The scriptures have numerous examples of couples that were without children praying for the opportunity of parenthood. The model of their praying is a good start for any parent in recognizing prayer as a continuing expression of trust and faith in God.
Expectant parents can and should start by praying for their unborn child and for their wisdom in preparing for that child’s birth. A significant number of pregnancies do not reach full-term for many reasons. Not all couples are able to have children. Many couples seek adoption opportunities and pray for those who might be open to that option,
enabling them to be parents. Expecting parents would do well to seek God’s guidance for each day’s challenges during pregnancies or adoption processes. Trust God to guide you and to help you to discern your capacities for both providing for and caring for a child.
Having children is not parenting them. That responsibility is continuous and ongoing.
The good news is that God’s love is likewise our best model for Christian parenting. God teaches us the meaning of steadfast love and faithfulness. Caring for one’s health before and during pregnancy is essential for a growing fetus. Childbearing itself can be dangerous for both mother and child. The best of modern medicine remains at times confounded by the failure of some pregnancies to thrive. Nonetheless, we can trust in God and his provision. Fathers are likewise accountable to be available and protective of their spouse. As we are gifted in the wonder and grace of new life, we receive and welcome those tender lives into our care. While often the concern of our prayers,
now we also must share in teaching them to pray and to understand God’s love for them.
Teaching your child to pray is not so much a challenge as it is an opportunity.
It is an opportunity for you to put into practice your own spiritual discipline of prayer
and to model that practice for your child in age appropriate ways. Teaching your child to pray is not just about teaching them to perform for your pleasure. Teaching a child to pray begins with your own conversations with God. As you pray, and as your children listen to you pray, they begin to discern the meaning of your actions and words.
Things that are helpful in teaching your child:
Begin with simple words shared at regular times. For exmple, praying before meals and at bedtime would be good opportunities and times for regular prayer.
Begin with a posture of prayer. Joining hands in a family circle during prayers at meals can benefit in helping busy fingers to be occupied and to help little ones focus upon the action taking place.
Be consistent. The most important part of teaching is consistency. Over time, as patterns are taught, we learn, and over time we grow in understanding and knowledge.
For Pre-schoolers…
Teaching a child to fold their hands and to bow their heads and to close their eyes in prayer is helpful in many ways. It teaches them to express their own attitude of prayerfulness…they can pray. It teaches them to give attention to God and talking to Him, overagainst being distracted by all the other activities that might be going on around. To begin with bowing heads and closing eyes while a parent prays is a great start. It teaches respect for God in bowing before Him as an expression of humility and love for him.
Teaching your child to pray might include teaching simple patterned prayers that they learn to repeat.
God is great. God is good.
Let us thank Him for our food.
By his hands we are fed.
Thank you, God, for daily bread.
AMEN
Thank you God for food and all our many blessings. AMEN
Prayers never need to be long in order to be heard or spoken. More than once a parent would do well to model sentence prayers in the middle of the busiest times and places. For example, Praying before traveling was a frequent memory of my childhood. Sometimes it was prayer for safe travel, at other times it included prayer for a good day at school. Other times, it included prayers for friends or family or neighbors with special needs. Teach that praying can be done in many different settings. Explain and show by example your readiness to talk to God about the most ordinary and extraordinary events and concern of life.
For Elementary Age Children...
As children grow older, they should be encouraged to begin their own initiatives to offer prayer. Taking turns praying before meals, or designating a different person each day to say the prayers at set times would be helpful. Help a child to move to this process naturally, by asking them about things they would like to pray about before hand. Help them to think about asking God for his help and to thank God for his blessings. Guide children to understand that our praying is also a time to listen for God’s voice to us. Share in reading from the Bible together. Read portions of the scriptures or share a special verse that was meaningful from your own devotional reading. Allow children to talk about their needs and concerns. These conversations around family devotional times will be some of the most remembered of their and your lives together. Often reading from a collection of Bible Stories for Children is helpful at this age, reading a different story each day. Talking about the story and helping children to understand it will encourage them to ask questions and to explore the Bible as they grow older. Giving a child their own Bible to read, especially in a readable translation, is especially helpful as you move into this age. Help your child to learn the books of the Bible and to identify chapters and verses. Encourage them
to underline important passages or to identify those sections about which they have questions. Teaching how to use a Bible at this age is very important to their lifetime of using it in the future. It also encourages reading in general. Children would also be helped by learning a model of prayer from the scriptures in the Lord’s Prayer.
