Be Sober; Be Vigilant!

1 Peter 5:6-11 KJV; 7th Sunday of Easter;  Be aware of what is going on for the devil is always aware of what you are doing and will catch you up if you are not paying attention.

Saved From The Deluge

Psalm 80 KJV

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth.

Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us.

Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?

Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.

Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves.

Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

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I am pretty convinced that the season of Advent, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ, is fraught with difficulties.  I seem to spend a lot of time doing things many times; things that actually shouldn't be up to me. The couch in my office is full of projects; that is paperwork, as I wait for "professionals" to take care of what they are being paid to do. Nothing seems to be getting done. I have filed the stuff a few times the last few months only to have to take it all back out so that I can advise the "professionals." I would take it personally; but, I have a feeling that some of these "professionals" are working from home and may have a few distractions that are keeping them from focusing on their jobs during their paid working hours or maybe they have new help and that help is just inexperienced. I don't really care to hear that they don't think they should do the best they can because they don't think they get paid enough. If you accept a job then you do it. It is as simple as that.

I have to admit that there are times when I feel a bit overwhelmed with it all. So I wouldn't mind a prayer or two. But, as a retired pastor I am also aware that others are having a much more difficult time. There are multitudes of homeless in this world who don't have a couch to lay their paperwork on. They don't have enough food to eat. Others are losing their homes due to job losses or in some cases because of a snafu in paperwork that they just can't figure out how to fix. People are dying from many things including random shootings. Tornadoes have recently taken the homes and livelihoods of many. The list goes on...

What is the answer?  We keep going in the knowledge that God will cause his face to shine and we shall be saved from the deluge this world brings upon us. 

God's Peace - Pr. J.

Politics and Wisdom

Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Romans 12:16b-18

Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said,

Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?

Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?

Yea, thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God.

For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.

Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee.

                                                         (Job 15:1-6 KJV; but, read all of Job 15)

Job's friend, Eliphaz, responds to Job. Eliphaz pretty much tells Job and that he is arrogant thinking that he, himself is wise enough to advise Job.

The story goes on with Job's friend accusing him, attacking him. It is pretty amazing that anyone would do this to an enemy, let alone a friend. But, is that not what we do? Is that not what humanity does? That is: man attacks man. Who is wise?

The wisdom of our news reporters amazes me. It just amazes me that instead of addressing issues they promote their own personal agendas and bias'. They create major news stories not out of actual news; but, from politicians anger and hatred for one another. Instead of informing voters of what a politician stands for, or what actually happened they give us their opinions as to what happened according to their own flavor of politics.

Politicians spend way too much time accusing their opponents, informing us all of what they think their opponents stand for. There is very little truth in any of it. Who can possibly figure out the truth with so much slander being slung? There is just way too much slander, way too many false accusations. By the time the media is done with these assumptions and accusations half of the county considers this slander as fact. 

This is the wisdom of the age: to fund-raise so politicians can tell lies to the public rather than raise funds to help the country feed it's people; rather than to help small businesses, teachers, children. Would it not be wiser to spend less money on slander and tearing down one's opponent and use the finances to help a world in need instead? Maybe the candidates should tithe the campaign funds they raised to the national treasury? (LOL that's not going to happen) Some politicians actually think that they are going to win the race simply because they have raised the most funds and the news will report that. In some cases this is true; but, not all. The scandal of it all is that we continue to contribute to this poor stewardship. We continue to support a system that allows candidates to run on a platform that they claim will help the country while they are slandering their opponents and using funds that could genuinely help the nation for their own agendas. 

There is so much time spent campaigning that I cannot help but wonder how they are doing the jobs that they were already elected to do. That doesn't sound that wise to me. It does not sound like good stewardship of taxpayers' money, either.

It would just be really nice if in our election processes, there would be less arrogance and less slander of one another and not just within the presidential campaign, all of them. The arrogance and slander doesn't actually tell us what they think it tells the people about their opponents. It tells us that much like Eliphaz they cannot be trusted.

I would just appreciate it if politicians would spend more time letting us know what their platforms are rather than spending so much time distorting (lying about) the platforms that their opponents are running on. That seems to me to be a much fairer way to run a campaign for the sake of the people; for the sake of the country.

Ok.. so I'm ranting this morning... Let there be some peace already!

God's Peace - Judy