I've moved!

I'm excited to announce that this blog is now being hosted on another blogging service.  Click here to view it.  It's exactly the same as this one in terms of content, but it has far more flexible search options, it's way more customizable from a design standpoint, and might I add it has a way better look!

So please be sure to bookmark the new blog link.  I'll keep this blog active, but it just won't be current.  There will be no more posts after this one, so thanks for your interest to this point and "see" you at the new site!

Homosexuality, Part I

Wow, first abortion, now this!  You might think I'm in a mood for stirring controversy or something.  Actually, I've just been thinking about these topics lately more than I usually do.  So what's got me thinking more lately about this enormously hot-button topic?  Well, I think I need to start with some background.  In the next post I'll get to my main points.

In the city I was born and raised in, I lived near the bottom of a street, and at the top lived a girl and her younger brother.  One day when I was about 4 years of age, I discovered this fact when the girl came riding by my house on her bike.  Like many little kids do, I walked up to her and we started talking.  For the next seven years or so, I would say that she was my best friend.

Around age 11, her family moved to a city about 1 1/2 hours north and my family visited hers once about a year after she moved, and then she and I lost contact for several years.  One night when I was in university, my Mom informed me that she had phoned.  I guess she found out that I still lived in the same house, and actually our easy-to-remember phone number had never left her mind!  Anyhow, about a decade after our last contact, we finally re-united and caught up on life over several outings over the next couple of years.

On one outing, she expressed how hard it was for her to have a good relationship with guys, ones that would last, and she went on to mention how the ones she had had just fizzled out.  But on another outing, she gave me insight as to why this was most definitely the case.  When she lived on my street, just next door to her lived an older boy who had been her babysitter, and on one of those occasions he  raped her.  Obviously she had been traumatized by that event from that point forward, and I was devastated and enraged that this had happened.  Again, it explained very clearly to me why her relationships with men never worked out.

Anyhow, she left my life once again to finish her university studies, and I got into a relationship for a few years that had me all-consumed to the point where I basically hung out with nobody else, unless my girlfriend and I were together.  I, too, was finishing up university.  But it was also during this time that I got saved, i.e. I came to a realization of who God really is (apart from the religious notions of my upbringing) and accepted Jesus into my life.  I didn't even realize for the first while that I had actually become a "Christian" (I wouldn't set foot in a church building for the first two years), but I read the Bible with an insatiable appetite and began to learn the basics of what the Christian life is all about.

Of course, I came across those verses that describe the reaction of God to sexual acts done outside the bonds of marriage, like adultery, divorce, and homosexuality.  I eventually started attending a church (once I realized that they weren't after my money after all), and made many new Christian friends and started doing 'churchy' things like attend study groups and join music ministry.

But as I suspected it would, I one day got another phone call from my friend.  And this time I was excited to share about what had happened in my life spiritually.  However, I knew I would have to approach her properly with this so she didn't do what most people do to a zealous Christian:  assume I was a freak (which I am, though I don't show it outwardly much) then no longer want anything to do with me.

As I expected, she was lukewarm to the whole idea, like all other past non-Christian friends and acquaintances have been, but we still managed to talk and have a good time, yet now I was just a little more awkward than before, I guess not wanting her rejection of me due to my new life in Christ.

One day, not long before I met my future wife, I was visiting a place she was renting for the first time in the same city where we grew up, but her female roommate wasn't there, and I assumed nothing out of the ordinary about their living arrangement - after all, they were of the same sex.  And so we chatted for a bit, but then I noticed some pictures of her and her roommate on a wall, and when I noticed how in one picture they were kissing, it was pretty obvious to me that my very first childhood friend was officially a lesbian.  And I realized more clearly after the fact that my visiting her that day and seeing those pictures was no accident:  she had decided on that day to "come out" with her very first childhood friend, someone who she probably felt she could trust and who would respect her.

Needless to say, I was awkward yet not very surprised due to what I knew about her rape and her subsequent bad relationships with men.  So how did I as the "good Christian" respond?  Well, if Jesus had been in that very room in person, he might have carried on the conversation as before, not ignoring the point but rather not getting preachy.  He might have shown a bit of a sad look for a moment, but then brightened up again and continued to show the love of a true friend.  After all, while here on earth he was accused by the religious leaders of the day of dining with "sinners and tax collectors", not to mention all the other times he was found in the company of prostitutes and the like sharing the love of God among them by just being with them.  He didn't approve of their sinful behaviors nor did he obviously take part in them, but he hung out with them and grew in his relationship with them as people, imperfect as we all are in different ways.  He hated the sin, for sure, but he loved the sinner no differently than he loved his followers.