For Teens and Young Adults...
Enabling youth to engage in personal devotional reading and prayer time is an important step in their faith development. Developing the capacity for having their own time for daily bible reading and prayer allows them to grow beyond the supervision of parents into independent learners and self-motivated seekers. Having the skills to explore the Bible and knowing how to use bible study tools like Bible Dictionaries, Bible Concordances, and Bible Atlases will encourage their growth and understanding. Teaching youth to read aloud from the Bible is also important at this age. It encourages their participation in worship and also utilizes their capacities to give instruction and guidance to others. Reading devotional classics and collections of devotional readings can also serve as a help for daily quiet times. Many one-year collections are available in a wide variety of formats. A good basic study bible in a readable translation is again a very helpful tool for growing in understanding of the scriptures. Many good examples are available. At this age, youth, while often shy about publicly expressing themselves, should be encouraged to share their thoughts and prayers publicly. In group settings, sharing sentence prayers around the circle, or in family gatherings for family devotions, the practice of praying can continue. Teens and young adults learn best from the examples of their parents. Parents who demonstrate a personal devotional life, encourage it among their household. Coming together and praying together are important with friends, with relatives, with strangers who are a part of the gatherings of your family. The Psalms are a rich source of private and public prayers and praises in their meditations and reflections upon life and God’s provision. Reading from them with regularity can be an excellent basis for growing both in faith and knowledge of God’s love.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Did You Remember to Thank...?
A friend of mine is a farmer and when I watch him sit down to eat a meal, I see in his eyes a kind of thoughtfulness about the food he is about to eat.
I decided to think thoughtfully about my lunch today and I came to the conclusion very quickly that I have too often thought too little about what exactly it took for me to sit down and enjoy the meal that I just partook of.
Today I had lunch in a local eatery. I ordered an unsweetened tea and then perused the menu long enough to decide that perhaps a healthy choice would be a chef salad with honey mustard dressing.
As I sipped my tea, I suddenly realized that apart from the waitress that had served it, there had been someone who took the time to brew the tea. Someone else had purchased the ice machine that had been manufactured by any number of people and transported and sold and installed by someone…likely a local plumber. As I enjoyed the cool tea, I realized the cup had been produced from plastics that had required oil for their manufacturing and linked me to a host of people who had explored, drilled, pumped and distilled those products to make them usable for the manufacturing process that involved numbers of other people, exclusive of those who transported the oil and the finished products from manufacturer to end user. Someone worked in a warehouse counting and stacking and shipping the cups to the place where I was eating. And that was just for the cup and ice.
I then remembered that the process of tea growing was a laborious one. The tiny tea leaves that were used to make my tea were grown in a distant land. The leaves were carefully picked at the right time and gathered laboriously and sold in a marketplace to resellers who enabled the products to be utilized over time by those who placed the tea in utilizable formats, teabags…for use in the brewing of my glass of iced tea. Don’t forget the paper that went into the bag or the cardboard that packaged the tea in the boxes that were placed together in larger corrugated containers for delivery. And I have only begun to drink a glass of unsweetened tea.
