faithMile

by Paula R. Baines

Are you going to church, yet not really there mentally? Oh that has happened to me recently. I hate to admit it though. I am not sure when this start happening but I have noticed it occurring more often.

My husband stated that he goes to church to be thankful for what he has been given in life. He stated that he is concerned that I spend more time worrying about other things and not really there mentally. Strangely I feel I’m only reminded of things that I have not done. Guilt? Perhaps.

I think my spirit has been buried under all the calendar commitments and “to-dos” that I have yet to do. Unfortunately, church has become another thing to do. Not only has my head not been there but my heart has not either.

I was just reading an article on the Internet that included the following biblical quote:

“throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

I lack the spiritual energy to keep up with life and realize that maybe if I let go and let God, my burdens will be lifted. I desperately need to be restored. Help.

You know what is even more frustrating I am writing an inspirational motivational book about growing in the spirit and attitude. Ironically, I could use a major attitude adjustment myself.

I work on my book each day to complete a chapter by week’s end, plus the other things on my “to-do” list. I have been bogged down by goal of achievement, i.e. self publishing my book and signing those autographs that I have forgotten who gave me the talent to write in the first place.

Have you ever been bogged down by goals that you forgotten your original purpose for achieving them in the first place? Do you spend more time counting the “to-dos” then counting your blessings? I have to raise my hand on those two accounts as well.

I have resolved to be more grateful for what I have in life than what I have left undone. I have resolved to restore my spirit so I can achieve what I need to do to live with purpose. I resolve to concentrate when I am church so I can filled again with the spirit so I can meet the daily challenges of life during the week.

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:12).

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Paula R. Baines is writer and publisher who resides in Hampden, Maine with her husband of nine years and two young sons. She publishes a bimonthly newsletter called Vantage Point E-News and a website, PowertoGrow.homestead.com. She can be reached via e-mail at AdvantagedImage@aol.com.

As many of you know, there have been about 12 fires in Southern California over the past few days.  The San Diego area was hit really hard, and almost a million people have been evacuated from their homes.  As a compassionate gesture, several San Diego area hotels have offered discount rates to evacuees.  That’s great, right?  According to an economics professor, it’s horrific. Mark Steckbeck, economics professor at Hillsdale College, laments the fact that hotels offered discounted rates to fire evacuees in San Diego on this post of his blog, The Liberal Order.  According to Steckbeck, who doesn’t sound very liberal despite his blog title, the hotels made a bad thing worse by not charging full market rates or more for the rooms because higher prices would have insured that only the most desperate used the hotel rooms while others would have opted for shelters or family homes. Steckbeck says “It was a nice gesture on the part of the hotels, but I’d rather see compassion administered through the invisible hand of market prices.” Technically he is correct regarding the economics, but he is completely wrong concerning compassion.  Market prices are passive.  They do what they do, like a machine.  Compassion, on the other hand, is active.  It cannot be administered by the invisible hand of market prices.  It cannot be administered by any passive force.  Compassion means to suffer with, and market economics don’t suffer.  They don’t feel.  They cannot administer justice or mercy.  They just are.  Compassion is the realm of people. So how does human compassion reconcile itself with market forces?  This IS the market. The owners get to charge what they want, and the owners decided to be compassionate. That’s the great thing about the economy and the market. If one is fortunate enough to make one’s riches and own something, one is able to be merciful at will. As for the people who may have been willing to pay more for a room, it doesn’t matter.  When almost a million people need to be evacuated, the rooms would have filled up anyway and the compassionate gesture of reducing prices didn’t do any harm at all.  What did happen, and what will happen, is that when the fires are over, those who still have homes will return to them and those who need the hotels for longer than a few days because they no longer have homes, will have locked in reduced rates while they look for other semi-permanent housing. The hotels are still more expensive than rent, so some people will rent apartments until the insurance company, FEMA or whoever comes through with money to either buy elsewhere or rebuild. Either way, the hotels in the area were only half booked before this happened and now they are all full, so the hotel owners were able to be compassionate while still making a profit.  Isn’t that the best sort of economics?

I’m taking a class at church about the changing culture and our role in it as Christians.  Traditonally, Christians treat non-Christians as “others” and try to evangelize them.  This class emphasizes finding common ground and building relationships rather than blunt evangelism.  In the last session, we had to get into groups and one of us had to ask a difficult question that a non-Christian may really ask, and the others had to answer.  My question was basically “See Darfur?  How can there be a loving God?”  Another guy had a question about why Christians are so non-chalant regarding global warming.  Another wondered about death.  As we talked about our subjects, I realized something.  Crisises of faith are a Godsend.

I know that most Christians would tell you that having a crisis of faith is the worst thing ever.  Once you become a Christian, doubting is no longer an option.  Just believe God in all things.  I get that.  It’s comforting.  But I have found that I end up closer to God when I allow myself a full-on faith crisis.  For instance, I have actually asked God what’s up with Darfur and how could he be loving and allow that to happen.  I have even wondered if he was really there at all.  Is this world and what we make of it really all there is. Does he see what’s going on there?  Does he care?  I mean, honestly, I really want to see someone get struck down by lightning over this!  I honestly wondered if I could worship someone who could let those things happen.

The thing is, I dared to question my faith and my worship of God because I know that my love for him is a choice.  Not that God isn’t worthy of my adoration, but I have to give it freely or it isn’t real.  I would rather ask God about Darfur and ask myself if I wanted to worship him with the world being in this state and him letting it happen, than to blindly give my devotion for no apparent reason.  I still love God and I have continued to love him through really difficult circumstances.  He has promised not to ever leave me, and I plan to stick around with him, too.  Oddly enough, my faith crisises force me to reason everything out and account for my faith in a way that blind devotion doesn’t, which ultimately brings me closer to God, not farther away.

So what does this have to do with evangelism?  A LOT.  When non-Christians ask us questions and we give some pat answer from “Church 101”, they know it’s fake.  I think the thing that bothers them about us is not so much that we believe, but that it seems as if we are so bent on the next life that we truly stop caring about this one.  It seems as if we don’t think about things like whether the war we are in is just, why things like Darfur happen and what we can do, or whether we should try to stop global warming.  I think they would listen to us more if we would actually allow ourselves to ask the question “where is God in all of this” and then allow him to answer.  It also helps to admit that we wrestle with that question and that sometimes God doesn’t answer and we just don’t know.  Non-Christians are people who don’t believe in Christ.  They aren’t stupid.  They aren’t children.  For the most part, neither are we.  We should be able to relate as adults and find some common ground.

You know what?  That faith crisis that non-Christians exist in and Christians avoid, where we ask “God, where are you?” is possibly the most common ground of all.