“None of my failures in faithfulness have proven to be terminal….One the last day, when we arrive at the Great Cabin in the sky, many of us will be bloodied, battered, bruised and limping. But, by God and by Christ, there will be a light in the window, and a ‘welcome home’ sign at the door.”
–Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
Here’s some stuff that fills my head:
One is songwriting.
This guy in the video below is named Glen Hansard. He’s the front man for an Irish band called, “The Frames” and co-fronts the former “Swell Season” (may it rest in peace). When this guy talks and sings, I can’t stand how much of a genius he is. This little story (though sometimes his Irish tongues lets the more sharp words cut through). He has such great stories. And they might not have a lot of weight to them, but he makes it so they do. He’s brilliant.
Something else is guitar.
My pal has one of these. I played it while leading worship (well, during rehearsal, really) and really liked how it played. Electronics weren’t top-notch, but enough. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
A Gretsch G5120. Not my first choice, or second, but my third.
I’m on a Gretsch kick. I’ve been back and forth about solid and hollow bodies, but I’ve come to the conclusion that different guitars are simply different guitars. Unless I want some Line 6 Variax crap (yep. I said it. I hate them.), I’m going to be dropping some serious dough on this stuff.
I tried this guy out in a music store in West Chester, PA and was blown away by it's playability. Pretty smooth with a good tone versatility to it. I coveted it for about an hour.
This is my ideal guitar. I have a maple neck at the time being, and I really love it. I have my sound in it. BUT. I love a rosewood fretboard. It just adds a whole different animal to tone.
This thing has a great punch to it. Every time I put it on the neck pickup, I feel like being in a dim-lit club; tearing up a blues line.
Something that comes with an obsession with guitars, so comes an obsession with effects pedals. The great ones.
I have an obsession with overdrive pedals. I only have two, but I would love a third. Right now, my ODs are only a Fulltone Full-Drive Mosfet 2 and an Electro Harmonix English Muff’n.
I wouldn't mind adding this guy as my third overdrive.
Though a healthy portion of my music is folk, I lead worship and play guitar for various worship teams, so I end up doing a lot of different tricks with delay pedals. This is probably my next purchase:
An analog delay. It sounds thick and old. Fills a room like a champ from the demos I've seen.
That’s what’s on my mind.
Lots and lots of guitar stuff.
I have learned very simply that if I haven’t the honesty of a glass soul I have no reason to lead a congregation into worship. More over, I have nowhere near the authority to show them my heart and sing my hurt. The world has enough liars and people with agendas and schemes. We (not the people who have chosen to drop their nets and follow a Rabbi, but all of us) have a duty to be human, not perfect. It’s good to let loose. It’s good to let blood hit the strings of a guitar. It’s messy and beautiful to let your sweat drip and spit fly. As beautiful as a woman with wet hair.
If you are a worship leader or a minister or volunteer or what have you, the first and greatest commandment is this: Don’t let them scare you. Christ does not want your mantra. Christ wants you there whether you’re ticked off or put on; of hope or of failure. He came for the sick not the well. Know your demons when you come to face him in his presence. Then, maybe, we can let him do the work he’s supposed to do: clean us up and dust us off.
The world has enough people who are very comfortable with a program and with a disassociation from the higher power. If we are complacent with no fire to fuel the pursuit of the Great Beyond then it’s not our idols that kill us; it’s our apathy.
I intend to be honest.
And I intend to have the intention of letting God have his intervention.
Honesty truly is the best policy.
I watched Braveheart twice in two weeks last December. It usually gets my blood pumping and my heart screaming, but I wasn’t looking at it my typical way.
Braveheart is a well made movie. It’s long, epic, has a great story. And by “great story”, I’m implying that it has a character who is forced into conflict to acquire his goal or ending point. William, the protagonist and patriot, comes home from a pilgrimage after being orphaned by war, sets out to avenge the woman he was to wed (who was killed she refused a man who was making an attempt at rape) and reclaim Scotland from the tyranny of the King of England, Edward I. William summons up Scotland and the odds are extraordinary: the Scots are outnumbered by thousands, they’re common farmers with pitchforks and sickles, there are nobleman taken by greed to sacrifice freedom, and the list goes on and on. Although historical fact might be bent a bit to create, arguably, one of the greater stories told on film, it’s a story. It inspires people.