As I reflected on the food as it was brought to my table, I was thankful for its appearance. The salad greens, the cucumbers cubed, the hard boiled egg slices, the tomato pieces, the deli ham, the grilled chicken, the grated cheese. Before I had taken in the first bite, I remembered that if I was going to thank the people responsible for my lunch, I would have to thank a lettuce grower and all who worked for him…planting the seed, transplanting the plants, fertilizing the crop, weeding and spraying and watering, pickers who gathered, others who washed and crated, others who transported and sold and resellers who bought and distributors who took orders and resold. I would have to thank those who bought and delivered that fresh produce to the marketplace where my local food establishment purchased the lettuce.
I would need to thank an egg farmer…raising chickens newly hatched from a hatchery where eggs had been incubated for days, feeding and watering the chickens was one small part, but the veterinarians who provided antibiotics and supervision of chicken house environments, food inspectors and egg processors who evaluated the size and quality of eggs, the distributors who from gathering to selling carried on any number of processes to insure a rapid farm to market exchange of goods…I must thank all of them too.
The grated cheese in my salad involved a dairy farmer who fed his cows, had them cared for by a veterinarian, and whose milking operation was of necessity a carefully choreographed twice daily operation of milking and gathering, pasteurizing and cooling, separating and selling the components of the milk that would be used for cheese making. The cheese making process would involve a host of others engaged in that process, often involving extensive time, even months and years of aging, before the cheese might be ready for use in my salad. How many people looked after that cheese in the weeks of waiting for it to be ready? How many were responsible for the electricity that cooled the place where it was stored? How many were engaged in the shipping, selling and final distribution and labeling of that cheese for market? How many artists and salesmen and marketing personnel were involved in bringing that product to my lunch?
The tomato in my salad was fresh, and likely grown in a hothouse or in some other more favorable climate than ours. If it were field grown, it would have meant a laborious preparation of the field by the farmer, often utilizing a raised bed and often, an extensive use of plastic sheeting utilized in large commercial operations. Thank the oil producers again and the plastics manufacturers and all those who work for them. We can’t forget the providers of the fuel for the tractors and the semis that transport load after load of goods across the country. We should thank the nurseries that often start the seed and prepare seedlings to be transplanted at favorable times. The system of watering often uses elaborate irrigation systems, either drip or spray systems that use local deep wells or water from melted snowpack found in rivers corralled by dams to provide moisture over long seasons with little rain and electricity to go along with it through turbines turned when the water flows downstream. Did we thank those who built the dams and hydropower plants? Hothouse tomatoes, while often having a little less taste than fieldgrown, require a regular dose of energy and heat often provided by artificial lighting (did we think to mention those who manufacture the light bulbs) and large fan driven heat systems to maintain appropriate temperatures for growing (thanks to the HVAC people). Some of that electricity might have come from nuclear energy. These power plants require the proper and careful management of fissionable materials. The elaborate systems needed to maintain such facilities requires enormous initial cost in building and continues to require ongoing attention for centuries due to residual radiation in spent fuel. Those guys will be working long after my lunch is over…I should thank them. The pickers, the craters, the shippers again bring that load of tomatoes my way to be used by the local restaurateur.
The same again applies to my cucumber. As I dipped my chicken into the honey mustard sauce I realized a whole other group of people to thank. Those who live next to a chicken house know the price of growing those birds. There is the heat and labor of feeding, inoculating, watering, cleaning, catching, crating, shipping live chickens to the processor…then comes the killing, defeathering, washing and cutting into those most frequently used types and sizes for regular commercial use. My deboned and chunked portions would have required any number of individuals to be a part of the process before the meat was sold fresh or flash frozen for storage or shipping.
The chunks of deli ham were delicious. I couldn’t tell if they had come from ham that was fresh sliced or perhaps smoked beforehand. But I’m getting well ahead of myself. I remember feeding pigs on my granddaddy’s farm. It was a daily duty. Today’s producers use more efficient operations, but the requirements are many….from piglets to full grown pigs, usually necessitates a level of constant oversight. Pigs can’t take the heat. Cooling is often required in the form of watercooled areas or temperature-controlled environments. Pigs require frequent feeding as they grow steadily. Again the trucking requirements to move the pigs from farm to processor are critical to the process. The meat packing plant that handled the meat from hoof to deli ready meat required butchers and cooks, packagers and shippers again. Along the way, food inspectors qualified the processors and evaluated the quality and safety of the food production. I should thank them all.