Anyhow, whatever Jesus did, he must not have been repulsive because Scripture never mentions these people ever feeling obligated or forced to be with him, nor did they try to get away from him once he started sharing God's love with them.  So obviously Jesus was a very winsome, likable person to be around.  I would suppose that God in the flesh, i.e. Jesus, couldn't be anything but very appealing, except to the religious leaders of the day who Jesus was extremely upset with on many occasions.

So back to the question, which I really don't want to address:  how did I respond?  Well, I'll admit I was taken aback and I felt the responsibility as a "good Christian" to let her know, as diplomatically as I could, that I wasn't big on her lifestyle and frankly that God wasn't either, and that there would be consequences for not obeying God, and how "ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God".  I also let her know that God could forgive her if she changed her ways and if she wanted him to forgive her.  So in essence, I did EXACTLY what I should NOT have done in that situation!  I often hate how hindsight is 20/20.  I wish I had been more Christ-like at that point in my life, but that said I'm not sure if I would have handled things any differently now. 

Not long after that day I met my future wife and entered into another all-consuming relationship with her.  But it's not that I couldn't have kept in touch with my friend, it's that I didn't.  I didn't know how to be her friend knowing what I knew and responding how I had responded.  Plus I'm not sure we had parted ways that day with her exactly assured about the love of God.  Basically, I didn't want to make the situation any worse by seeing her again.

So another ten years passed, and this thing called Facebook came into my life about 1 1/2 years ago.  I watched how my wife was starting to re-connect with some long-lost friends and being blessed by that, and began to wonder about some of mine - well, at least those I didn't turn off after becoming a Christian.

Naturally, my first childhood friend came to mind one day, and after finding her and leaving a message, to my surprise she messaged back and was open to getting together again.  Of course, this time I fully intended to make my wrongs right and to love her as a friend, no strings attached.

So I arrived at her house, this time in a town about half an hour east of where we grew up, and it was like old times again; our discussion was actually quite natural.  She had divorced from her first wife, had been raked financially over the coals as a result, but now had bought her first house and was in a relationship with a new girlfriend.  At this news, I unfortunately felt the same uncomfortable feelings as before, but I didn't get preachy and I tried to keep things normal during our conversation.  All in all, I felt the day went fine, but a couple of months later, just last August, she messaged me about how my summer was going and I explained what was happening, but I also felt that I had to respond honestly to a request by her that she meet my family because she also mentioned the possibility that her girlfriend would be there as well.  Here's how I responded:

"I'll have to admit that if my kids meet you and your girlfriend, I'm kind of awkward about how I would explain that to them. They have the understanding that only opposite sex people date, hold hands, get married, etc and frankly I don't want to upset the worldview of a six- and three-year-old quite yet. I hope you understand. In other words, [my wife]  and I are more than willing to hang out with you and all, but if your girlfriend's there, I would hope that you would respect our desire to have our kids realize that you and she are "just friends". I'd rather they learn the reality about the gay/lesbian lifestyles once they're a lot older. Does this make sense, or do I just sound like a quack?

If you get upset or don't respond to these last comments, I'll understand. I just hope you also understand where I'm coming from, that's all."

I think that my answer was rather diplomatic, and I would think that non-Christian parents of young children would have given a similar response.  But since then any messages she's sent me have been very short, and they've been questions about things like 'how do I fix this computer problem?'  I believe that I hurt her with my honesty, but that I had to be straight about how I felt about the issue.

But did I approach it the right way?  Had I been winsome like Jesus?  Was that the proper display of love to this life-long friend?  Apparently not, because of her aloofness since.

In this post, I felt that I just had to give this background story - although very long - because it will make more sense in the next post when I share what I've learned about homosexuality since then.  Stay tuned ...

The Third World

I realize that I'm blasting into 2011 with a rather boring topic to most people, but my thoughts about people living in the Third World have been kindled more lately as I've been reading "Revolution in World Missions" by K.P. Yohannan, the founder of Gospel for Asia.  It was written nearly 25 years ago, but to my understanding is still a very popular and impacting read.

Rather than do a book review or summarize what the book talks about, I mention it only because it got me thinking more about the lives of the many people of our planet that live in what we call the Third World.  In fact, even before starting this book, 2010 was a year when God spoke to me on many occasions about these people, perhaps triggered by the horrific earthquake in Haiti last January.

So what has God spoken to my heart about those living in the Third World, especially about how we as Christians should view them and respond to their needs?

First of all, I think we in the Developed World or the West - or whatever you want to call it - have this impression that somehow we have it all figured out, that we're the standard that the rest of the world should aspire to.  I've read and watched many stories about people coming to North America, for example, from the Third World because they think it's paradise on earth and that being able to live there means that all their dreams will be fulfilled.

