Why does it hurt, Lord? part 1

Tags

"The Problem of Pain", “Love Letter”, Christianity, church, goodness, hurt, LONELINESS, Love of God, pain, reality, sickness, trials, tribultions

Why does it hurt, Lord?

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to.
God whispers to us in our pleasures,
speaks in our conscience,
but shouts in our pains:
it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

I had an interview a couple weeks ago, and the interviewer told me he was a Christian. We talked a bit, and he said his 6 yr old grandson had just been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. He was struggling with this. He said the child asked him why God was mad at him. He was actually asking my opinion.

So, I carefully asked a few foundational questions concerning the Nature of GOD:

1. Is GOD sovereign?
2. Does GOD love each of us equally?

If GOD is Sovereign …

The concept of GOD’s sovereignty rests on His nature as Creator. If He designed and created all things, then He ought to have “sovereign” control in the design and functionality of all He created. Isn’t that the “fair” thing? Whatever we create, we expect to “control,” yes?

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, 6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. ~ Jeremiah 18: 5-6

If GOD is sovereign, He can rightfully do with each of us as He pleases. It is really that simple. So then, the companion question revolves around the perfect Love of GOD.

Does GOD love each of us equally?

Romans 5: 6-8
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4: 9-10
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

There are many more parts of the Bible that talk about, define, and express the boundless unconditional Love of God freely given to you and me. In fact, honestly the entire Bible is one giant “Love Letter” explaining how deep, how wide, how high, and how limitless GOD’S LOVE is for us. He created us for His pleasure, to have an open friendship with Him. To apprehend that the Creator of the Universe desires an intimate friendship with us, with each of us, as David says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.” (Ps 139:6)

“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word “love”, and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. “Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest “well pleased”.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain, by C. S. Lewis, takes a deeper look at the difficulty so many Believers, and the Church at large, have with the reality of PAIN. Sometime in the last century, the Western Church adopted a wrong mentality in the belief that becoming a Christian meant suddenly that all pain and difficulty would be removed from our lives. To accept that belief is to deny reality AND the ability of GOD to walk us through pain.

In fact,Jesus promises us pain … tribulation, affliction, difficulty – whatever word fits your situation or mine.

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace.
In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” ~ John 16: 33

Why would Jesus bother to say this if He planned to remove all our pain?

Pain is a part of the human condition, and it is here to stay. Going back to the statement the interviewer’s grandson made, the fact that this child has diabetes is not an indication of GOD’s wrath or disapproval. Nor is it a curse, a punishment, or just for fun.

I don’t pretend to understand why beautiful, loving people are stricken with cancer or helpless children become victims of abuse. This much I do know: GOD loves endlessly, so I have to trust that GOD, in His sovereignty, has a GOOD purpose even in those events or situations that seem irredeemable because GOD is good and He cannot move against his nature.

James 1 starts with this admonition:

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James tells us that our “trials” have divine purpose, and that purpose involves growing something in us of Christ, that we “lack nothing!” So we’re encouraged to “count is all JOY!” Elsewhere, we’re told to “In everything, give thanks!”

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Psalm 136: 1-2

It’s all a matter of perspective.

We can choose to sit around and bemoan the imperfections of our life, the apparent areas of lack, the unanswered prayers, or

We can do as the Psalmist does in this Psalm, and rehearse the GOODNESS of GOD, and give thanks for GOD’s faithfulness to us, especially in the dark places.

Seeking perfection in this life will only bring us disappointment and despair, while rehearsing GOD’s GOODNESS will enable us to savor richness of this life.

The facts remain. GOD will never leave you no matter what happens. His love for you and I doesn’t hinge on our behavior, our attitude, or our faith! GOD chooses to love us … each of us. He gave us hundreds of promises and He is not able to lie because He IS Truth. He is not able to break His promises because His name is “Faithful and True!”