I thought I had it about wrapped up when I realized I was sitting at a table made by a furniture manufacturer using wood cut from a forest, shipped by a trucker, cut by a saw mill, dried by a wood drying operation, planed, glued and finished by a series of processes made possible by another host of people.
And I haven’t even gotten to my honey mustard sauce…someone gathered the honey. Someone produced the mustard plants. Someone harvested and prepared vegetable oils and spices and other ingredients. Who added salt? That made for another group of people working to make my dinner. Did I forget someone else? I had salad crackers with my salad. A bakery made them, from ingredients that would start this conversation all over again. Wheat was grown, harvested, taken to a granary, later to a mill, ground, made into flour. Corn syrup made from a corn crop was used to supply the sweetness. The preservatives were added to retain shelf life. The plastics wrapped the crackers. Cardboard wrapped the goods. Shippers transported…again.
The hands and lives of people who labored to make my lunch possible begins to sound like a whole city of people making contributions to me indirectly, but for me to have that meal…each one was necessary. I am thankful for them, but then understand…I have no doubt left out a host of others. My check came. I used a ten dollar bill to pay. Someone made the pen used to write the check, dozens of people made the paper to prepare the pad for orders, a multitude of workers at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and the pressmen and printers, and press engineers and maintenance workers made possible the distribution of funds to the Federal Reserve and then to local banks and to the teller who handed me the bill when I last cashed my paycheck. I should thank them too, along with all those who made my salary possible.
I finished my meal, but as I stood to leave, I remembered that while I began the meal thanking God for the food, I was leaving the meal thanking God for all the people.
The meal was good. The food was nourishing and pleasant to the eye. The service was kind and attentive. The experience of remembering what it took for my lunch to be made possible reminded me that every part of our lives is such a miracle of relationships as we are bound together in countless, important, but often forgotten ways.
Thank you God for each and everyone whose life has touched me in this hour.
Bless them with the knowledge of your love and with thankfulness for all your blessings. AMEN
I decided to think thoughtfully about my lunch today and I came to the conclusion very quickly that I have too often thought too little about what exactly it took for me to sit down and enjoy the meal that I just partook of.
Today I had lunch in a local eatery. I ordered an unsweetened tea and then perused the menu long enough to decide that perhaps a healthy choice would be a chef salad with honey mustard dressing.
As I sipped my tea, I suddenly realized that apart from the waitress that had served it, there had been someone who took the time to brew the tea. Someone else had purchased the ice machine that had been manufactured by any number of people and transported and sold and installed by someone…likely a local plumber. As I enjoyed the cool tea, I realized the cup had been produced from plastics that had required oil for their manufacturing and linked me to a host of people who had explored, drilled, pumped and distilled those products to make them usable for the manufacturing process that involved numbers of other people, exclusive of those who transported the oil and the finished products from manufacturer to end user. Someone worked in a warehouse counting and stacking and shipping the cups to the place where I was eating. And that was just for the cup and ice.
I then remembered that the process of tea growing was a laborious one. The tiny tea leaves that were used to make my tea were grown in a distant land. The leaves were carefully picked at the right time and gathered laboriously and sold in a marketplace to resellers who enabled the products to be utilized over time by those who placed the tea in utilizable formats, teabags…for use in the brewing of my glass of iced tea. Don’t forget the paper that went into the bag or the cardboard that packaged the tea in the boxes that were placed together in larger corrugated containers for delivery. And I have only begun to drink a glass of unsweetened tea.