I don’t want to talk about how God loves the pitchfork people reclaiming their rights.
What I do want to talk about is one what one of the nobleman says. Robert the Bruce, son of the highest nobleman of Scotland and heir to the same throne, is compelled by the speeches and battles of Wallace. He eventually betrays Wallace, thinking the best and strongest move for Scotland is to have him lose. Realizing he has made the wrong choice, Robert the Bruce sends for Wallace to meet with him and the nobles again to advance against the English. The other Nobles sabotage Wallace and turn him over to the English. Robert confronts his father, who is pulling political strings behind his back. His father tries to reason with him, saying that there’s too much to sacrifice.
Robert replies with something beautiful:“Wallace fights for something that I’ve never had. I want to believe.”
Why does he say that?
What makes a human say, “I want to believe?”
Here’s the problem with certain perceptions of Christianity: we’re convinced it’s not necessary and the world doesn’t need it. But Robert the Bruce, though he’s not alluding to Christianity, wants to believe. Why? Because something beyond William is controlling him and propelling him into a new adventure that he doesn’t know the end of. William only knows the tug and pull of what he believes. What he has inside of him isn’t necessarily a call from some higher power, but it is something beyond himself.
Whether a Christian or not (even religious or not), there are times when something beyond ourselves takes us by the collar and whips us around. To the artist, it’s when the paint seems to swirl into colors on its own. For the writer, it’s when the main character seems to speak the words for you. For the poet, when the author’s breath is stolen from their own words. The “beyond” is something worth living for. What if, like my good friend Rilke says, we would live “as a sign unto this urge and a testimony to it (Letters to a Young Poet, 2)”?
Someone close to me once said that there’s no reason to live life with a passion guiding you. Really? There’s a verse in Proverbs that I’ve been rolling around in my mouth for a while, trying to see if I can tell what flavor it is. I think I’ve got it. It’s in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, people perish.” Okay. “No vision” is close, but doesn’t get the cigar. There are other translations, though, that put it into a better frame with the words used. One translation (NIV, 1984) reads, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.” I like that one. That hits a bit closer to the mark. I’d like to think William is getting something that Proverbs talks about. He gets a revelation of, “This is not how things are supposed to be” and he runs with it. He realizes that if he doesn’t live for this, or for something as great as this, it won’t matter. He realizes nothing will matter.
When we don’t go by what’s beyond and we just plain, ol’ exist we don’t help the problem.
If the problem with your perception of Christianity is that it’s not necessary, I’d ask you what is necessary. You can float however you want if you want to get by, but you’ll just get by.
For me, I’m going to live by it. I’m going to live with the “beyond myself” throwing me around the world like it has the past four years of my life like a rag doll. Let’s all go get it. If we fail, so be it. Let our efforts see more fruit than our vanities.
May G-d give us the clarity either way.
I follow a guy named Nate on twitter.
He’s been my friend since I was 15 (that’s 7 years running, folks). You can usually find him tweeting about technology usually having to do with the Android system. I’m a Mac guy, myself. I’ve owned my 15″ Macbook Pro for close to a year and a half. He knows more than I could ever hope to in terms of technology, the way the market works, and everything in between. I trust his judgement because of his brain and because he’s my friend. He shared a link the other day that made me think. Here are the two videos I watched.
Apple products (iPhone specifically) are being made in a province in China with a company called, “Foxconn”. Foxconn is using sweatshop worker methods to build the products. At one point, Mike Daisy says someone died after a 32 hour shift. He saw mangled hands and other injuries from the machines that weren’t being tended to because of inadequate healthcare. If you google Foxconn and Apple, you’ll find articles of suicide rates, injuries, and nets being built around the housing dormitories of the workers in order to catch them when they jumped to their death. The last article I saw was from mid to late 2010 saying Apple is independently investigating the matter.
I own an Apple product. So what do I do?
