Reacting to the Bombing

Events like last week's bombing in Boston cause all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, to ask questions about people, motives, evil, and God. Emotionally, we as Americans joined the people of Boston in the search for the people responsible for the horrible act that caused so much death and destruction. Before we had a definite target to direct our anger towards, much of that anger was probably vented in those questions and that search.

Now, however, we have a person to be angry at; we have someone to blame for the death of children and threat to our national security. This man and his deceased brother are not pitied by America, but despised. 

It's always hard to know how to react in these situations. My first reaction as an American was, of course, anger. The threat to my country, the proximity of the bombing to my close relatives, the children and people that died and were intentionally injured were all contributors to that anger. 

A couple days after the bombing, I picked up a book that changed my perspective a little. This book, The Reagan Diaries, is a collection of President Reagan's day to day writings and journals from his terms as president. As I was reading, I reached the section where Reagan describes the day that he got shot in an assassination attempt. He's looking back on his arrival at the hospital in this excerpt: 

I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed. But I realized I couldn't ask for God's help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn't that the meaning of the lost sheep? We are all God's children and therefore equally beloved by Him.
I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold.

His perspective amazed me. Shortly after being shot, President Reagan realized how important forgiveness was. While many of us were not directly affected by the bombings in Boston last week, we were affected because we are Americans. A challenge for us in this situation is to pray for the living man responsible for this terrible act. In fact, as a man who attends my church requested last night, let's go further and pray for all of the young men in America who are struggling with violent thoughts towards other Americans.
Praying for them though, is going to require us to put aside hatred and open ourselves to God's love. God loves them. We are called to the same.

-Meaghan

Reagan, Ronald. The Reagan Diaries . 1st ed. . New York: Harper Collins, 2007. xi . Print.

Change or Compromise? --- and the Pope

As you all know, the white smoke finally came out of the Sistine Chapel yesterday, signalling the choosing of the new pope. [and if you don't know about that... I'm concerned!]
This event has been heavily covered by news media. As is bound to happen when a new leader is appointed, analysts have been discussing whether or not Pope Francis is qualified for his new position. I've found many of these discussions very though provoking because of one concern all news analysts seem to share: Is Pope Francis going to make any changes?
An article from the USA Today quoted a professor of religion from Boston University who said that the church "needs change to survive, and it seems incapable of doing anything to ensure it's survival". He was specifically referring to the social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion, and whether or not this pope will make any changes in this area.
I found this statement extremely interesting because I believe it applies to my own life. As a Christian, it can be hard for me to live out what Christ says because it makes me different from the world around me. God has called me, as His follower, to look, act, and be different than others. This can be hard because, as a human, I want to be accepted by others. Standing out isn't comfortable.
So there's this tendency for me to want to accept this mindset of "change". That in order to make an impact on people and do ministry, I need to change to look and be like them. When that professor said that the Catholic church needed to change in order to last, he meant that the church needed to become more relevant, that they were going to lose followers if they didn't start to compromise a little on the social issues. This idea of being relevant has, I believe, infiltrated our churches in America. Youth groups especially have been the primary victim of such ideas.
I think what we often forget as Christians is that we know the truth, and the truth is something that is always relevant. What we've done in conforming our standards to attract more people to our churches is compromised on the greatest aspect of Christianity and its message. Instead of giving people the truth that they're searching for, we're giving them the same things that they already have, just with the word "Jesus" plastered on the front.
What's encouraged me tremendously is the realization that Jesus and his disciples were some of the most radical people of their time. They didn't do things the way that everyone else were doing them. Yes, they had knowledge about the culture they were living in [which I believe is extremely healthy], but they didn't lower themselves to the standards that culture was upholding. God's calling for me isn't to change to be like the world, but to change that world.
There's also difference in changing for the better and compromise. When you feel like you're beginning to change in some areas of life, pray about it. Are you compromising? Or are you conforming to God's image for you?
Remember, people, like the professor, will say that we need to become more like everyone else, but what they don't realize is that we don't need social reform to last, we need the truth. And if you're a Christian, you have that truth, which is more valuable than any kind of acceptance from others.
I'm not sure what choices the Pope will make, and frankly, it won't affect me. But I hope that, for the sake of the truth, he doesn't compromise as the rest of the world believes he needs to.

"God Knows" by Minnie Louise Haskins

Just thought I'd share this beautiful poem with you all. Giving God everything can be both releasing and scary, but it is best. :)

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

Gun Control and How We're Missing the Point

This post is going to be a little different than what I usually write on this blog, but I do like keeping up with politics and writing about it so you may see more of it in the future.

The awful shooting at the elementary school in Newton, Connecticut has relight the fire of the gun control debate. The murder of so many people, mostly children, was horrific and naturally generated very emotional reactions. People have been protesting at the White House, media has been reporting on it non-stop, and politicians are struggling to qualm the emotional tide.
One protester's sign really caught my eye, however, especially because he was waving it in front of the NRA [National Rifle Association] vice president while he was speaking in a press conference this morning.