As I reflected on the food as it was brought to my table, I was thankful for its appearance. The salad greens, the cucumbers cubed, the hard boiled egg slices, the tomato pieces, the deli ham, the grilled chicken, the grated cheese. Before I had taken in the first bite, I remembered that if I was going to thank the people responsible for my lunch, I would have to thank a lettuce grower and all who worked for him…planting the seed, transplanting the plants, fertilizing the crop, weeding and spraying and watering, pickers who gathered, others who washed and crated, others who transported and sold and resellers who bought and distributors who took orders and resold. I would have to thank those who bought and delivered that fresh produce to the marketplace where my local food establishment purchased the lettuce.
I would need to thank an egg farmer…raising chickens newly hatched from a hatchery where eggs had been incubated for days, feeding and watering the chickens was one small part, but the veterinarians who provided antibiotics and supervision of chicken house environments, food inspectors and egg processors who evaluated the size and quality of eggs, the distributors who from gathering to selling carried on any number of processes to insure a rapid farm to market exchange of goods…I must thank all of them too.
The grated cheese in my salad involved a dairy farmer who fed his cows, had them cared for by a veterinarian, and whose milking operation was of necessity a carefully choreographed twice daily operation of milking and gathering, pasteurizing and cooling, separating and selling the components of the milk that would be used for cheese making. The cheese making process would involve a host of others engaged in that process, often involving extensive time, even months and years of aging, before the cheese might be ready for use in my salad. How many people looked after that cheese in the weeks of waiting for it to be ready? How many were responsible for the electricity that cooled the place where it was stored? How many were engaged in the shipping, selling and final distribution and labeling of that cheese for market? How many artists and salesmen and marketing personnel were involved in bringing that product to my lunch?
The tomato in my salad was fresh, and likely grown in a hothouse or in some other more favorable climate than ours. If it were field grown, it would have meant a laborious preparation of the field by the farmer, often utilizing a raised bed and often, an extensive use of plastic sheeting utilized in large commercial operations. Thank the oil producers again and the plastics manufacturers and all those who work for them. We can’t forget the providers of the fuel for the tractors and the semis that transport load after load of goods across the country. We should thank the nurseries that often start the seed and prepare seedlings to be transplanted at favorable times. The system of watering often uses elaborate irrigation systems, either drip or spray systems that use local deep wells or water from melted snowpack found in rivers corralled by dams to provide moisture over long seasons with little rain and electricity to go along with it through turbines turned when the water flows downstream. Did we thank those who built the dams and hydropower plants? Hothouse tomatoes, while often having a little less taste than fieldgrown, require a regular dose of energy and heat often provided by artificial lighting (did we think to mention those who manufacture the light bulbs) and large fan driven heat systems to maintain appropriate temperatures for growing (thanks to the HVAC people). Some of that electricity might have come from nuclear energy. These power plants require the proper and careful management of fissionable materials. The elaborate systems needed to maintain such facilities requires enormous initial cost in building and continues to require ongoing attention for centuries due to residual radiation in spent fuel. Those guys will be working long after my lunch is over…I should thank them. The pickers, the craters, the shippers again bring that load of tomatoes my way to be used by the local restaurateur.
The same again applies to my cucumber. As I dipped my chicken into the honey mustard sauce I realized a whole other group of people to thank. Those who live next to a chicken house know the price of growing those birds. There is the heat and labor of feeding, inoculating, watering, cleaning, catching, crating, shipping live chickens to the processor…then comes the killing, defeathering, washing and cutting into those most frequently used types and sizes for regular commercial use. My deboned and chunked portions would have required any number of individuals to be a part of the process before the meat was sold fresh or flash frozen for storage or shipping.
The chunks of deli ham were delicious. I couldn’t tell if they had come from ham that was fresh sliced or perhaps smoked beforehand. But I’m getting well ahead of myself. I remember feeding pigs on my granddaddy’s farm. It was a daily duty. Today’s producers use more efficient operations, but the requirements are many….from piglets to full grown pigs, usually necessitates a level of constant oversight. Pigs can’t take the heat. Cooling is often required in the form of watercooled areas or temperature-controlled environments. Pigs require frequent feeding as they grow steadily. Again the trucking requirements to move the pigs from farm to processor are critical to the process. The meat packing plant that handled the meat from hoof to deli ready meat required butchers and cooks, packagers and shippers again. Along the way, food inspectors qualified the processors and evaluated the quality and safety of the food production. I should thank them all.