However, aside from having clean drinking water, access to better medical care, and a fairly reliable electrical grid and transportation infrastructure, the moral abyss that the West is sinking into makes it pretty obvious that we don't have it all figured out, and that our standard is based upon the almighty dollar and no longer the Almighty God that allowed us to achieve peace and unparalleled wealth in the first place.  And too many of them eventually get caught up in the emptiness of the consumer lifestyle, buying the Western idea that money and things will be the means to their dreams being fulfilled, even though each new purchase and financial milestone isn't as fulfilling as the last one or as fulfilling as they think the next one will be.

These immigrants, nor many of the people born in the West, don't realize that the incredible blessings our society has received was entirely the result of following biblical principles.  That's not to say that all the founding fathers of Western nations believed in God or the Bible, but even the non-believers had a respect for biblical principles and practiced them to a large degree.  Anyone who disagrees with this assertion needs only listen to an excellent 11-part audio series by Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi entitled "Must The Sun Set On The West?" that addresses the rise of modern Western civilization but also the fall that appears to be coming as it abandons its Judeo-Christian roots.  It's an excellent resource for anyone interested in viewing our society from a non-Western perspective.

Second, many Westerners over the years have had the idea that the only hope for the Third World has been to turn it, country by country, into a clone of us.  Unfortunately, this has largely failed because it hasn't taken local history or culture into account, and imposing a culture founded upon Judeo-Christian values has only caused resentment and even wars and bloodshed.

But what has happened with the abandonment of these values in the West?  Oh, the crusade to create Western clones is still in full swing, but this time its purpose is to create converts of consumerism.  Western corporate interests are fully behind the efforts of Western governments and aid organizations to "develop" the Third World because better lifestyles and more money in the hands of the billions of people considered to be in that part of the world means more potential consumers.  More consumers means more money in corporate coffers.  More places to advertise means more people enslaved to the idea of consumerism meeting the emotional needs in one's life instead of the one thing that will actually fill those needs, namely a personal relationship with God.

So how should Western Christians respond to the ideas that we're the gold standard in the world and that the world needs what we have?

Christians seem to fall into two main camps regarding these ideas.  There is the one camp that seems to ignore the issue of the great gap between rich and poor in this world, and instead focuses on getting all they can for themselves.  These people are referred to as wanting to "name it and claim it", using God as a cosmic bellhop to fill their every need by naming what they want and claiming its arrival in advance in Jesus' name.  If they don't get the material possessions they ask for or the healing they want, their leaders accuse their followers of not having enough "faith".  This "Prosperity Gospel" has been created by those who twist the Bible to justify their desires for wealth and self-gain, and has lived on in different forms under many different leaders for years from the likes of Jim Bakker (who has renounced this perversion of the Gospel) to Benny Hinn.

The other Christian camp seems to have a guilt complex about this great gap and is characterized by people who live on as little as possible so that they can give the rest to others less fortunate.  It's almost as though by doing so they can make up for the guilt they feel - imposed either from within or from Christian leaders - of being financially blessed or by living in a wealthy part of the world.  Never mind the fact that God allowed them to be born where they were and to enjoy the blessings of where they live.  In any case, it's difficult to tell whether those living a deliberately frugal lifestyle are doing it out of sincere love for others or as a way of trying to please God out of guilt or for a potential future payback for their sacrifices.

As with most things in life, I think taking the balanced approach - a middle ground perspective - is the best way to approach our view of people living in the Third World and their needs.  I think any Christian who feels a sincere and lasting burden to help others, whether in a country considered a Third World nation or living in bad conditions right here in the West, needs to get on their knees and ask God for how they should respond in a healthy and balanced manner.

Some Western Christians think they need to forsake the blessings provided by success and give them all up to minister in a Third World setting, when perhaps God was perfectly satisfied with them giving a portion of their income to others less financially blessed but willing to do the same.  Others think they need to get involved in some sort of official ministry instead of ministering to the everyday needs around them outside of a ministry or position with a fancy name or title.

K.P. Yohannan earnestly sought God's will about how he could be used to reach the poor and the lost, and the result was Gospel for Asia, a massive organization that trains native missionaries to reach their very own countrymen with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  But it goes far beyond preaching and church planting into the realm of providing people with water wells and water purification systems to farm animals that will provide food and/or income to the people that receive them as gifts from Western donors.

What will God speak to your heart if you have a burden for those in the Third World?  Will he give you the means to acquire wealth so that you can give a healthy portion to ministries that will impact those parts of the world?  Or will you be a visionary on fire for God who is led to start an organization on the magnitude of Gospel for Asia that will impact millions for Christ?

Whatever your burden, it all must start with prayer, and my prayer for you is that God will reveal your next step on His terms, in a way that is free from the desires of people who are only looking out for themselves and their own agendas.  May He give you a desire for what burdens Him, and may you respond in a manner that is healthy and balanced unless God reveals otherwise.