First, I thought of how disrespectful it was for someone to do that, then I realized how ridiculous this whole thing was. The NRA has had some pretty intense backlash from the country because of their, obvious, stance on gun control and weapons. But how someone could actually believe that they were to blame in any way in the Connecticut shooting is beyond me.
Throughout this situation, the NRA has been very respectful and hasn't lashed back at people who blamed them for the shooting. This morning's press conference contained ideas that were logical and level headed. And I think that they addressed what media and politicians should have been debating about this entire time: school protection.
When I heard about the shooting, my thoughts were not "how did he get a gun?" but "how did he get in?" How did someone enter a school during the day with guns and malicious intent?
Wayne LaPierre, the vice president of the NRA, voiced a plan for school protection, calling "on Congress to immediately appropriate money to put armed officiers in every school in America." -USA Today
Personally, I think that it is a good idea, although it is strongly opposed by most of the country. LaPierre asks though, "Why is the use of a gun [good] when it's asked to be used to protect the president or used by the police, but bad when it's used to protect children?"
The problem is that this issue is very emotional and risky. Having guns around children is concerning to many parents, but I do think that it could make schools safer as long as they are in the hands of well trained guards.
The NRA addressed many other links to violent shootings, such as video games and media coverage, which you can read a summary of here.
When we're faced with situations like this, however, I think that the media, the people, and the politicians of this country have a responsibility to react in a less emotional way. The media especially has been fueling this fire and has reported many of the facts wrong. It's frustrating because we all want to have well thought out ideas. Of course this debate is emotional; there have been so many shootings that have taken innocent lives. But the wrong reaction is to jump on the NRA or gun owners. Guns are not responsible for the crimes that evil or sick people commit.

-Meaghan

PS - I would encourage you to read the transcript of the press conference from this morning if you can! There were some really good thoughts expressed, as I mention before. [read here]

The Problem with Gossip

We've probably all heard the saying "never judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes". Basically, that we have no place to judge what a person is going through because we aren't going through it ourselves. I've always loved this quote because it addressed a problem that every person faces in their life: gossip. It's so easy to pass on that little observation about someone. Unfortunately, though, our 'observations' are often so wrong.

In the past few weeks I've realized how wrong I've been about some of the people around me. I've realized how much I've misunderstood them, and while I hadn't gossiped about them, I had misjudged them in my mind [which is just as bad]. The fact is, we can never know what people are going through and for us to do anything but help them when they are going through a difficult time is wrong. 

People go through painful and horrible things and instead of coming alongside them, we have a tendency to judge them. In doing so, we make their situation so much harder. We wonder why suicide is such a high trend in teens and young adults; we wonder why depression is running rampant; we wonder why people have so many fears, when we are our own problems. 

Imagine if you could openly talk about the issues you were having, without the fear of rejection from the people around you? And I know that fear is often unfounded and that it is a tool Satan will use to stop us from having freedom, but Satan is using the attitudes we have as a Christian society against us. 

From my own personal experience and in talking to friends, I can see how much fear has hurt us and held us back. Fear of rejection is very hard to overcome because our deepest desire as human beings is to be loved and accepted. Many of us have had experiences with gossip and being misunderstood and it's a hard place to be, especially when close friends and family members put us there. So hard that we will avoid it at any cost. So often this leads to much deeper issues... holding things in is never a good solution. 

What's missing is unconditional love and understanding. Unconditional love is very hard for us to grasp because we're not perfect and our tendency is to compare ourselves to others and then judge when people don't appear to measure up. Although impossible for us to have all of the time, it is pretty self-explanatory. Deciding to love people unconditionally is saying that you are going to love people despite what they've done. 

Understanding is being willing to look past what you immediately see and look deeper. It's too easy to just look at people and their actions, we must look in them in order to begin to understand. And even if you cannot understand what they're going through, you still don't have the place to judge. It goes back to love. 

We're all people; it shouldn't be so complicated, but it is! No matter how many times God teaches me this lesson I still find myself learning it again and again. We have a tendency to judge and misunderstand people. We have to start making life easier for the people around us; some people are really hurting and we are only making their lives more difficult. 

-Meaghan 

Return to What?

This week I received an email from the newsletter called A Slice of Infinity. This newsletter is sent out by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. The article reminded me of how incomparable God is to everything else this world offers. I thought that I would just pass it along via a blog post. Enjoy! 

**************************************************

The moment was electric with emotion. Before this group of two to three million people lay the waters of the Red Sea. Behind them rose the spiraling dust from the hoofs and chariots of their former slave-masters, the Egyptians.(1) There was no way to go forward. No way to slip out into oblivion. As they faced their moment of challenge, they discovered there was room to go in one only direction—backwards!

Have you lately been tempted to go backwards? Perhaps to the “good ole days” when the prices were lower, the journeys were shorter, the trousers were longer, the weather was better, the pressure was lesser, the currency was stronger, the youth were kinder, the music was softer, and the world was safer? The human mind has this amazing ability to forget what we are meant to remember and remember what we are meant to forget. The Israelites were no exception. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?  It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:11-12). As someone rightly said, “It took one night for God to take Israel out of Egypt, but it took forty years to take Egypt out of Israel!”