I thought I had it about wrapped up when I realized I was sitting at a table made by a furniture manufacturer using wood cut from a forest, shipped by a trucker, cut by a saw mill, dried by a wood drying operation, planed, glued and finished by a series of processes made possible by another host of people.
And I haven’t even gotten to my honey mustard sauce…someone gathered the honey. Someone produced the mustard plants. Someone harvested and prepared vegetable oils and spices and other ingredients. Who added salt? That made for another group of people working to make my dinner. Did I forget someone else? I had salad crackers with my salad. A bakery made them, from ingredients that would start this conversation all over again. Wheat was grown, harvested, taken to a granary, later to a mill, ground, made into flour. Corn syrup made from a corn crop was used to supply the sweetness. The preservatives were added to retain shelf life. The plastics wrapped the crackers. Cardboard wrapped the goods. Shippers transported…again.
The hands and lives of people who labored to make my lunch possible begins to sound like a whole city of people making contributions to me indirectly, but for me to have that meal…each one was necessary. I am thankful for them, but then understand…I have no doubt left out a host of others. My check came. I used a ten dollar bill to pay. Someone made the pen used to write the check, dozens of people made the paper to prepare the pad for orders, a multitude of workers at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and the pressmen and printers, and press engineers and maintenance workers made possible the distribution of funds to the Federal Reserve and then to local banks and to the teller who handed me the bill when I last cashed my paycheck. I should thank them too, along with all those who made my salary possible.
I finished my meal, but as I stood to leave, I remembered that while I began the meal thanking God for the food, I was leaving the meal thanking God for all the people.
The meal was good. The food was nourishing and pleasant to the eye. The service was kind and attentive. The experience of remembering what it took for my lunch to be made possible reminded me that every part of our lives is such a miracle of relationships as we are bound together in countless, important, but often forgotten ways.
Thank you God for each and everyone whose life has touched me in this hour.
Bless them with the knowledge of your love and with thankfulness for all your blessings. AMEN
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Case for Naked Truth
Allusion is that method of presenting thoughts or ideas or meaning through indirect methods. A person may allude to their faith yet never state it. People may allude to a commitment to being a follower of Christ but never clearly or directly identify themselves. Indirect preaching has been popularized as “surprising” the hearer with understanding at some point when it more or less “sneaks” in through allusive techniques of presentation and does not require the speaker to be confrontational or direct so as to avoid defensiveness on the part of the hearer. Allusion is a backdoor approach to relating or teaching.
I think it is true that some people are defensive at times when it comes to directness. Mostly they are just offended that someone would be so bold as to confront them about aspects of life that might require their reconsideration or rethinking. As I read the gospels, I am repeatedly confronted with the nature of Jesus’ message as not being a “backdoor approach.” Jesus taught with parables, but not to be indirect…but rather quite the opposite. Jesus offers us direct, forthright, bold, and, yes-- an unsettling declaration of God’s word to each of us. The naked truth…we are sinners in need of repentance and faith and God has sent his Son to save us as we trust in Him.
Delusion is the act or process of creating a false belief in spite of invalidating evidence. It is deception. It is quite popular. Athletes have recently taken to delusion as a means to “con the referee.” Faking being fouled, faking being hit by a ball, faking an extra yard by moving the ball while under the pile --- all are deceptive acts meant to create an advantage through a lie. Too much of the time, we see people in our world “working the crowd” and “playing the audience” with deceptive statements and something less than the truth. Half-truths are always easy to “sell” -- people are gullible and easily deceived.