“There is no security is what God is doing. There is only security is who God is!” ~ Graham Cooke”
Graham Cooke

Related: 12 Things To Thank God For In The Midst Of Affliction

Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution

Tags

Africa, American Church, call to prayer, Christian Persecution, Christianity, church, conviction, devotion, islam, Jihad, martyrs, middle-east, suffering, Syria, torture

Will YOU pray?

Confirmed:
U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution
Special Bulletin

By Raymond Ibrahim

Prominent indicators confirm that the U.S. is the chief facilitator of the persecution of Christians around the world today.

According to the recently released 2014 World Watch List, which ranks the 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted, Syria is the third worst nation in the world in which to be Christian, Iraq is fourth, Afghanistan fifth, and Libya 13th. All four countries receive the strongest designation, “extreme persecution” (other designations are “severe,” “moderate,” and “sparse” persecution).

Aside from being so closely and harshly ranked, these four nations have something else in common: heavy U.S. involvement. Three-Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya-were “liberated” thanks to U.S. forces, while in the fourth, Syria, the U.S. is actively sponsoring “freedom fighters” against the regime, many of whom would be better labeled “terrorists.”

The Syrian situation alone indicts U.S. foreign policy. According to Reuters:

“Open Doors, a non-denominational group supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, said on Wednesday it had documented 2,123 “martyr” killings, compared with 1,201 in 2012. There were 1,213 such deaths in Syria alone last year, it said. “This is a very minimal count based on what has been reported in the media and we can confirm,” said Frans Veerman, head of research for Open Doors. Estimates by other Christian groups put the annual figure as high as 8,000.”

Read More

Will you pray?

It’s Not Complicated!!!

Tags

America, boundless love, extravagant love, Father's Love, fear, imperfections, love, not complicated, outrageously loved, shame, simple, sin, sinfulness, unconditional love

It really is simple! For thousands of years, men of education, and assumed intelligence, have sought to explain what is elementary enough for the youngest, most simple-minded among us to grasp. We complicate it with sophistication, assuming we can improve the experience of history: HIS-STORY! We complicate it with lofty knowledge’s elaborate words trying to impress … whom? God? or man?

From before Creation was spoken into existence until the time of His-story’s culmination, GOD is LOVE. That’s it! Every thought, every word, and every action of God is motivated, directed, and empowered by LOVE. Unconditional Love. A Perfect Father’s Love.

Problem: Burdened by inexplicable (and unaccepted in our society) guilt, we hate our Self. And because we hate our Self, we are unable to fully love any one or anything. We can’t give real love or receive it. We Fear instead. We fear alone-ness. We fear one another. We fear our differences. We fear our sin. We fear our Self. And we blame God.

Our imperfections, our sinfulness, cloud our understanding of God, of Love, so we distrust Him. This causes a separation resulting in loneliness, which is not about people, but about missing our closeness with Father God. In our loneliness, our vision (still clouded,) we see the brokenness and imperfections in others and feel repelled and rejected.

NEWSFLASH: GOD IS LOVE!!!!! Not just ambiguous, unfocused, vague, and random, but person, intimate, accepting and individual love. Every minute of every day, GOD is literally moving heaven and earth to LOVE YOU. He will not quit until your life’s last breath is gone.

Just a few of the hundreds of promises that are yours and mine!

What’s more … Every promise, every promise, every promise contained in His book … between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 is a personal promise for YOU (and me.) But to see these promises fulfilled, though some again make it complicated, the only requirement is that you RECEIVE them. Of course, to do that, you must first have some belief that God can and will actually come through.

From the beginning of time, God knew we would fall, we would not always do the right thing. God knew, and because He didn’t want us to be estranged from Him indefinitely, so He set up a plan to reconcile us. It meant sending Himself in human form, Jesus, to live as a sin-free man. This enabled Jesus to choose to pay the price of my sinfulness, suffer and die on the cross, then walk out of the tomb, conquering death. Why? because He loves us and wants to hang out with us. Everything he says, everything He does, and everything He speaks comes from that Love … Everything!!!! He wants to love us outrageously, lavishly, happily, boundlessly forever! It’s really that simple!

