Why is it that most people are afraid of giving too much grace, but hardly ever are afraid of practicing too much justice? It’s like we all tend to error on the side of justice rather than grace. That puzzles me, because I don’t know about ya’ll, but I experience way more of God’s grace than I do justice. And I’m so thankful for that. God’s grace is what sets him apart from the god of Islam that so many people trust in.
The Christian philosopher, Aristides, wrote to Emporere Hadrianus in 125 A.D.:
“They love one another. One gives without reserve to the one who has nothing. A stranger is taken up in their homes as a brother. When someone is in prison, they do everything possible to set him free. In case someone is really in need and very poor, and it happens that they have nothing that in any way would be superfluous, then they fast two or three days so that the very poor and needy person gets what he needs.”
Also, the apostate and Christian hater Emporer Justinianus wrote in 361-363:
“Those Galileans do not only feed their own poor, but even ours.”
How far we’ve digressed….Father, forgive us for our sins of neglect, selfishness, pride, materialism, and desire to be comfortable. Propel us from our warm houses and well-fed stomachs. Compel us to feel hunger, give up our many toys to help those in our community. Forgive us for not being a light to this world. Forgive us for loving ourselves more than we love others. Forgive us, your Bride, for not representing you accurately. If you were here, I think you’d act a lot differently than us. I don’t really imagine you with two houses or multiple SUVs or hanging out in your home or passing the homeless man on the street without a word, or maybe just giving him a dollar.
Forgive us for our many transgressions.
Change us.
Please.
This morning has been so wonderful! I awoke at 6:30 (a little later than I had wanted), and drove into work with Jakey. He dropped me off at the Rec Center, where I spent35 minutes on the elliptical while I watched my morning dose of CNN and read a couple chapters of This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley. After stretching, I went back to the BSU to shower and get ready for the day.
I decided that instead of driving to Panera, I would walk instead. It’s supposed to be unseasonably warm for the next couple days, so I thought I need to enjoy it =). Walking was a great decision because it was a great experience! I love walking across campus and watching people…there was lots of music coming from various places– cars driving down the road, trucks unloading at Jesse Auditorium, construction workers working on renovating one of the buildings. I saw all people of all ethnicities and walks of life. I love the diversity here in Columbia! We truly are a melting pot of the world. It’s not unusual to hear 2 or 3 different languages spoken in a day by people you pass by.
So, I get to Panera in a great mood, get some hot tea and settle into a corner where I can work on the computer while looking at everyone that comes in and leaves. I break out my ibook and a guy at a neighboring table starts asking me about it, and apparently he is a new Mac convert. It’s great to meet those with the new enthusaism of the macness. When he went up to get some food, another guy came by, asking me if this was the new one (of course it’s not), and he talked about his mac experiences. lol. For people like me who have a hard time striking up conversation, having a mac has really helped me. It gives a conversation initiator, and although the conversation begins at Mac, it never ends there. We got to talking about his daughter, his job, and on and on.
Praise God for free wireless, macs, and talking to strangers.
After probably a year of reading God’s Politics (okay, not that long, but maybe 9 months)….I’m FINALLY finished with it.
A brief, brief overview.
Part I: Changing the Wind
Basically discussed the idea of spirituality and politics going together, and how God is not a democrat or a republican.
Part II: Moving Beyond the Politics of Complaint
While protesting is good/okay, presenting alternatives is better (aka, not “what are you/we against?” but “what are you/we for?”
Part III: Spiritual Values and International Relations: When did Jesus become Pro-War?
Not responding out of fear, theology of empire, alternatives to war, peacemakers, curing causes, not just symptoms.
Part IV: Spiritual Values and Economic Justice: When did Jesus become Pro-rich?
Poverty- a biblical response; Left and Right working together to help eliminate poverty, budgets being moral documents, global poverty
Part V: Spiritual Values and Social Issues: When did Jesus become a Selective Moralist?
