...turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding... Proverbs 2:2
How often do we really understand something or someone? For that matter, how often do we really hear something? There is a game used to illustrate the dangers of gossip and how the human race as a species should not be trusted to relay accurate information. "Telephone" is an excellent and enlightening method to show what poor listeners people really are. In case you are not familiar with it, it goes something like this... A line of people are put together. At one end a person is told a bit of information like "The blue cat jumped over the log". By the time it gets to the last person in line it might sound more like "The Bluetooth was eaten by a cat in the fog." Our brains are like supercomputers. We can process ten times more information as we can hear. That means that every seconds worth of information we hear, our brain has nine seconds left to fill in. Depending on how well our thought life is captured to the obedience of Christ and our knowledge of the Word of God, Satan has a great big playground to get a foothold in. Many of us are so busy formulating what we are going to say next, we don't even really process what we just heard. What if however, we purposefully use our ears to really listen? To repeat the words in our minds. To summarize them every so often back to the person who spoke them. To make sure we get the clear picture. To hold the message up to God's wisdom and to answer in love and understanding, the understanding that comes from knowing Jesus personally. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6 If we do those things, then Satan's playground gets a little smaller doesn't it? It also makes putting our foot in our mouth a little harder since a foot can't go into a mouth that's not opened so big. Remember, God gave us two ears and one mouth- so listen (at least) twice as much as you speak!
Satan's foothold, A nine second playground. Truth's one second old. The tongue's unbound. I know what I heard. Do you really? Or did that "little bird" Create your reality? In the playground, It's all about me. My opinion, More than understanding. Words already formed Before the last one spoken. A blank page already torn, Your thoughts only a token.
This past Sunday our pastor made mention of how some people choose not to place the correct emphasis on the importance of the Old Testament in relation to our Christian walk. They either overemphasize it or under emphasize it. Well I came across a perfect explanation of why we need to balance our view of the Old Testament. This quote is actually taken out of the original context of which it was intended, but I believe it beautifully explains a truth we must carefully guard.
"Because only when we understand God's wrath toward sin can we realize that we need to be saved from it. Only when we hear the very bad news that we're deserving of judgment can we appreciate the very good news that God has provided salvation through His Son."- CJ Mahaney From "The Cross Centered Life".
The Old Testament shows us in vivid detail the consequences of sin and God's inevitable wrath regarding it. What a way to explain to all those unbelievers who point accusingly at the differences between the wrathful God of the Old Testament and the God of love and hope in the New Testament as a contradiction worthy of disproving our faith. God gave us the Old Testament and showed us those differences in part to show us some of what He was saving us from through His Son.
God has blessed me with many talents. Singing is not one of them unless you count the joyful noise variety. Unfortunately I tainted my poor children as well. Singing around our house is not generally encouraged by my musician perfect pitched husband. I know the kids have musical talent though, it seems to flow through the Moses family tree veins, just not in our branches vocal cords. I can however hear when someone is off key, even a little. All the years of living with my hubbie have made me very sensitive to it, so singing is not generally encouraged around our house by me either. But just because I can hear the difference doesn't mean I can reproduce the difference. In fact, if I am singing in a group, like at church, if there is an off key person anywhere near me, my voice goes right off in that wrong direction. I just do the best I can most Sunday's and hope the Lord has some sort of filter he hears me through like the one He sees me through. This past Sunday though, it was about all I could do to just stay standing and not fall over laughing. There was one lady singing, that though not off key, was so loud and unblending when she should have been blending that it was downright obnoxious. I tried to focus on the music, to get into the heart of worship and honor the Lord with my own less than perfect offering. Just then, behind me came an old man warble so off it could have been a light switch. Focus, focus, I told myself in between chuckles. Then I started thinking. Life is like this isn't it? We know what the true voice sounds like and we try to imitate it, but our own voice just can't measure up and then there are all these other voices and many times we know they are false but our voices just go right along with them. Lord, I get it. At that moment, very near there was a voice that was pure and true. I focused on that voice and got through the song. By the end I was crying. Lord, I get it.
