FROM THE MIND OF GOD

Do you ever think about the awesome truth of math?  MATH?  No one wants to think about MATH do they?  That’s just a class you have to take to get through school.  No one ever uses it in everyday life!  Why think about it?

How about because just about everything in our lives that exists through the efforts of man has a math component:  Architecture, Engineering, Science, Electronics, Movies, Space Travel, Clothing, computer programming, hard and soft… you name it, if men made it they used math.

There was a wonderful article in my favorite magazine, Acts and Facts, published by the Institute for Creation Science, which tackles the fact of math and the idea that math has somehow changed through the years by evolving into a better math.  I am thinking about it today, because yesterday I had the privilege of meeting a wonderful Christian woman who lives in the John Day area and has a serious interest in the geology of that area.  She had just purchased a book written about that area “from a creationist point of view.”  She is also a great fan of Acts and Facts, so we had a very nice discussion time together over the facts of geology from a creation standpoint.

That brought me to remembering the “EVOLUTIONARYMATH?” article from Acts and Facts.  And that brought me to tears over how truly Awesome our God is. Since I lived through the “new math” era (a FAIL) and thanked God that I never had to deal with that in my classrooms, I am very impressed with the basic thoughts of this article.  Math has never changed.  Math is Truth and math truth has been true since the very beginning of all things: (2 + 2) has always and will always equal (4). Math existed in the very Mind of God and it cannot be changed and has not changed through time.  Without math we would be lost in a serious wilderness of impossibility.  With math we are able to live amazing lives filled with wonder, wonder that sometimes should, and often does, absolutely floor us.

Perhaps you may have guessed what “repeating” TV show is one of my favorites?  NUMB3RS, of course.  (And not just because Santa’s elf plays the math guy, but that helps – teehee.) I do not claim to understand everything said, but I do sit in amazement over the way the mind of a mathematician works.  Everything can be reduced to numbers in their brains and those numbers can be used in awesome ways to solve the riddles of life. Numbers came from the mind of God and they do not change and He does not change.

So, how about if we get excited about math simply because it came from the very mind of God.  That is awesome to me. And that is one huge, excellent argument in favor of Creation.  Creation came from the mind and heart and spoken word of God.

And, by the way, let’s celebrate the very fact that God is Truth, the only Truth and that nothing can ever compete with that and be true.  May God give us an awesome respect for His mind as well as His loving Heart.

Just for laughs:  Try imagining the cumbersome effort to solve thought problems or even balance our check books using Roman Numerals!  hahahaha.  Then thank God for the numbering system we have today!

IS KINDNESS LEGAL?

IS KINDNESS LEGAL?

I have long been confused by the incredibly uneven standards and statements proclaimed these days over what is kind and what is cruel.  As I was reading Matthew 11 in The Message, I was struck by a sentence which was part of Christ’s reply to the Pharisees about “working on the Sabbath” by healing.  He comes back with the example of anyone owning a sheep being willing to rescue that sheep from danger even on the Sabbath, for kindness sake. Then (in The Message) He said, “Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to animals!”  This made me wonder if the scale today is really even in that respect.

Several years ago I became the care giver for one out of several feral cats because my Steve decided he wanted company during the day when I was at work, so he befriended one of these cats.  Well, she had a litter of kittens that I fell in love with and things got pretty awful, pretty fast.  I tried to get her spayed, but no free clinics were available in our area and no shelters for cats existed at all, and I just happened to be unable to finance the situation myself as I was struggling to make ends meet.  But, in trying to get her spayed and later trying to get her daughter (the love of my life) spayed, I discovered that even if you had the money the vets would not do it if there was any “sign of life” in her.  And there always was because she was always already pregnant by the time she weaned her kittens.  I cannot tell you how many kittens we gave away before we finally got that job done.  Momma died first, but daughter Polo was a very strong girl and she made it to a spaying, after which we both breathed much easier.