Having a consistent ethic of life (abortion, capital punishment, etc), racism in America and Family/Community Values
Part VI: Spiritual Values and Social Change
Hope vs. Cyniscism– let’s not just be cynical about the world, because that cynicism comes from a hopeless heart, instead, let us have hope that God can use us to bring help others around us, and that God uses His Church to change things. Let love compel (or propel 
) us.
My favorite part of the book was probably the last chapter, just because it was very energizing and it shot down all those cynics that are on both sides of the lines (red and blue)….that God is Sovereign and He chooses to use you and I to bring about His Will…it’s just the way He designed it. And we need to not trust in political systems, but trust Him.
Ways in which I am changed after reading this book:
1. I now see ALL issues as moral issues, not just the ones the Right calls moral issues. Not just abortion and homosexual rights and family values and those stereotypical Right issues, but also helping the poor, capital punishment, the way we spend money as a country, war, enviornment, etc. It opened up my eyes to the lie that I was believing that some topis were “moral” and others weren’t.
2. I’m much much much more aware of the problem of low minimum wage and how people can work at minimum wage and still not have enough money to have shelter and food for their children and DEFINITELY not health care, higher education, vehicles and luxuries of the sort. The economic state that we are in is messed up and caters to the rich. Health care is a huge deal. Something like 41% of MIDDLE CLASS families do not have health care. This, my friends, is a problem. For some reason, health care is viewed as a privilege in America, and not as a right. This one issue puts many on the street (homelessness) because something significant goes wrong and they don’t have healthcare. I, in fact, am one of these people who don’t have it. If I get pregnant, we are in thousands dollars of debt (approx. $30,000-40,000 when all is said and done).
Wallis raises some really good questions and gives quite a bit of interesting information/facts/figures that I had never heard of before reading this book. sometimes he gets a little wordy and says the same things over again, but for the most part, it’s a good read. even if you don’t agree with everything he says (and i dont think you will), it’s good for dialogue.
This is a test post to make sure I “made it to the other side”. I need to write on here more. Someday soon :).
On another note, my identity got stolen yesterday, but I think I’ve recovered it :).
Tomorrow morning I will be leaving bright and early to go to Atlanta, GA for the Catalyst conference. The speaker line up looks pretty good– Andy Stanley, Donald Miller, John Maxwell, Louie Giglio, Rick McKinley, John Stott, George Barna, Marcus Buckingham, and a couple of guys I haven’t heard of before.
If I have the opportunity, I’ll write about the sessions as we go!
Bon voyage!
I decided to spend the afternoon downtown at Panera. All the parking spaces on the street were occupied, so I decided to head to the garage to try to find a spot. Space #96 was open, so I took that. At the pay machine, I entered in my parking spot number 9-6. I popped 2 dollar bills in the machine, and asked for 2 1/2 hours. Change: 50 cents. I grab it and start walking away. I glanced down and realized that these quarters were not silver, but gold. Wait, they are sacajewa dollar coins! So, basically the parking garage payed me 50 cents to park there for the afternoon. I like to think of it as God providing for me.
The other day we had a mom call the BSU and ask us to go visit her daughter. She was from out-of-state (Iowa) and was having a rough time. When my co-worker told me about this and asked me to take care of it, one of our student leaders named Amanda immediately popped in my mind, and I told Kelly that I would have her visit this girl.
Amanda comes in a couple hours later and I give her the information and ask her if she could visit her. She said that she would love to, and she was actually going over to the those residence halls (aka dorms) later on that afternoon. Well, great! That was perfect.
A few hours after that, Amanda comes back into my office VERY EXCITED. She tells me the story — she went to this girls room, and the girl answered the door. She looks familar to Amanda, but they just keep on talking. After a couple minutes, Amanda and the girl realize they have met before– this summer at a Bible study in St.Louis…Amanda just got back from being in Spain for a year, and was participating in the last couple weeks of Bible study at her home church. Amanda’s friend, Joe, brings this girl to bible study one week. And now, Amanda shows up at her door, not knowing anything about her, and they quickly bond.
I just think that is SO cool when God orchaestrates things like that. God takes care of His children. We can be sure of it.