The scriptures remind us that false teachers are a danger and ignorance is too often the greatest enemy in the room as we seek to learn about God in settings that we trust, but which may not be free of misinformation or misunderstanding. Delusion is a danger to those who are less than discerning in their spiritual journey. God does not play games with us. God does not hide from us. God does not seek to delude us into thinking he is something he is not. God is truth made known again and again to us in the walk, the works, and the life of Jesus Christ. We are not called to change his message or to “trick” anyone into believing. Jesus is the Son of God , the Savior, who died on a cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He rose from the dead, destroying the power of sin and death over those who trust in Him as Savior and Lord. He calls us to believe. He calls us to follow Him. The naked truth…Jesus saves.
Illusion is a false impression frequently based on wishful thinking. Illusion is a methodology incorporated by some to entertain, but the illusion often is matched by a distraction from the truth…a misdirection of our attention. While sometimes entertaining, it goes to the point that we are easily mislead. If efforts are made to create illusions, rather than realities, everyone suffers. God did not create a world of illusions. He created a universe of magnificence for humankind to comprehend as the work of God.
He created us with capacities for exercising creativity and having understanding and living in relationship to Him. God does not invite us to be a party to share a ”false impression” but to come to the truth of our need and his provision for that need.
The naked truth….we are sinners in need of God’s grace.
We live in a world that too often uses allusion, delusion, and illusion to sidestep the realities, the truth, and the life God calls us to know in Jesus Christ. Whether we accept Christ or not, the naked truth is God isn’t playing tricks. God isn’t hiding. God isn’t pulling the wool over your eyes. God isn’t out to deceive you into being a Jesus follower.
Truth - “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
John 3:16-17 KJV
I think it is true that some people are defensive at times when it comes to directness. Mostly they are just offended that someone would be so bold as to confront them about aspects of life that might require their reconsideration or rethinking. As I read the gospels, I am repeatedly confronted with the nature of Jesus’ message as not being a “backdoor approach.” Jesus taught with parables, but not to be indirect…but rather quite the opposite. Jesus offers us direct, forthright, bold, and, yes-- an unsettling declaration of God’s word to each of us. The naked truth…we are sinners in need of repentance and faith and God has sent his Son to save us as we trust in Him.
Delusion is the act or process of creating a false belief in spite of invalidating evidence. It is deception. It is quite popular. Athletes have recently taken to delusion as a means to “con the referee.” Faking being fouled, faking being hit by a ball, faking an extra yard by moving the ball while under the pile --- all are deceptive acts meant to create an advantage through a lie. Too much of the time, we see people in our world “working the crowd” and “playing the audience” with deceptive statements and something less than the truth. Half-truths are always easy to “sell” -- people are gullible and easily deceived.
The scriptures remind us that false teachers are a danger and ignorance is too often the greatest enemy in the room as we seek to learn about God in settings that we trust, but which may not be free of misinformation or misunderstanding. Delusion is a danger to those who are less than discerning in their spiritual journey. God does not play games with us. God does not hide from us. God does not seek to delude us into thinking he is something he is not. God is truth made known again and again to us in the walk, the works, and the life of Jesus Christ. We are not called to change his message or to “trick” anyone into believing. Jesus is the Son of God , the Savior, who died on a cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He rose from the dead, destroying the power of sin and death over those who trust in Him as Savior and Lord. He calls us to believe. He calls us to follow Him. The naked truth…Jesus saves.
Illusion is a false impression frequently based on wishful thinking. Illusion is a methodology incorporated by some to entertain, but the illusion often is matched by a distraction from the truth…a misdirection of our attention. While sometimes entertaining, it goes to the point that we are easily mislead. If efforts are made to create illusions, rather than realities, everyone suffers. God did not create a world of illusions. He created a universe of magnificence for humankind to comprehend as the work of God.
He created us with capacities for exercising creativity and having understanding and living in relationship to Him. God does not invite us to be a party to share a ”false impression” but to come to the truth of our need and his provision for that need.
The naked truth….we are sinners in need of God’s grace.