Nate pointed out the obvious answer: not buy an Apple product. I agreed, but even as I type this on my plastic and aluminum, I have this pull to keep it. Like Frodo with a ring. The industry standard now is something by Apple. Logic is used in recording studios. Final Cut Pro is used in major film productions. IPhones are top-notch, used by more and more companies(Sprint’s Evo and the Droid X are pretty spiffy, but they don’t have that idolatrous quality). It seems like it’s easy to lay down something that clearly butts heads with our morals, but I keep feeling that pull of, “But it’s SO good!” Now, I haven’t found anything by way of Google news or anything about Macbook Pro manufacturing, but I don’t feel very secure about it being an honest trade. As a Christian (hell, as a human), there’s an obligation to speak up and say, “I’m not okay with this. I’m going to try and stop this or at least tell people about this. This isn’t okay.” There’s some type of fire alarm in the nature God gave us to go off when we see things like this.
What can you do? The crime is so vocal, and our protest is a whisper. Our goal should be our morals directing our lives and actions. Rainer Rilke once said, if you’re a writer that is, your life, “must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it (pg. 2, I think).” Obviously, as a Christian, the life should be a testimony to “it”. What “it” is is this discontent with how life is supposed to be. This isn’t necessarily a fundamentalist point of view. Fundamentalists, progressives, left, right, moderate, should all have this feel of, “This isn’t right.”
I know I won’t buy an iPhone. I’m not going to support those methods, and I don’t want to support that company. I don’t think any of us should until something changes. I’m not saying all of Apple is evil. What I am saying is that Apple is clearly in the wrong and we need to point that out. I love technology as much as the next person. I’m a Music Technology MAJOR. I love guitar effects, pedals, amps, guitars, keyboards, drums, mixers, all that junk. Technology does great things. I’m not suggesting any barbarian retraction. But people are dying.
For nothing.
There’s a few songwriters I’ve been listening to lately.
Almost everyone in the church circle knows John Mark McMillan for his song, “How He Loves” covered by at least three different artists that I know of.
One thing I’ll say about him: Out of every person who is a Worship Leader, he’s the one I respect the most. He’s one of the more creative people I follow, and he inspires me to write. His blog is here. His writing hits me. Hard. Like this one:
There’s some power in those words.
It’s true what he said, though. “The man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave.”
I’m learning about prayer.
Prayer, though, is such an etherial thing. It’s not an etherial you can attain at random events out of the blue, like the connection with a long separated friend. It’s like someone socks you in your spiritual jaw. I attend a church called Freedom Life Christian Center pastored by Sam Mastellar (you can check out his blog here.). We recently wrapped up a series called, “Sun Stand Still,” based off the concept of Joshua praying to the Lord for the sun to stand still so that the battle ended on the up side for the Israelites. Whether or not you take it as metaphor or fact, either has an implication of the miraculous from God. You end up with two schools of thought:
1. Joshua had the audacity and then the ability to follow through with his prayer, making an action out of his hope.This is more towards the metaphorical school, which is fine. Let’s put this into perspective: Joshua is in the midst of a battle and it looks bleak. The enemy has a chance to escape once the sun goes down, but Joshua knows that God promised the nation of Israel something great. So, as the walls of failure are closing in on Joshua, he musters up the courage to ask God to help him. That hope for something greater, however, propels Joshua to somehow win the battle—against the odds. Hope does some dangerous and miraculous things. It pushes us for the greater, makes us stronger…even gets us out of bed after a long, hard night. It keeps us going.
A person who has hope does something. I pray I become like one of those that do.
2. Joshua had the audacity to believe God could do such a thing. This plays off of the more literal side of things. Joshua was able to grab hold of the thing that’s beyond hope: faith. Faith is the assurance of the things unseen. He can take this and run with it because Joshua has seen what God has done in the history leading up to this point for the people of Israel. He’s got the faith and the knowledge of what God has done. If he asks God to help him win the battle, he expects God and knows God will do it.
There is a God very alive, and very real. He is more than capable of the miraculous with plenty of strength to spare.
What I’ve learned lately is that prayer does things. I just did a Daniel Fast for three weeks to start off the New Year. I have never felt more clarity. I’m a man who happens to confuse himself and convince his better judgements for the less finer things sometimes. I do this well, and I talk myself out of some really great opportunities. But my prayers have been different. I’ve had clarity; direction. I’ve come to know peace with every thought of and toward God. I’m no longer hollering, “amen.”
I’m breathing it.
I don’t know know if you’re with the metaphorical or the literal when it comes to Joshua. Something is sure, though: prayer does things.
Amen.