Ray Comfort: Here is a rule of thumb when reading the Bible: “With God, nothing shall be impossible.”

Now you can believe that seas can open, food can fall from the heavens, the sun can stop, whales swallow people, animals can fit on a boat, arks float, walls tumble, and fish can multiply. It’s really quite simple.

Nothing is impossible in your personal life. Nothing is impossible in your family. No thing is impossible in this nation, if we return to God, receive His love and pass it on to one another freely, as He commands! God can fix what is broken in America, but first, we have to ask Him!

Follow the Matrix of Liberty

Tags

America, character, Christianity, education, faith, Forefathers' Monument, Founders, freedom, justice, LAW, liberty, Matrix of Liberty, mercy, morality, Pilrims, Separatists, tyranny, youth

Matrix of Liberty: The Founders’ Monument

or
Where Do We Go From Here?

Unknown or unacknowledged by many, our forefathers erected a “Matrix of Liberty” for the purpose of documentation. It documents the road map they followed to win and establish LIBERTY in AMERICA. The monument has been there for decades, built with government funds, in the off chance We, the People would lose our way and allow the government to assume tyrannical power. Oops! Good thing, right? Yet, it is ignored.

Below, the matrix is explained. Each of the granite figures carries meanings like pieces of a puzzle. I have outlined each figure below, but the video completes the explanation. Please watch and be amazed!!!

FAITH
Meet FAITH! She is paramount! She is pointing upward toward the God of the Bible. FAITH in God is what brought the first Pilgrims, or Separatists, to Plymouth. Not the sour, pious stiffness we were told in school, but a LIVE FAITH that carried them through persecution and hardship as they broke free from tyranny.

MORLITY
Morality is internal liberty, and starts in the HEART of the individual. As we pursue our God in faith, He teaches us true fairness via internal morality of heart.

EVANGELIST
EVANGELISTS preach the message that transforms the heart. TRUE Freedom and Morality are products of FAITH in GOD and His Promises, the BIBLE, studied and taught to every person.

LAW
A MORAL SYSTEM translated from God’s Law into civil law, balanced by MERCY and JUSTICE, with Equality under the LAW for each individual.

EDUCATION
A Woman training her young children (YOUTH) according to heart-held principles and an honorable character, preparing the next generation to carry forward the “Matrix of Liberty!”

LIBERTY
LIBERTY is the result of following the “Matrix of Liberty!” LIBERTY is seated in Victory. He is holding the broken chains of the manacle of tyranny attached to his leg. He has slain the Lion Tyrant, yet bears the marks as a remembrance on his shoulder. Liberty has his foot on the chest of Tyranny, holding it down by following God’s principles only – no bloodshed! Strength based on Morality, overcoming evil with Goodness!

So much of what we were taught in school, and even more of what our children are being taught in school today is simply untrue based on historical documents still in existence. Notably, the first Bibles printed in the United States were funded by CONGRESS in 1782 for the use of our SCHOOLS – First public school law!!! Bibles were used in schools starting in 1647 through 1963 (which I remember!)

LEARN MORE … PLEASE WATCH VIDEO!!!!!

So … where do we go from here, America? Toward FAITH or TYRANNY?

Related reading: The Forefathers’ Monument Explained – VERY COOL!

♫ That’s Why I Pray ♫

Tags

America's Psychosis, bullying, call to prayer, faith, forgiveness, God, kindness, mass shootings, mental illness, prayer, second amendment

Oh oh oh oh, oh oh, yeah

Man on the TV’s gone insane, everybody’s just laughing
People ‘cross the world holding on
The earth caved in, the ocean came down crashing
My neighbor lost his house ’cause he can’t find a job
Don’t you dare pledge allegiance, don’t you dare speak of God
Speak of God
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Obamanomics Kills Jobs as GOP Dithers

“If it weren’t for a shamelessly dishonest, hyper-protective liberal media, the American people would know, unanimously and without doubt, that Obamanomics is killing American jobs. There is no silver lining in the December jobs numbers.

