Friday, May 24, 2019
God is an Optimist
God is an optimist. I know this because He believes in me and He gives me opportunities that I know I can’t handle on my own. I know this because He gives me hopes and dreams that I know I don’t deserve and that I cannot fulfill. I know He is an optimist because His Word declares a world-wide awakening before He returns, and He describes heaven filled with multitudes of people.
If we allow God to be our primary influencer, we can be optimists as well. Life is tough, bad things happen, and people can be cruel, but believers can still live an abundant life, because God helps them see things from a heavenly point of view. When God fuels our thinking instead of friends on Facebook, talking heads in the so-called news, celebrities, educators and politicians, then our life will be empowered and steered by heaven rather than being pulled and jostled by earth.
Letting God help us navigate life can be compared to the international system of air traffic control. Consider how dangerous and confusing it would be if every plane tried to talk with every other plane within a few hundred miles, trying to work out a safe flight plan and a successful landing. The solution is to have every plane with a certain area communicate with a control tower. When every pilot gets their direction from a Air Traffic Controller that sees every other plane in the area, everyone can fly safely.
People who are in a serious relationship with God soon learn that God wants to speak into their life. He uses books, sermons, and people. But God’s primary means of communication is through the Bible and personal times of prayer. Those who learn to have two -way conversations with God can then operate their life fueled by God’s love and optimism. They will discover that God is restorative, graceful, patient, gentle and hopeful. This is more than typical optimism which relies on trying to have a glass-half-full mentality. This is an optimism that can see the challenges and injustices of life from heaven’s point of view. This is not just believing good things will happen. This is believing in a good God and a good outcome even when bad things happen.
I have often made the mistake of taking advice from earth instead of heaven. I have let people and circumstances bum me out. The antidote to this is communication with God – prayer. Prayer allows heaven to drive instead of earth. Talking to, and hearing from, God gives perspective. Releasing stress to God allows peace. Repenting to God eradicates guilt. While a believer’s path may take them through life-changing disasters, when God is navigating, the believer can be confident and joyful in their journey. Daily staff meeting with God (prayer, reading, listening, worshipping) and regular conversations with spiritual leaders are powerful disciplines that help believers see life from heaven’s point of view
Often in difficult times people will quote Romans 8:28 which says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” But that scripture goes on to say, “to them who are the called according to his purpose.” The point being that we can be optimists when we buy in to God’s way of life, because God’s way will ultimately lead to everlasting life. I can be an optimist because I have hitched my car to God’s train, and He is and optimist.
Friday, May 17, 2019
Dignity and Decency
Freddie had frosting in his hair, cake in his nose and, milk running down his chin and neck onto his new pants. With a grin on his face he lifted a glass to his mouth and drank noisily, then giggled and gargled, spewing more milk across the room onto his friends. It was his birthday party and he was having a blast. The problem was that Freddie was not 24 months old, he was 24 years old, and he had a perfectly normal IQ and no developmental challenges. He just liked being gross.
For the most part, our culture does not tolerate this kind of behavior from adults. Thankfully our society still imposes enough peer pressure to keep this kind of behavior from becoming the norm in our public restaurants and lunch rooms. Manners and consideration for others is what separates mankind from the rest of the animal world. However, that separation is not automatic; it is a gulf that would disappear should mankind choose to abandon common courtesy and decorum.
Great empires and cultures have come and gone. There appears to be a trend. When a group of people work hard to live with dignity and decency the way God intended, their culture excels. When ensuing generations begin to disregard the principles that insured success, the culture begins to degrade, until they, as a people group, act more like animals than men. The pain and destruction that ensue are often blamed on God, but, in reality, they are the result of men abandoning the manners and morals prescribed by the Almighty.
St. Peter explained it this way:
Since Christ suffered and underwent pain, you must have the same attitude he did; you must be ready to suffer, too. For remember, when your body suffers, sin loses its power, and you won't be spending the rest of your life chasing after evil desires but will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough in the past of the evil things the godless enjoy-sex, sin, lust, getting drunk, wild parties, drinking bouts, and the worship of idols, and other terrible sins.
Of course, your former friends will be very surprised when you don't eagerly join them anymore in the wicked things they do, and they will laugh at you in contempt and scorn. But just remember that they must face the Judge of all, living and dead; they will be punished for the way they have lived. That is why the Good News was preached even to those who were dead-killed by the flood --so that although their bodies were punished with death, they could still live in their spirits as God lives.
The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore be earnest, thoughtful men of prayer. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love makes up for many of your faults. (1 Peter 4:1-8 The Living Bible)
I am thankful for the people in my life who taught me to shower, brush my teeth, keep my feet off the table and chew with my mouth closed. I am even more thankful for those who taught me to respect my body, my friends, and God. They taught me to treat men and women with respect and to recognize the dignity of every life. They warned me that life is what I make it and, when I get sloppy, life quickly degenerates. They helped me to see that self-control, hard work and diligence may be harder in the short run, but they are what makes for a life of decency and dignity.
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