Wednesday, October 19, 2016

endurance and hope

by Alanna


"Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God's love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us "


  I had been praying with a friend lately about marriages. Those that seem to be doing well and those that are falling apart or have already chosen divorce. I read these verses around the same time and it made me think about the way we try to escape suffering. Maybe it's a terrible spouse who treats us badly. Maybe it's disease. Maybe it's depression that we can't shake or a bad relationship with a sibling or a church who is broken. Mostly we want to get away from suffering, and will often take the quickest path possible to escape it. And then we feel hopeless. Things will never change. I never noticed this connection that God makes though- suffering producing endurance producing character producing hope. Suffering leading to hope! But only if we choose to endure (and yes, I think that sometimes enduring is a choice if escaping is an option). This is not to say that we should not take medicine or try to make relationships better and stronger.  But I do think we should have in mind to endure. Because I believe that God planned for His people to suffer. And I long for our suffering to produce the fruit of hope.  I want to change my first reaction to suffering. To stop asking God immediately for it to end. But rather to ask Him to grant me endurance, build my character, and produce in me hope. Hope in the midst of suffering is a beautiful thing. Especially hope that does not put us to shame! 

Monday, October 3, 2016

Who's side?

By Mary

It seems like these days, everyone is in such a hurry to gobble up information on a current event, pick who's right and who's wrong and then spew out that opinion whenever possible and argue it till they're blue in the face. 

And I admit, it can be tempting, at least the part about fact gathering and deciding where I stand on something. I'm not saying it's entirely unhealthy. But it does seem like we're almost desperate to figure out what should have happened in a given instance. We want to analyze and say, there! that's who was wrong here, this is what could have prevented that tragedy there, and boy if everybody would just see it the way I do, we wouldn't have this kind of problem anymore. If it had been me, it would have been ok. Because I can see clear as day that the problem is__. Racism. Lack of respect for authority. Bad parenting. Neglect. Sexism. Broken families. Abuse. Entitlement. If people would do as I do, it would all be taken care of. Under control.

Except it's just not true.

Being better educated and making better choices will not bring life under our sphere of control. Not even if we get everyone else on the same page as us. We will not be fully capable of keeping bad things from happening to our children, protect the innocent, or do away with ugly prejudices.

And the thing is, the problem is not kids growing up without a dad, not racism, not lack of discipline. That's all just the symptoms of a sin-sick world. Patching it up, even with something like "love one another" or "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" or "submit yourselves to authorities" will still fail to take away the sin. It's people's hearts that need the transformation, not just their actions.

And that goes for our hearts, the ones that have trusted and believed and been bought with a price. Our hearts need to be transforming and not conforming. We need to remember our own fallibility before we start sifting through often conflicting stories and picking apart the actions of others to find out who's right and who's wrong.

It's not that right and wrong are usually so difficult to determine...it's just that more than likely in any given instance, a person is going to be both. To some degree, they're probably right and wrong at the same time. You can even be right the wrong way, which makes it even stickier. Extremely rarely am I ever correcting one of my children without also needing to address the behavior of the other. And more and more I'm realizing that God has probably seen that to be the case for me as well in my interactions with family, friends, strangers. 

It brings to mind the lyric from Beauty and the Beast "Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong." Sometimes the thing I've been doing forever with perfect ease of conscience is the very thing that suddenly is so glaringly wrong.

And so I think it's very likely that I (and those around me) would be better off if I didn't have the perfect argument for the perfect opinion on every hot button issue but rather decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. When it comes to choosing sides, I want to remember Joshua 5:13-14--

"Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” "

Let's choose God's side.