One of the major requirements in the Bible is an erasing of all preconceived notions here-to-for about God. Coming to it with frictions or fusses (even if it’s just hearsay) is the wrong way to read it. You can’t read the Bible all the while thinking, “I’m guilty of sin! I’m such a terrible person! I’ll never live right!” because that means you’ll only focus on the parts that talk about your sin. You can’t bring yourself to the Bible wanting to see what Jesus says about social justice because you’ll only find stuff about social justice. That’s the wrong way. The right way? Like you’re innocent.
Maybe this is why Jesus asks us to come to him as his children?
This is my Bible that I’ve been reading out of since I was 18. It’s been to four different countries with me. I tend to scrawl over the pages off and on when I’m overwhelmed with how much is actually in this book. So, if you want to know which bible is mine, look for a bunch of chicken scratch; they’re as noticeable as southern mullets at classical ballet recital.
I was reading the other day in Matthew 18 (page 970 in my NIV travel bible). The disciples come to Jesus with another question that I’m sure Jesus rolls his eyes about: “Jesus, who is the greatest in the kingdom?” Jesus says this:
” 2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’ “
–Matthew 18:2-4
Jesus goes on to say that anyone who causes the little children to sin would have a better time being drowned once Jesus finds out about it.
Yikes.
Something significant, though, is the writer of Matthew chose to write down Jesus saying a similar thing later on in chapter 19 (which is the next page in my bible). People kept bringing their children for Jesus to bless, crowding the Rabbi and his disciples, so the disciples kept shooing them. Jesus told them to stop dismissing them, saying “…the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (19:14)” Why would the writer go out of this way to mention twice, both times very close to each other, about the likeliness of children being favored by God?
As I read this section of scripture, I think of my niece, Makayla.
That’s her. She’s a little miracle. We love her. I love her.
She doesn’t talk yet, but I’m sure once she does she’ll have us all rolling. Learning how to use the brain is a funny and frightening thing. One thing I always see in her, however, is innocence. On human terms, she’s innocent. She’s got the cleanest slate in the world, white and quiet as snowfall. As she’s learning, do you think that she’ll actually be asking questions with motives, spins, or preconceived notions about life, trying to get the answer she wants?
I don’t think she will.
I think she’ll have such an innocent curiosity about everything in front of her and she won’t have time to think about it. She won’t know anything. People will have to teach her. I feel very badly for myself and whoever else comes to the Bible and to Jesus and especially to the Church or Christianity with such arrogance to say that they have it figured out.
I also believe that she’s got three things that we all need to have in the storefront windows of our brains:
1. She has wonder. I mean, she’s one year old. Everything is still requiring slow blinks and furrowed brows. When she gets a new toy, she looks at it with a, “Okay…wow. This thing is really new to me. Do I hold it like this? Does this get held? Do I eat it? Nope, can’t swallow it whole, so I can’t eat it…” What if we looked at God with the same wonder? What would happen is that we would believe our prayers because we’re letting God “WOW!” us?
2. She’s naive. She has no idea what anything is about, so has to continuously ask questions as she gets older. Why do you think babies cry when we say, “Don’t”? It probably has something to do with the nature of a baby crying. All the time. It also might have to do with the fact that their brains honestly can’t process a “no” yet and they cry. They cry because they just don’t know why they can’t. I’m not saying we have to cry, but I am saying we have to admit when we don’t know anything. Especially when we come to read God’s word or pray to him. And after that, we need to let him say no, sometimes.
3. She’s dependent on someone that knows more than her. With a sense of wonder and a bit of ignorance, she’s not going to be able to get much information from herself. She knows, literally, nothing. She learns on her own and has some innate abilities, yes, but the nurture, not the nature, is what will cause her to grow in ways that nature can’t make her grow. It’s the same with us. When we are in the dark and amazed by it, we have to go to God for direction, clarity, comfort, wisdom, etc.
I hope that I can be like a child. I hope that I can let God “WOW!” me ten years from now. Even twenty…even tomorrow…
.grace.and.peace.
When a person starts finding their voice in their words, they end up letting whatever it is they’re writing write itself. My friend, Alexandra, asked me today about how I write, and I couldn’t do the process justice. Some of my songs have given me a really hard time when I try to write them. I have an equally frustrating time trying to forgive those songs or even think them worthy of being sung. Others have been sheer emotion that end up coming out like a sneeze or vomit (nice imagery, I know).
