will see the deserts blossom as a rose and the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror.  I’m asking him to change his ways and no message could have been any clearer.  If you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”  It’s too easy to sing the song and think that those are pretty words.  I think Jesus would agree with that, but he would say, Go out and DO that.  GO and sin no more.