the Requiest

These are the bread crumbs when viewing Victoria Osteen’s book "Love Your Life" on Amazon.

Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism > Self Help

I’m sorry but am I the only that sees something seriously wrong when you are drilling your way into books dealing with Protestantism and then jump all the way back out, past Christianity to Self Help? I know, I know, it’s only Amazon.  Sigh….

I can’t remember where I heard this idea…

Why does it so often seem that the non-Christian, secular, humanist acts in ways that most Christians should be acting and yet we look at ourselves and realize how horribly short we fall? Take for instance my brother-in-law Wayne. When I got out of the service my sister introduced me to him. They had been dating for a while at that point and were now engaged. Now I’ve always been a hard sell when it came to the guys who dated my sisters, but Wayne and I hit it off from the first time we met. He’s honestly one of the nicest guys that I’ve ever known and is truly the kind of person who’d give you the shirt off his own back. In many ways, I freely admit, he is a much nicer person than I.

Why is that? Why, when I’ve been a Christian for 20 years now should I still be such a schmuck at times? Shouldn’t the transforming of my mind have had some effect by now? And yet I am constantly humbled when I see what some non-Christians are doing to make a difference within their communities in light of what little I’m doing.

At times crawling on broken glass, whipping my back with a scourge just seems sooo appropriate.

The word duty was brought up at a recent meeting of the SMGC and it was pointed out that it has come to have a rather negative connotation. I have to admit that as I’ve gotten older the idea of what duty means has been tarnished by my cynical nature.

Case in point is that my son will be leaving in July for a 6 year commitment with the Air Force. Now I have no quandaries about him going into the military. I myself did 4 years in the Army and look back favorably on it as an excellent maturational period in my life. I know my sons reasons for going into the service but at one point when asking him he said that he felt an obligation to serve his country. I distinctly remember bristling at that concept as much as an anarchist would. And I did so because when he said country I immediately jumped from that word to my personal feelings in regards to our political representatives and questioned why would you want to serve such a base, power hungry group of self serving bastards?! Is it really a noble cause you serve when our leaders appear morally questionable and our political system reeks of corruption? And even as I type these few simple sentences I can feel myself being pulled onto my soap box, my dander rising and bristling with self righteous indignation.

What an ass I can be. 

An ass, because I have to remember back to being his age, when my thoughts weren’t as jaded, when truth and justice were clearly defined in black and white terms and when the secular media had not as yet so blurred and skewed my reasoning. Obligation to country, It Is a Noble desire to have.  Images of a knight errant raising his sword and yelling for God and King before steadfastly plunging into battle - no thought to personal fate or injury, selfless and in all things seeking truth and honor. That’s the image I should always have when I think of duty. I have to remind myself of these virtues. I have to remind myself that as a Christian I am called by my Lord and Master to such duty - and that is a noble cause.

I leave you with this -

1 Samuel 14:6-7
6Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, "Come, let us go over to the garrison of these^(I) uncircumcised. It may be that the LORD will work for us,^(J) for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few." 7And his armor-bearer said to him, "Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish.^[b] Behold, I am with you heart and soul."