It seems as if our letters, even when it feels like they are forced out, have tiny heartbeats of their own.
T, f, l, s, f, e, r, yodel, yankel, yankee.
All little lives.
When you spend enough time trying to write, it starts to feel like conversation.
You stare the page in the face and you try to make sense of what it’s telling you, while simultaneously you try to tell it what it exactly is that you might be thinking or feeling. It’s like trying to write a story with someone while learning their language. It gets a little discouraging.
What I love, though, is that I feel my voice coming out. I have these urges inside me that won’t really let up. I end up coming to the conclusion after a fruitless, frustrating day, that I need to end up writing, singing, and playing music. There’s no other option. It gets difficult, though. It’s hard when you can’t communicate what you’re thinking. It’s hard when the hustle and bustle of the seasons take over and you end up sleeping to escape, not to rest. It’s especially hard when you look at people who influence you (in my case, John Mark McMillan, The Frames, Johnny Cash) and you want to be at that spot so badly.
I have hope in the midst of it, however.
There’s a little book I have called, “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke. He’s a poet I’ve barely read and a mentor that I hope to never forget. When I get frustrated and tell myself that there’s no way in Hades I can write or perform or worship, I remember Rilke. There’s a little snippet he wrote that I hold very close to my heart and spirit:
Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write….This above all–ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.
The air from those words is thick with, “Go get ‘em, kid.”
So let’s get ‘em.
For unto us this day, in the city of David, is born a savior, which is Christ, the Lord.
I wrote this in my old blog a while back. Not very Christmasy, but it’s a great memory. It’s lengthy, but I love the moments I shared with the homeless that night.
Grace and peace. I hope everyone had a very merry and wonderful Christmas.
Tim
Nashville is a wonderful city. It’s the musical city, which is right up my ally. I’m a multi-instrumentalist, and every chance I get to listen to music or play, I take it. It’s warm, welcoming weather and pleasant systems of streets and corners reminds me of PA in the summer, but the north just doesn’t have the southern flare. Pennsylvania doesn’t offer people shredding their guitar necks so much it looks like they’re going to crack the fretboard right off the whole instrument in every bar or club you walk by. And every time I hear those strings sing, I melt. I absolutely melt. It’s a great city, clean, but has it’s hidden wounds.
Nashville is great. Lots of churches. Lots of people.
And lots of poverty.
I’m a man of faith. By that I don’t mean I just believe in some God. I believe that Jesus Christ died to save my soul, and also to totally unite creation under a banner and declaration of love and peace. I’m part of a missionary organization called Youth With a Mission and I’m looking to do God’s will. And bring the kingdom out of each one of us, even though the general consensus is that the Kingdom is somewhere distant and unable to be seen.
I recently spent a late afternoon under an overpass. It was windy, with a storm coming through and the ceiling of concrete vacuuming the dirt into everyone’s eyes. I’m here for a soup kitchen ministry called “Under the Bridge” Ministries. It’s a ministry which provides an incredible amount of food for a good size group of people. The count could have easily touched around 200. It also holds a church service or the homeless who come, and most of the congregation participates, but there’s still a high number that aren’t sober, so they stand off to the side and swap salvaged cigarettes.
I’m not directly in the ministry or even involved, but I’m there to converse with the homeless. Keep in mind, they’re not an invisible species. Shocking, I know, but I’m fairly certain they can do the whole chameleon jam in front of rainforests and lakes, just not brick. So, they’re pretty clear to spot. I like conversing with them. It keeps me humble and thankful, though I’m still income-less and botched out of an insurance plan. Plus, they have the greatest stories. Always.
I begin to walk and pray. It’s interesting to see who comes. It’s mostly individuals, but I see little clusters of families in line, waiting for their pasta and chicken and bread. A fitting meal for a lukewarm day. I circle around the whole crowd and kick a rock around back to my group. The head staff member with us comes with me to talk to some people who have sat on the sidewalk. I look at each one: Nope; nope; nope; …yes. That one.
A man with a beard so large that he talks with a mustache (you know, like a Santa Claus character in a cartoon movie? No lips. just the upper ‘stache.) sits eating. I ask to sit.