Back in March a California Appeals court rendered a verdict that had it been upheld would have seriously threatened homeschooling in this state. Many believed, it would effectively make homeschooling illegal. It wouldn't have as I discussed in a previous blog, but it could have made a lot of trouble for homeschooling families from officials who misinterpreted the ruling. There was a lot of speculation and reaction from both sides of the argument. There was a lot of press regarding the whole issue. Maybe now, that the decision has all but been dismissed as of yesterday, the roar of outcry has been reduced to a tiny buzz. The story in the LA times was buried way back in the California Education section. Other than my notice from Focus on the Family, I wouldn't have heard anything about it. Interesting isn't it. Here is the link to the story in the LA Times.
On another note....
HELP! I'M BEING OPPRESSED. YOU SAW THEM OPPRESSING ME RIGHT?
Sure it says repressed. But it's still funny.
Will you recognize your king when he comes?
"All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast." Proverbs 15:15
Have you ever woken up one morning and immediately said to yourself, "This is going to be a horrible day," ? What happened? You probably had a horrible day, right? Very few people can tolerate a perpetual "Pollyanna" but in some ways this is exactly what God is calling us to be. Or another shiny example is Mr. Bill, that tiny plasticine character that kind can the bright side of any situation. It may be an oversimplification, but I think we need to adopt the cup is half-full mentality and toss the half-empty one, because if we are sat down and really counted each one of our blessings, we know that the cup would really be overflowing.
In this world there truly are oppressed peoples. Poverty, disease, wars, slavery, are still a very real part of this modern world we live in. Most of my audience are probably not being oppressed by any of the aforementioned issues, but what if you are? Or what if you are being oppressed by something, maybe not as bad, but the weight of oppression is still there. Is any form of oppression easier than another form to the one who feels oppressed? Probably not because when we re oppressed, whether real or imagined, it becomes easy to lose hope. And when you lose hope the oppressors win, and the job provider of those oppressors win too. You know what his name is right? Satan. If Satan can destroy someone's hope, he has just shut the door on Jesus in that person's heart, because Jesus is hope. And without the hope of Jesus Christ we are indeed wretched. Of course there are many in this world, in this country whose idea of oppression is "I'm oppressed if I can't get what I want, exactly when I want it!" According to this definition all two year olds and most teenagers(at least my daughter) are oppressed. How many times do we tell ourselves , "Well, I'll be happy when I get this, or when this happens.", only to see our desire come to fruition and still be unhappy and saying, "now, if this just happens, I'll be really happy." God does not promise us happiness. Happiness is fleeting. God wants us to focus on the eternal. Joy is eternal and there for the taking in every thought we have and every action we take. Of course like flowers with no sunlight, joy cannot exist without the presence of hope. The bible is filled with verses about hope, both old and new testaments. We can find many words in Hebrew and Greek about hope. I challenge you to simply look up the word hope in a regular dictionary. It is an eye opening experience. So to explore the second part of this verse... Many proverbs are structured this way in a comparison and contrast format. So to contrast or oppose oppression, the answer is to have a cheerful heart. How on Earth can one have a cheerful heart when they are being oppressed? There is no earthly way at all. The only way is through hope. If you accepted my challenge from above, you will have found that the word hope can be used as either a verb or a noun. In the Strong's Hebrew and Greek concordance this particular word for hope is elpis. According to Vines, we can also see this as meaning having hope in the author of hope or he who is at it's foundation. So the key to having a cheerful heart in any situation is to rely on the author of hope to give it to you because the world does not have it to give. It is hope that sustained Paul through all his trials. It was hope that allowed Peter to boldly go to his place of crucifixion on an upside down cross. It was hope that caused Jesus to die for our sins, not to receive it, but to give it, give it to us, through the resurrection. So because He is God, He can be a noun and a verb at the same time. He is hope. So, The next time you begin to feel oppressed, start concentrating on just how full your cup really is. Let it cheer you and bring the joy to your heart that God has promised us all through the hope that His son, the Lord Jesus Christ offers us.
At this time of year we see a lot of angels. Mostly we see them in Christmas decorations or in TV shows or in the movies. They may also be all around us. What I'd like to discuss today however is this statement, that if you are a parent have said countless times. "They look like little angels when they sleep." How quickly we forget the little devils they were when they were awake, but here is my answer to this age old pondering.
The reason children look so angelic when they sleep is that God hoped we might be able to catch one glimpse of the beauty of heaven He has waiting for us. He also hopes that we might begin to understand how He sees us.