Experts and analysts were expecting this latest jobs report, released Friday, to show 200,000 new payroll jobs in December, but there were only 74,000, which is 37 percent of the goal. Not 90 percent, not 80, not 70, not even 50 percent. Just 37 percent.

If these abominable numbers had occurred under George W. Bush’s watch, the GOP would have had hell to pay for decades. But liberal presidents always get a pass in the form of wildly far-fetched excuses and rationalizations for their failed policies.

Attentive minds, however, will not be fooled. As the liberal media live by the dishonest rationalization, so they must die by it, as well. With the help of sympathetic economists, they have been whitewashing Obama’s perennially anemic economy as being in “recovery” for 52 months now.” Read MORE

♫ “That’s Why I Pray” ♫

Now I’m begging for forgiveness
I wanna make a difference even in the smallest way
I’m only one person, but I can feel it working
I believe in better days
That’s why I pray

Some stupid video posted as a joke, somebody’s life gets ruined
Out of everything we can create
Where is the cure to keep the sick from losing
Babies having babies ’cause their parents are always gone
Somehow we have forgotten how to make a house a home
How to make a house a home
Oh! Oh! Yeah! Yeah!

Seems “bullying” is in the news every week as either a teen commits suicide or a politician uses “bullying” language in reference to an opponent or opposition party. If “bullying” is defined as someone acting loudly arrogant and overbearing, then many in the headlines fall into that category. Problem is, we, as adults, are teaching our kids how to bully and when to bully, and it starts in the White House! Until we, as adults, remember we are all Americans & we all have a voice, our kids will pay the price for our bigotry.

Moral Intelligence and Public School Bullying

“On December 4, 2013 Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million member American Federation of Teachers (AFT), spoke on C-Span about bullying, particularly of gay students. Ms. Weingarten said, with surprise in her voice, that she doesn’t understand why gay students are still bullied in public schools, because in 2013, “It’s cool to be gay.” She also said she is gay, and now speaks about it openly.

As a psychotherapist, I tell clients that being surprised by another person’s behavior often results from erroneous assumptions about the person, usually because you see them as you want them to be rather than as they are. As Ms. Weingarten talked about the love that not only dares speak its name but never shuts its yap, I imagined how it would sound if a heterosexual male schoolteacher said, “The way I do sex is cool.” Read MORE

♫ “That’s Why I Pray” ♫

I’m begging for forgiveness, I wanna make a difference
Even in the smallest way
I’m only one person, but I can feel it working
I believe in better days
That’s why I pray, yeah
That’s why I pray, yeah

These demons from my past haunt me every night
And I just can’t get through it
If I could forget them on my own, I’ll let go and just move on
But heaven knows I am only human

Politicians have chosen to make firearms an issue in place of the more controversial issue of Mental illness. In doing so, they totally miss the point in an attempt to distract the public and give a semblance of “taking action!” We, as Americans, must demand better! Our streets are littered with people … human beings who have lost their way by means of mental illness, not to be confused with substance abuse!

Mass Shootings: America’s Psychosis

After every mass shooting, I write a variant of the same column. Perhaps I’ll republish this one when the next attack happens.

The increase in mass shootings over the course of the past several decades is not imaginary. In 2000, The New York Times analyzed 100 mass shootings between 1949 and 1999 and found that 73 of them had happened since 1990. Since 2000, according to Mother Jones magazine, there have been 33 more, including the recent massacre at the Navy Yard. The majority of the killers have untreated mental illness. Read MORE

♫ “That’s Why I Pray” ♫

And that’s why I pray, yeah yeah
That’s why I pray, I pray, I pray, I pray

Yes I’m begging for forgiveness (I’m begging for forgiveness)
I just wanna make a difference (Just wanna make a difference)
I believe (I believe) in better days
That’s why I pray

Music & Lyrics(in italics) by BIG & RICH

Please PRAY, now more than ever …

for this nation,

for our fellow Americans,

for our leaders – both elected and otherwise.