“Of course! It’s all God’s creation! I’m just borrowing it for a bit.” I chuckle at his statement as I find it beautiful and profound. I rest my butt on the patch of grass near him and the girl eases down. We begin to talk small talk: What’s your name? You come here often? So you believe? etc. etc. And then we get to the dirty talk: How’s about this situation we have on our hands?
We begin to converse about the world and it’s state and we share–actually, more like he vents. I mean, he does nothing but think all day, every day. He’s got a lot to get off of his chest, so I cut him some slack. he raves about the war in Iraq and says war doesn’t give anything good to anyone. It’s just something else to get capital, as he gives the example of our economic climb out of the depression a result of our crippling most of the world with the Allies’ effort against tyranny. Which, I could agree with that statement. I hate the fact the world is torn by war, and that America is very much an empire in many ways, but I always wrestle with justifications and boundaries of killing. My mind swims in very muddy waters of whether or not we can justify murder, and whether Jesus says we should or not.
John, this guy I’m talking to, seems like a total anarchist. Which is a bit of an exaggeration. I tend to exaggerate due to the fact that it’s natural to do so in Lancaster, PA. Case and point, I’m outcasted as the local liberal (which really means I’m alright with welfare and I think Barack Obama ain’t that bad of a dude. I’m nowhere near a democrat, for the record. You can write it down. But this guy has his opinions about authority and they’re pretty liberal. But he’s also smart when he talks about labor unions and companies and local economy. This guy isn’t dumb. He thinks.
We shift gears to talk about materialism. He goes on about how it’s really very silly that we feel the need for all these houses and things we can’t afford. And I agree, painfully, but I swallow my pride, as I come from a middle-class background, and I have no place to judge people.
But mansions do piss me off something fierce.
I confess to him I fall short to the glory and that I’m not perfect and-
He stops me dead in my tracks, without hesitation, declaring, “Of course you are. So am I, man.”
What do you mean?
What do you think the cross did? I screwed up in my life. I’ve made many mistakes. The shit has hit the fan for me, and I know it. I’ve had the best fifty years I could ever ask for, but that doesn’t mean I got it right. And he redeems and sustains me every day. How can you look at the cross and at what Jesus did and not call yourself perfect? He died on that cross to make you perfect and for you to believe that you’re complete. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. You are completely perfect and made whole. That’s what Christ did. He completes you and me every day. We get it wrong, but he still calls us into his courts. We’re perfected, son. Perfected.
I sit silent.
And so does the girl.
He looks at me and smiles through a squint, because I really can’t see his lips at all. I just know smiles by how his cheeks lift and lower. And then he shrugs his shoulders while smiling to show his satisfaction with what he knows to be true. It was as if he let Jesus talk for a sec and looks at us to ask, “Wasn’t that brilliant?” He believes this stuff. And he talks about his kids like they’re the greatest thing to happen to him. He adds on that when he held his little girl for the first time, it was like he knew what God felt for us. And he loved that children were in the world, because they make us realize how much bigger everything is.
Because God, as I have found, if more than we say.
He.
Is.
I keep listening to his love story of his daughter and he’s very sincere. We all have fun chatting and discussing everything from hating the crave you get after not smoking for a few days to some shipping docks he’s worked on. You can spot a liar, usually, and this guy has legit written all over him. Plus, I can’t keep my eyes off this dude’s beard. It’s well kept and combed very neatly.
We finish off the conversation with our reassuring each other that his plan is perfect, and we grumble a little about America. We talk about the creation and community and local economy being things that aren’t unrealistic goals. And for a while I have hope. I have hope from a homeless man other than my savior. Usually when I talk to people about more welfare and federal programs, they say it’s very socialist and scary and destroys liberty. (And we should all model after freedom fighters like Glen Beck. It’s safe to say I vomit to that statement.) And when I speak of everyone having the capability in them to help each other out and provide for one another, I get the response of idealistic utopias which can’t exist because people aren’t perfect and it just won’t happen. It’s unrealistic and intangible.
But what if, and go with me here, I can really help people because the cross enables me to be perfect like John the Anarchist says? Or like how Philippians 4:13 tells me I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?
Something to ponder.
May we all bring the Kingdom closer to the earth through His love and grace.
