Finding The Way

Pro 16:1 The designs of the heart are man's, but
the answer of the tongue comes from the Lord.


2 All a man's ways are clean to himself; but the
Lord puts men's spirits into his scales.


3 Put your works into the hands of the Lord, and
your purposes will be made certain.


4 The Lord has made everything for his purpose,
even the sinner for the day of evil.


5 Everyone who has pride in his heart is
disgusting to the Lord: he will certainly not go
free from punishment.


Yesterday, I saw the yahoo news story about the kid who shot up the mall then himself in Omaha. It's a sensational story. But it makes me begin to wonder about the person behind the story. These kinds of stories show up from time to time but Omaha is not one of the places you expect to see this sort of thing. It reminds me that the moral rot in this country is ubiquitous. I know that many who are troubled these days are treated with drugs that provide the rough equivalent of a chemical lobotomy. They are given pharmaceutical treatments that prevent them from harming themselves and others. It's one solution to the problem. But it does not address the cause, it only mediates the symptom. In an imperfect world, that is well enough, I suppose.


I've been through Omaha a bunch of times. It's about as midwestern a town as you will find. I used to stop in Grand Island, though. It's a calmer pace out there. I prefer a calm pace, and calm people. Not that I get to experience much of it. Seems that people tend to be not so calm these days.


Another weird story I stumbled on yesterday was a link on smoking gun dot com about the death of a Jerry Falwell assistant. It's the kind of report that makes me ever more cynical.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1008072scuba1.html
I hope it's not the sort of thing that becomes the norm
for higher visibility christian figures. Overall, I am not disappointed with Jerry Falwell. He was able to keep himself from public scandal. It's not clear to me why he put himself into the center of the public eye with his Moral Majority cause. He was able to draw alot of fire from all quarters of the radical left. To me he always appeared to be a mostly non-threatening harmless, sorta country like preacher. It always surprised me the level of hostility that he was able to arouse. I guess some folks don't see the humor in Monty Python either. But then, I have the huge disadvantage of having an Irish grandmother who was ever able to see the humor in life. Seems we've lost a collective sense of humor too, in all the special-interest dogfights that engage public opinion. Nothin' but flamers. Sheesh.


Being on the Jesus Bus, I know that public perception of christianity is shaped by those who hold higher visibility public positions. That is too bad. Combined with a general ignorance of scripture and theology, the media
distortions of christianity provide a twisted
image. It's like making Jeffrey Dahmer the( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer )
poster boy of the homesexical movement in
Amerika. The most extreme deviance is not
representative of the whole. But I can't help
but think that the extremes in all directions are an indication of
the direction of drift. We live in a world
adrift. Jesus offers an anchor for our soul.


Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and
today and for ever.


I know that I am not unique in my experience.The personal prison that I find myself a captive is a common experience, or so I'm told. There are statistics and there is personal experience to show me that I am not alone. My greater personal battles are family related. I can understand why it is that many choose to go the route of the chemical lobotomy. When you find yourself in the center of the storm and there is no clear path of escape, depression can pour in and threaten to overwhelm. Looking around, though, it's not hard to see that the degree of torment that we experience in the confines of our personal prison, is to some extent determined by our own actions. We can do the Jesus thing and surrender to him the
circumstances beyond our control. As some say,
acceptance is the key to serenity. Or we can take another route and end up like the kid from Omaha or J. Dahmer. Even in our prisons, we get to make some choices.


In scripture I find that the best course of action
is faith. Remember the stories of other
prisoners, like Daniel and Joseph and the
Apostle Paul. If you think about it, there are not many writers of scripture that did not serve a prison sentence, including Jesus. We can sit quietly in our personal misery, and that's OK. But the world, it seems, has always been hostile to the truth about G-d. Keep it quiet.


Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, and the sign that the things not seen
are true.


2 For by it our fathers had G-d's approval.


3 By faith it is clear to us that the order of
events was fixed by the word of G-d...


This would be faith in G-d, rather than faith in people. Faith in G-d rather than faith in our own ability. So, when I am faced with another day, I realize that my answer is found in faith and prayer. Prayer that G-d will intervene to change me and those around me. Some people say that you are supposed to pray for specific outcomes. I'm not sure about that. I have heard too many people talk about outcomes that they want, only to know that such an outcome would only result in a mess bigger than the one they are in already. The goal of faith and prayer is not to change G-d's mind about our situation, it is to change our mind about being conformed and surrendered to the will of G-d. The will of G-d is not a mystery. It's revealed clearly in scripture, as in the Ten Commandments.


So, this all leads to my admission that I am not what I want to be either. The passage from Proverbs 16 at the top of this page is one that concerns me. I have to take a closer look at verse 5 and then look in the mirror to ask if I am holding pride in my heart. If I am
disgusting to the world, OK. I do not want to disgust the Lord.