We live in a world that too often uses allusion, delusion, and illusion to sidestep the realities, the truth, and the life God calls us to know in Jesus Christ. Whether we accept Christ or not, the naked truth is God isn’t playing tricks. God isn’t hiding. God isn’t pulling the wool over your eyes. God isn’t out to deceive you into being a Jesus follower.
Truth - “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
John 3:16-17 KJV
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Emotional Marketplace
Every day in the business world, we see a constantly changing wave of emotion being represented by the moods and attitudes of people responding to the things they are hearing, seeing, and feeling. The kinds of emotions that we attach to our “security” regarding our means of livelihood or our fears about not having sufficient means for our desires leads to a multiplicity of responses depending upon the moment and the circumstances. The pendulum of extremes often comes into play when many others join us in having the same emotions at the same time. Intensity of emotion will do more to depress or inflate the marketplace responses of people over many other more practical and measurable factors.
When we hear about an executive of a large corporation with substantive name recognition having a personal crisis…the stock price of that corporation often declines.
News on the street has a way of suggesting that some factor may reduce the abilities of that corporation to act in a consistent and positive manner.
When the government acts to restrain or support credit opportunities, speculators on both sides of banking begin to swing their responses in favor of or in opposition to such actions. They “bank” their support by buying and selling bonds as an expression of their commitment to the future. They respond emotionally rather than technically.
In such matters as these, human emotion drives initial responses to extremes, followed by corrective actions, in light of what are recognized as overly acted upon emotions. Thinking usually follows strong emotional responses and often, additional actions are taken that reflect more measured calculation after a period of reflection.
Recognizing the emotional triggers that stimulate us and cause us to take extreme actions should remind us that our anxieties are often a product of our making. We upset ourselves because we fear and we want and we desire for ourselves in ways that essentially are unhealthy.
Jesus taught us that when we comprehend the true security of a life lived in a relationship of faith in Him, we are promised the means by which our needs will be met. What we fear often is our aloneness when we exercise an unwillingness to trust God and instead seek to make our way independently of God and his calling upon our lives. Such an existence is not the abundant life God has for his children. Such a life will be self-destructive and self-absorbed.
God has made himself known to us in His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Get to know
Him and you will find what is missing in your struggle to feel secure…to feel safe…to feel at home and at peace. In Christ we find the peace that so much of our world is at a loss to know. Share Christ …for the sake of the world that needs to know Him.
When we hear about an executive of a large corporation with substantive name recognition having a personal crisis…the stock price of that corporation often declines.
News on the street has a way of suggesting that some factor may reduce the abilities of that corporation to act in a consistent and positive manner.
When the government acts to restrain or support credit opportunities, speculators on both sides of banking begin to swing their responses in favor of or in opposition to such actions. They “bank” their support by buying and selling bonds as an expression of their commitment to the future. They respond emotionally rather than technically.
In such matters as these, human emotion drives initial responses to extremes, followed by corrective actions, in light of what are recognized as overly acted upon emotions. Thinking usually follows strong emotional responses and often, additional actions are taken that reflect more measured calculation after a period of reflection.
Recognizing the emotional triggers that stimulate us and cause us to take extreme actions should remind us that our anxieties are often a product of our making. We upset ourselves because we fear and we want and we desire for ourselves in ways that essentially are unhealthy.
Jesus taught us that when we comprehend the true security of a life lived in a relationship of faith in Him, we are promised the means by which our needs will be met. What we fear often is our aloneness when we exercise an unwillingness to trust God and instead seek to make our way independently of God and his calling upon our lives. Such an existence is not the abundant life God has for his children. Such a life will be self-destructive and self-absorbed.
God has made himself known to us in His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Get to know
Him and you will find what is missing in your struggle to feel secure…to feel safe…to feel at home and at peace. In Christ we find the peace that so much of our world is at a loss to know. Share Christ …for the sake of the world that needs to know Him.
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