“The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the one who is naked. The shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot. The money you keep locked away is the money of the poor. The acts of charity you do not perform are so much injustices you commit .” –St. Basil the Great
This quote that I just came across in an email from a church planter in the area really resonates with what I heard in our last session @ Summit featuring an interview between Bill Hybels and Bono.
In speaking of one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in history right now, (poverty and the AIDS epedemic), Bono asked this essential question:
“How, in a world of plenty, can people be starving to death?… If this is the ‘way of the world’, we have to overthrow this way of the world.”
This question hits me profoundly. HOW, with all our nation has, can people be starving to death?? HOW, with all the resources the CHURCH has, can people be starving to death?? How will we respond to the Lord of Heaven and Earth, Father to ALL PEOPLES OF THIS WORLD, the CREATOR, when He demands to know WHY we were sitting in comfort and excess and abundance while our neighbors were starving to death and dieing without hope of eternal life?
When Jake and I moved across town and realized how much STUFF we had, I cried and begged God to show me how we can use our excess to give to those in need.
Father, shake us out of this blindness. Let the scales fall from our eyes. Make us unsatisfied with comfort and things that we waste our time, energy, money on. Let us not live for ourselves, but die to ourselves every single morning. May we, may I, join You where You are working, and not wait until you have to beat us over the head with it. May we seek You on our knees as to how to best use our resources to lift You up and provide opportunities for people to come to know Your Healing Power. Let us not be fooled, (oh, how i am so often fooled…), by our DESIRE to change things, our DESIRE to provide food for the poor, medicine for the sick, clothes for the naked, shelter for the homeless. Desire is half the battle, but let us put our faith into action. Because faith, without action, is dead. Defeat the lies of the enemy in our hearts and in our minds. Help us to see the reality of the world. Show us our parts in this. Give us a holy discontent that burns inside of us like a fire, where we will be unable to do nothing. Like Jeremiah, who complained in anguish that those he was prophesing too hated him because of the harsh message he was told to proclaim…but then when he tried to be quiet, Your message BURNED WITHIN HIS SOUL….and he could not keep quiet. Father, raise up your prophets in this day in age…may they not keep quiet, no matter what people say to them, or how harsh the message may be to the hearers. Please let us shake off these chains that we are imprisoned to, and have no idea. Oh Father, please don’t leave us to our own desires. Ignite in us a passion to ACT, to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion-
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of mourning,
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
…Dad, send me.
Like several others on this blogging community, I’m at Leadership Summit (via satellite in KC). It’s been a good experience so far. I’m such a learner, so I’m pretty easy to please with content, even if it’s not obviously applicable to collegiate ministry.
Yesterday we heard from Bill Hybels, James Meeks, Andy Stanley, and Peg Neuhauser.
Bill= Leaders love God, develop skills they need, raise up other leaders, and allow others to take their place at an appropriate time.
James= All healthy churches are growing. Christians are meant to reproduce other Christians (great commission). Why don’t churches grow? He gives 10 possible reasons, and really encouraged us to have faith that God desires for people to come to know Jesus. This has been adding to my restlessness of the fact that no one is coming to know Christ in my personal life and in our ministry. I’m not sure what’s going on, and I don’t know why, but the Lord has been making me very restless about this.
Andy= Don’t cheat your family for “church work.” When he was church-planting the church in Atlanta, he decided that he would not work for more than 45 hours/week with church stuff. After that, he goes home and spends time with his family, serving his wife, playing with his kids, etc. He’s not saying that is for everyone, but it’s just what he chose to do. He does, however, demand that pastors/staff stop cheating their family for their church out of a fear that things won’t get done and fear that the church won’t start/continue. Trust that God will build the Church. Give jobs to other people. There will ALWAYS be more to do, you have to draw a line somewhere. Andy also expects the staff not to cheat their families either. When you work, work hard. But at a good time go home. If he sees that someone is working alot, it’s not celebrating, but reprimanded. This was liberating for me to hear from a man like Andy. Praise God.
Peg= how to resolve conflict. yikes.
