Values

When I was writing these blogs earlier this year, I got to the twelfth one, and I wanted it to be bigger because it was the twelfth. So I wrote about the New Covenant. But I wasn’t happy with it. So I rewrote it, and I still wasn’t happy with it. So I rewrote it. And I realized that I wasn’t going to be happy with it, because it was preachy, and until I made it not preachy, I was going to be unhappy.

The last thing I want this to become is a platform for anything.

But a lot of talk has been going on about standing up for Christian Values, and without getting into anything too specific, I want to say this:

Jesus gave us two commandments. Love God with all your heart and all your might, and Love each other. So anything you do, in the name of the Lord, needs to be rooted in love.

Judging others, excluding people you don’t approve of, those don’t sound like loving things to me.

And you’re certainly not going to bring anyone to Christ by excluding them.

If you have loved me, you will keep my commandments. John 14:15

When we are defining our Christian Values, we need to be sure that we are not choosing a position first and then trying to back it up with Bible. We need to be sure that the voice that is moving us is the Voice of the Lord, and not the voice we want to hear.

We should also remember that at one time in this country, good Christian people forbade interracial marriage, and they used Bible verses to support. We should remember that there were good Christian white men in this country who tried to exterminate the Native Americans, and they used the Bible to justify that.

 In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines. Matthew 15:9

Paul talks about doing things to honor God. He talks specifically about vegetarians, and he says those of us who don‘t believe in being a vegetarian should respect people who do if they are doing so to honor God. And you could make the argument from that that if someone says Well, I am not hiring certain people because I am honoring God, then we have to respect that. And that would be a reasonable argument.

Except, I believe, Jesus’ commandment to love each other should supersede that, and excluding people is not loving them.



And one more thought:

Where would Jesus be if He were here today?

Ministering at a homeless shelter or an AIDS hospice. Breaking loaves and fishes for neglected children. Talking peace and love to gang members.

Any chance He’d be eating chicken at a rich guy’s house?

Nah.

One Day the Pieces Fit

I do jigsaw puzzles. I admit it, I’m a nerd.

And I swear every time I open a puzzle, there is one piece that I am certain does not belong in this puzzle. I have this elaborate picture in my mind of someone walking through the puzzle factory and finding a piece lying on the ground. They pick it up and drop it into the closest puzzle box on the conveyor belt, but of course, it doesn’t go in that puzzle, and I have it. And then I work some more and I realize that that isn’t a man’s hat, it’s the front of this car right here.

Sometimes, the Bible is like that puzzle piece. You read a verse or you hear a story, and it just doesn’t make sense, and then one day, you hear it again, and you go, Oh, yeah.

We had left Hot Springs and gone back to Lone Star even though we didn’t have jobs lined up at Lone Star because we wanted to be near our families. We found jobs but they weren’t good jobs, and they didn’t pay much, and then, as I mentioned before, I got hurt.

I never handle being unemployed well. Not having money is hard enough, not being able to contribute to the family, and the boredom does me in. This time it was even worse. It’s amazing how much you can’t do without your right middle finger. I couldn’t even wash dishes. I wasn’t only bored, I felt completely useless.

On top of all that, there was something wrong with my car, and when I had money, I couldn’t find a mechanic who could figure it out. Now I didn’t have any money, and the car was just getting worse and worse and now I had to drive to Dallas for weekly visits to the doctor. And I hate driving a car when I’m not altogether sure it’s going to arrive at our destination.

I was not handling the whole situation well. I wasn’t sleeping, I was short tempered and grumpy. I was not being the person I wanted to be.

I did make it to Chapel a few times before the money ran out, and one week Chaplain Sam talked about the story of Caleb and Joshua and the Land of Canaan (Numbers Chap 13 & 14). If I had heard this story before, it had been a long time, and I’m sure I never sat down and examined it. Chaplain Sam’s main point was that we need to be brave and step up and take the things that God offers us.

But I saw something else. This seems to happen to me a lot. I looked at the statement We can’t go over there, there are Giants there.

God knew about the grapes so heavy they had to be carried on a pole. He knew about the pomegranates and the figs. But He also knew, when He told them He was giving them this land, that there was Giants there. He knew about the Giants, and He knew they could take the land anyway.

So when I’m feeling really discouraged, thinking things like maybe I don’t belong in horse racing. Maybe I am too old, too weak, too female, I have to remember that God knew all of this about me when He led me there. He knew about the Giants I would be meeting along the way, and He led me here anyway.