Some years ago, my wife Miriam and I met with a young person who came from a home that was not Christian. She had made her commitment to following Christ and was facing pressure from her loved ones to give up that faith. One day while under much pressure, she said, “I even considered their persuasions for a while in my mind, but the question I could not answer was this one: ‘To whom else can I go after knowing the Lord Jesus?’ Go back, yes, but to whom or to what?” In her reflection lies a very critical point of uniqueness. To this young person, no other love-claim would be as real as the one Jesus makes. No other truth as reliable and no other offer of meaning comparable.

Return. Go back. But “to whom or to what?” reads the telltale sign on that dead-end road!

In fact, the key word in the book of Hosea is “return.” The prophet uses the word 22 times in his prophecy. The people of Israel were to seriously consider the admonition, “Come let us return to the Lord” (Hosea 6:1).

Likewise, as the Israelites stood at the edge of the Red Sea one must not forget that they were a generation that had witnessed the ten powerful plagues that befell Egypt. They were the very people to whom the Lord had spoken in the words of Moses:  ”I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:6-7). They were also the very people whose firstborns were spared on the night of the Passover and who were being led in the wilderness by the Lord himself who had revealed himself in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Isn’t it strange how memory works! They stood between the waters of the Red Sea and the approaching army with so rich a faith experience and yet conceded that life in Egypt was a better deal. One wonders how they could forget the long years of captivity and the burdens of being bonded laborers under the Egyptians.

Yet by contrast, isn’t it strange how God works? God took no offence. God did not disappear. God did not pour down judgment. Instead, God stood by an ungrateful people. All because it is not in God’s nature to forget a promise. And wonderfully, there was one man who believed as he raised his staff over the waters of the mighty sea.

Did Moses know how God would deal with the laws of the physical world when he raised his staff over the sea? Did Joshua know how God would work beyond the imaginings of architecture when they marched around Jericho? Did Daniel know how God would deal with the natural instincts of lions as he was lowered into the den? No they didn’t. All they knew was their God. Today also, those who know God live not by explanations, but by promises.

Arun Andrews is a member of the speak team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bangalore, India. 

(1) Although there is no record of the precise number that left Egypt in the Exodus, a military census taken not long after listed the number of men twenty years of age and older who could serve in the army as 603,550 (Exodus 38:26). From that number, the total Israelite population of that time has been estimated at approximately two to three million.

Actions that Match Thoughts

...Who knowing the righteous judgement of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those practice those things. 

                                                                                                            -Romans 1:32

The book of Romans, and the whole Bible for that matter, are very clear on God's judgement of sin and how a Christian should [and should not] live their life. In fact, the verses preceding the above verse from Romans 1 mentions a few of the things that we shouldn't be: unrighteous, wicked, covetous, malicious, envious, murderous, deceitful, gossipers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, unloving, unforgiving, and unmerciful. [from verses 29-30]  No one can claim to be perfect in all of these areas. God hasn't even called us to do that, but we should recognize that acting like that is wrong.
I found it interesting that God would put a verse like Romans 1:32 after that long list. To me it was a reminder of what God is all about: our heart and attitudes. When Jesus came to earth, it was a person's heart that mattered to him. He saw the Pharisees were acting righteous and followed the law, but in his eyes, they still had missed the point because he could see that their hearts weren't in it. In the same way, it is easy for us to get caught up in making sure the we are doing good and acting like 'perfect' Christians. But how many times do we approve of the things that we don't do? How many times do we decide that we won't participate, but we'll stand by and watch?
By standing by and doing nothing are we just as guilty?
Many of you may have watched the Vice Presidential debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden. I thought the question about religion [that eventually led to a discussion about abortion] was very interesting. Both candidates are Catholic and both had the same view on abortion. However, Joe Biden's stance was different in that he said something like he wouldn't 'force his beliefs on others' and therefore wouldn't support anti-abortion legislation. When he said that, I sat back and thought about it. It's a very real dilemma for some religious politicians and voters. Eventually my thoughts reached the question, "But if we don't stand up for what we believe in, then why do we believe in it?" Because if we think it's a big enough issue to hold weight in our convictions then we definitely need to act on it. To do anything else sounds too much like hypocrisy to me. And [I have to be careful here], but what's wrong with 'imposing' beliefs on someone if it's true? [if it's even imposing on them]
God has not commanded us to just obey what he has called us to do, but to do it with our whole heart. God will not only judge by the things that we have done but by what we truly and actually felt about those things.
It really comes down to the question of whether or not we're truly obeying him from our hearts or out of a desire to appear perfect.
Bonhoeffer wrote: "The war of Jesus Christ against the gods of this world... is a war that demands the commitment of one's whole life. Is not God, our Lord worthy of this struggle?" God doesn't just want our actions, he actually wants our heart. If we're approving of evil while abstaining from it, we're not serving him with our hearts.
Just a last thought: I think that we have to be very careful in the way that we interpret this verse because people could take it to imply something that is against God's character, namely being judgmental of others. I believe God simply meant is as warning to people, like the Pharisees, who are doing good but aren't totally surrendered to God. God alone is to judge people, that is not our place. We cannot see what God can: people's hearts.

Thanks for reading!
Meaghan