♫ Born Free ♫

Tags

Be for Work, Born Free, choices, freedom, job's report 2014, jobs, NO JOBS, Obama fail, opportunity, Use it or lose it, work

AMERICA is unique, not so much for her FREEDOM, but for her Source of Freedom (GOD) and what that Freedom has come to mean culturally i.e. OPPORTUNITY to WORK. There are other nations, other societies, that experience some degree of freedom, some even seem more FREE than America. So, what’s the big deal? What makes American Freedom different … EXCEPTIONAL?

Find another civilization in history that has …

• drawn the number of immigrants the USA has in the past century and enabled them to improve their lives.
• produced as much increase and improvement across the board – technologically, scientifically, agriculturally, humanitarian-ly, and even spiritually.
• allowed virtually complete mobility physically between states and economically from min wage to billionaire to those willing to push through the obstacles

Recent policies have diminished the OPPORTUNITY for work … for self-improvement. Increased taxes and regulations punish small business success, and “NO STRINGS handout” availability reduces the incentive toward WORK! In the process, however, our freedoms are exchanged and lost.

Your Freedom is yours to do with as you please. You can use it to build or to destroy. You can use it to give or to take. You can use it to find happiness or misery. You can use it to help others or help yourself. Your Freedom is yours to do with as you please. Use it or lose it!

Be for Work

By Mona Charen · Jan. 10, 2014

“John F. Kennedy broke some sort of record for stating the obvious when he noted that “life isn’t fair.” More evidence for the unfairness of the nation’s evaluations of presidents emerged in a recent Washington Post poll showing that, five years after he returned to Texas, George W. Bush is still blamed by 50 percent of Americans for the current state of the economy. Only 38 percent hold President Barack Obama responsible. The lesson for future presidents appears to be: You may be one of the greatest humanitarians in the history of the world (as Herbert Hoover arguably was, and as was Bush in some ways), but if you’re in office when a financial crisis hits, the public will blame you forever.

The press and academia have provided explanations and justifications for the economy’s sluggishness during the past five years – rationalizations that tend to exonerate Obama for the fact that, for example, annual growth remains very low by historical standards, and the labor force participation rate has dropped every year since 2009. It is now at the lowest level since 1978. We’ve been assured that the aging of baby boomers accounts for the high numbers leaving the labor force. But as Michael Strain notes in National Affairs, the labor force participation rate for the ages 25-54 cohort has hardly recovered at all since 2009 – though the recession officially ended in June of that year.

The Obama administration frequently cites economists who argue that recoveries from financial crisis-induced recessions are slower than those from other recessions. Economic historians Michael Bordo of Rutgers University and Joseph Haubrich of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland have produced data for recessions going back to 1882 and find that recoveries from past financial crises were more than four times stronger than this recovery has been.

Obama has proclaimed, one loses count of how many times, a pivot to jobs. Apparently, that theme is passe. He’s now pivoting to inequality. Any more pivots and he’ll be doing a pirouette.” Read more HERE

♫ Somewhere in the Middle ♫

Tags

affliction, challenge, Darkness, depression, difficulties, DO SOMETHING!, hardship, Jesus, test

Walking on Giants

by Bill Yount

In Charleston, South Carolina, a little boy about four years old walked over, looked up at me and said, “You are little!” I said to the pastor standing beside me, “What did he say?” The pastor said, “It sounds like he said, “You are little!” It made the boy feel good since he was so short. But it humbled me. It made me think.

We should look at our biggest giant or mountain and say, “You are little! You are little compared to the God inside of me!” It will humble any mountain or giant to fall. What mountain or giant will the Lord raise you up to stand on top of this coming year? What stormy seas will He cause you to walk on?