When Paul was going about doing good, some people got so wrapped up in his healing that they started taking things, like the rags he wiped his face with and using these to perform miracles of their own. There were seven priest brothers who were particularly well known for it.

One day they were asked to knock the demons out of a guy, and they were doing their act, and the demon came out and said “I know God, and I’m acquainted with Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:11-15)

When I heard that the other day, in Bible Study, I almost slapped the table. But I thought it would disturb the others so I restrained myself. The Chaplain wanted to talk about using items like magic, but what I heard was Who are you?

If you don’t have a personal relationship with God, you can wave all the magic rags in the world. You can sing the songs and say the words and shake the hands and do all the right things. But if the heart is not there, if God is not directing your path, if God doesn’t know your personally, there is no act you can perform that will mean a thing.

Do not be afraid. Just believe. Mark 5:36 [God's Word]

"For Best Results..."

Elijah and one of his pupils were on a journey. They would have to walk three days to reach their destination.

The first night they stopped at the home of a poor man and asked if they could stay in his barn for the night. The man said “Oh no, come and make a bed by the fire in my house.” He and his wife showed them great kindness, shared their dinner and made sure they had everything they needed to be comfortable for the night.

In the morning, when they rose, they found the man and his wife quite distraught. Their only milk cow had died during the night. This cow has been an excellent producer and provided them with not only milk for their own needs, but enough to sell and trade.

As Elijah and his pupil left the house, Elijah said “God is so good, He’s so good,” and the pupil said, “How can you say that? They lost their cow. They need that cow.”

“Ah,” said Elijah, “But the Angel of Death who visited the house last night was supposed to take the wife. But because they were kind to us, he only took the cow.”

The next night they stopped for the night at a rich man’s house. They asked if they could stay in a barn or outbuilding, but the rich man sent his foreman to say that they were not allowed in any of the buildings. He said they could camp by a wall that had fallen down.

When they went to the place he indicated, they found a bunch of trees waiting to be planted. The gardener came by and said that he was going to plant them by the broken wall, but he had men come and move them away, and he would plant them further down.

In the morning when they rose, cold and hungry, they heard a great hubbub. The gardener had started digging holes for the trees and found a chest of silver coins and golden goblets. The rich man came out and declared the treasure was his and took it away.

When they were back on the road, Elijah said “Oh, God is so just. He’s so just.” And the pupil said “How can you say that? The poor man loses his cow, and the rich man who was rude to us gets more treasure.”

“Ah,” said Elijah, “But if the gardener had planted the trees in the place where we camped, he would have found a bigger treasure. A chest of gold coins and jewels.”

I was recently injured. Nothing serious, but enough that I got to ride in an ambulance, racked up $6,000 in medical bills and I couldn’t work. Things got difficult for us, but they were never intolerable. We were staying with my mother, and I felt bad because we could not contribute anything to her household, but we had a place to stay, and we made enough to get by. A friend paid me a little to tutor his pre-schooler, which more important than the money, allowed me to spend time with a little person I really love and kept me somewhat occupied.

I thought about this story of Elijah many times. Because I try to place myself in the Lord’s hands, I did not mourn my fate, did not question why me, why this, why now. I knew that because the Lord watches out for me, the outcome could have been much worse.

Maybe my small injury protected someone else from a larger injury. Or maybe the Lord just wanted me out of the barn, out of that situation and knowing me, He knew that I wouldn’t give up until I was forced out.

But because I put myself in the Lord’s hands, I know that whatever the reason, it was for my own good. It was the right thing.



Here’s a more concrete example.

We wanted to buy an RV. Found the perfect one for a reasonable price, and we had money to put down. At the time, I was working at a desk job, but we knew it would be ending, and I would be going back to horseracing. So an RV would be a perfect home for us.

So I was doing the whole Speak as if it were Already True Thing. Going forward in faith that the RV was already ours.

And we didn’t get the RV. A problem with my credit. No RV.

It was like a door slammed in my face. I didn’t know what to do, how to go forward.

And then a few weeks later, I got laid off, sooner than we thought it was going to happen. And I did go back to horseracing, but I worked four weeks for a woman who never paid me and it took more than a month after that to find another job.

So if we had gotten the RV, we wouldn’t have been able to pay for it right off the bat. We wound up needing the money we had for the down payment.

I am not one of those people who say that everything happens for a reason or that things always work out for the best. There are lots of people who can truthfully say that their story did not work out for the best. But I do believe that if you put yourself in the Lord’s hands and you make choices based on your beliefs and with faith, then the results, whatever they are, are the best results.

For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7