Today, there are many shelters and free clinic spayings and a lot of willing helpers out there.  But the line I am always hearing which stands out to me is that every kitty and every puppy and every other animal that is bred deserves to live at all cost.  I guess that I should research whether the same, “no sign of life” policy still exists.  I am assuming it does because that fits with the temperament of the day… about animals.  Animals have a right to live.  And anything less than an all out effort to that end is cruelty, including spaying a female who is showing “signs of life” within her.

And, yet…

Do I really have to write this next line, or can you fill it yourself?  When animals are pregnant, they show “signs of life within.”  But when women are pregnant, they just have a blob of indefinable flesh within.  It is okay to remove that blob, even the baby that is actually being born, if there is any question about what the birth will bring to the mother.  Is that pathetically sad or what.  Jesus was positioned to announce that kindness to humans is at least as legal as kindness to animals.  Be kind to humans.  Let them be born and nurtured at least as well as dogs and cats.  Save the animals, save the trees, but save the humans, too!

And now I can say no more.  May God bless us as we stand firm on behalf of the lives of those who are considered less important to the world or too much of a nuisance to be of value.  God help us spread this word for Your sake, Lord.  Amen

DEATH BY DIVORCE

I am currently reading The Message, by Eugene Peterson and I can’t seem to get past the Beatitudes without sharing some thoughts about current blessings vs future blessings.  Every sermon I have ever heard or study I have done on the Beatitudes has been focused on future blessings.  Suddenly I am reading them in the present tense as Peterson sees them and teaches them. And suddenly I see what I could not see when I questioned God after my divorce so many years ago.  Blessings for today that do not have to wait for tomorrow.

You see, after my divorce, whenever God would nudge me to remember Him, I would scream back at Him, “Okay.  I know I am saved and I will see you in Heaven someday, but what about today:  What good are you to me NOW, today, in this situation?   You did not help me, what good are you to me now?”  Pretty blasphemous, right?  But God, in His Grace did not condemn me for this. He allowed me to suffer my rebellion and prepared me to be a bright light for Him in another day and time.

Many people say that divorce is like a death in the family.  Well, yes, but not like they think.  I never felt like I lost my husband to death.  I felt like I had died.  I lost my husband, my home, my church, my friends, even my city and state and all the reasons I had come to Oregon in the first place.  But now I see something I have missed all this time:

            You are blessed when you are at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

            You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.  Only then can you be embraced by the One (truly) most dear to you.

            You’re blessed when you are content with just who you are—no more, no less.

Now that is pretty current, don’t you think?  And right to the point for me. 

But why would divorce feel like death.  Because two together is the dream of even the worst of characters on this earth: i.e. Hugh Hefner, who keeps getting married even though he has total freedom to “dilly-dally” in his chosen world.  Losing that sacred position of being one of two is death-like.  Suddenly you are not who you should be or wanted to be and you don’t really know who you are anymore.  The you that you thought you were, just doesn’t exist anymore.  Or so your mind and heart tell you.  But God sees you the same and He loves you the same and He does not let you go.  And He persists in nudging you toward that realization.

In gratitude for this eye-opener, I share this with you in hope that all of us will be a little more understanding of how truly miserable divorce is for those going through it.  Even though we do not “approve” of divorce, it happens.  It takes two (actually three) to keep a marriage together and sometimes one or both do not really try to keep their marriage alive and no amount of counseling will keep it together.  And no counseling at all will put the stamp of death on it for sure.

As we go forward in this New Year, let’s seek a little more compassion for those whose lives have not turned out to follow the same pattern as our own.  Let’s make a little more room in our hearts for those who have made bad choices and need to make better ones.  Let’s go out of our way to encourage them in the right direction and support the good decisions they make along the road to healing.   May we all be salty-seasoning in their lives and a light on a hill for them to see the way home.

And one more reminder from The Message:  Matt 5:22ish – The simple fact is that words kill.  (Whether said directly to the person or about them or even thought.)