I have been a little overwhelmed lately with dentist appointments, running errands and other such nonsense and am finally having a chance on this rainy, fall day to do some writing. Studying Scripture, writing and gardening mend my soul and fuel my day like nothing else. [Deep breath!]
I've had a lot of "Oh...I want to write about that" moments recently so I may inundate you with posts over the next few days. Here is the first.
In an entry for last week's Common Prayer, I read the following quote by the American abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Hear me on this...although many people I know would have recently voted to overthrow the government during the partial shutdown...I am not advocating any such action by posting these words! Rather, when I read the quote I was struck at the beauty and simplicity with which Douglass is describing my faith Journey. I believe it speaks to the lives of most Christians I know too.
How many times has something bad happened (a death, natural disaster, disease, job loss) and we verbalize something along the lines of "Why is God doing this to me?" We look for where we went wrong and we yell at Him for exacting revenge upon us and we pout, dig in our heels and refuse to believe that a loving God would allow such an atrocity in our lives.
First, I do not believe there are many in the U.S. that really understand the depth of the word atrocity to the point that we have actually lived it. Second, what if we adopted a "Warfare Worldview" as Gregory Boyd discusses in his book Is God to Blame? Third, what if, as Beth Moore has been teaching in Believing God we really believed that
- God is who He says He is
- God can do what He says He can do
- I am who God says I am
- I can do all things through Christ, and
- God's Word is alive, active and living in me?
And lastly, just this morning, this beautiful quote came across my Twitter feed from Ann Voscamp
If I (and yes, we) could simply accept that there will be pain, there will be suffering, there will be disappointment, and there will be many battles along this Journey...then maybe we could quit looking for the reasons why and start looking for the progress that will come.
Even though for many years I have believed there is true spiritual warfare all around us, I have hesitated to embrace a philosophy that dwells upon it, because I do not want to look for demons around every corner. I do not like to think of people being used as tools of my Enemy. But if there is a war going on and I desire to be in God's Army, it is simply a fact that there will be those who choose to live in the Enemy's camp.
I'm still not going to be looking for demons, but as I become more Kingdom-minded, my prayer is that in recognizing the battle while it's taking place, I will find the grace to love the one (or the many) that are blinded as to whom they're really working for.
'Progress is found in the struggle.' Grace is the victory when I look to my General and take up my shield.
"In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." (Ephesians 6:16, NIV)
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