On the sea of Galilee, famous for storms, I asked the Lord a question. “Lord, are we near the place where Peter got out of the boat and walked on the raging sea before he fell?” The Lord answered me. “What do you mean Peter fell? This is the sea where Peter walked!” As though He didn’t remember Peter falling. Peter sank but he walked on water. The eleven sat in the boat living in regret. The terror of that storm paralyzed them. They missed that once in a lifetime opportunity. Sinking is better than sitting. When life is over we won’t regret taking a risk for God and sinking. We will regret sitting. And God won’t remember us sinking.

* The Homeless Angels *

Tags

homeless in America, homeless Vets, homelessness, kindness, opportunity, The Homeless Angels, Who is my neighbor

NOTE: In search for practical applications of common basic human dignity and respect. What can one person do?

Why I Return to the Streets Each Year
to Help the Homeless

Eight years ago, I fell upon hard times and ended up homeless in Lansing, Mich., for six months of my life.

I was too ashamed to tell my family or friends when I lost my house so I didn’t ask for help. Instead, I lived in parking lots and tents with other people on the street. It’s definitely rough out there and there is a lot of mental illness and violence, but I also met people who weren’t much different from me. That really stuck with me. I also built great relationships and connections that I couldn’t break.

Three years ago, I decided to do something to help the people who were still out there. I spent a week in November 2010 walking the streets of Lansing, giving out blankets and coats, talking to people who didn’t have homes and sleeping outside with them. I shared the whole thing through posts, photos and videos on Facebook. I wanted people to see what homelessness really is.

I’ve continued to do this for a week in November every year since. I give people the knowledge to get off the streets and help them to go to a shelter. I want to provide a meal, I want to provide warmth, and I want provide a way for the public to see what the need is. There’s so much misunderstanding about what homelessness is and isn’t. I give people a window into the reality, while personally helping as many people on the streets as I can.

Building a relationship with the homeless is what I do… friendship is not a service that shelters offer but us angels make it a point to be there for our brothers and sisters!!
The is someone’s father,brother, son and at some point in there life they were loved.. We bringing that love back one person at a time!!

Each year that I’ve done this, more people in my network and the community have gotten involved. This year I went out from Nov. 11 to Nov. 17, and saved 25 souls from the streets of Lansing in seven days. I decided to keep the effort going with my buddy Jessep and start a non-profit: The Homeless Angels.

A local shelter has donated office space to us for our outreach to the homeless. Before Thanksgiving, we collected 400 bags of clothes and more than 75 complete meals for the needy. We also recently held a telethon to raise money for hotel rooms for homeless families. At the telethon, we had a Santa and Mrs. Claus there for kids, and we gave out nearly 400 new toys we collected. Thanks to community donations, we were able to place two families and two single people in hotel rooms for a month. We assign “angels” to each person or family that we help get off the streets. These angels help with basic needs and getting people where they need to go. Other people we help get into shelters.

Giving people kindness and opportunity is everything. I want people on the streets to know that there’s a huge group of people who care about them and are willing to do something to help. We’re going to keep getting more angels involved and one day I hope to expand to have chapters in other areas.

If you want to help The Homeless Angels or follow their efforts, visit Facebook.com/HomelessAngels.

I continue to go out at night after work at the General Motors Delta Plant and do whatever is possible to help. For one man, that was taking him for his first haircut in two years before he went to his brother’s funeral. For another, that was putting a call out on Facebook asking for size 11 boots and having a pair donated and delivered in under an hour.

Stunning VIDEO

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Tags

Bob Seger, character, community-service, compassion, goodness, Helping others, homeless, integrity, kindness, Like a Rock, mentally ill, music, neighbors, service, stand, take stand, truth

Popular approval of Congress has reached an all time low as Americans reel under the vast scope of myriad scandals and lies perpetrated by this Administration. Yes! We have seen corruption before. Yes, we’ve been lied to before. Yes, we’ve even seen huge character flaws in our leaders before, but never … NEVER to the depth and scope to which we’re seeing today.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Why? What has changed? What has happened to allow or facilitate such widespread corruption?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Will a building stand if its foundation is compromised?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Will a traveler reach his destination without first plotting his course & naming his destination?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Can a nation long survive which has shredded its moral compass and floats aimlessly on sentimentalism?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Perhaps innocently, perhaps with vile intent, social mores held firm throughout global civilizations over thousands of years, have suddenly (over the past few decades) come into question. GOD was declared dead April 8, 1966, and since that time, little by little, the once universal boundaries of Right & Wrong, have blurred. What was once, not more than generation ago, accepted behavior, has become “Old-fashioned” and “intolerant.”

Funny thing is, GOD is no place defined in our Founding documents, and the early Framers each held different personal beliefs. They intentionally kept all reference to GOD ambiguous so various individual beliefs might be adapted and accepted.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

• The point is CHARACTER.
• The point is GOALS … self-improvement … serving others.
• The point is standing for something bigger than yourself.
  The point is growing in personal integrity and service to the community… by choice, rather than by mandate.
• The point … is standing firm on some defined principles that are other aware.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Without a firm foundation to stand on, the tides of political correctness too easily blow us around until we find ourselves … surrounded by Corruption. Like so many of our political leaders, bought and sold to the highest bidder, we, too, succumb to the popular trends and thoughts, victims of popular opinion.

How did we get here? We allowed it by our own compromise.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Take a stand for GOODNESS
Take a stand for KINDNESS
Take a stand for TRUTH
Take a stand for COMPASSION
Take a stand for your Neighbor, for the Homeless, for the mentally infirmed … to be personally involved!

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Find something bigger than yourself worth STANDING FOR, worth giving your life’s passion to support, worth working toward and Take a Stand.

“We must stop acting like children.
We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings,
which are like winds that toss us around from place to place.”
Eph 4:14 CEV

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Words and music by Bob Seger

Stood there boldly
Sweatin’ in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
I’d never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didn’t have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare
But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin’ ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Twenty years now
Where’d they go?
Twenty years
I don’t know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they’ve gone

And sometimes late at night
When I’m bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin’ a ghostly white
And I recall
I Recall …

Like a rock. standin’ arrow straight
Like a rock, chargin’ from the gate
Like a rock, carryin’ the weight
Like a rock

Like a rock, the sun upon my skin
Like a rock, hard against the wind
Like a rock, I see myself again
Like a rock

♫ 2014 Theme: LOVE ♫

Tags

2014, Happy New Year, Live Love, love, Love is, My New Year's Prayer

2013 is just about finished. It’s been a year of defining priorities, on a national, as well as a personal level. I found for myself, that the more I thought and wrote about the downward spiral our nation and our American society is on, the more distracted and depressed I became … and that is unacceptable!

So I’m returning to what I KNOW!

What’s important to me? LOVE! Not so much the mushy, sentimental kind of stuff that’s built on emotion, or the lusty “can’t get enough sex,” but the gutsy, enduring stuff that fights through the junk of life. Love is much more than an emotion or our sex drive. It is sometimes emotional. Love and lust are two completely different things.

Love is a decision. It’s an act of our will to commit our energy to the support, the encouragement, the best interest of the one(s) we love.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13 NKJV

Have you noticed that many times we attach little things to our love … little things like EXPECTATIONS, CONDITIONS, or PREREQUISITES? Maybe you don’t, but I’ve found myself doing that, even to those I love the most!

My New Year’s Prayer is that I would remove the strings and simply, LOVE … my children, my neighbors, and those who share my community and nation, and find ways to Live that Love. Maybe, just maybe if people start to see LOVE, they will stop seeking destructive behaviors and attitudes.

Care to join me?