Thursday, April 28, 2011

Seeing God Provide Our Daily Needs

Did you ever think much about that phrase in the Lord's prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread?" For myself, I've been so blessed that I've never had to pray for my next meal. I can remember a few times in Africa when funds were very sparse and I had to plan very carefully to get through. I've never had to pray this way for my own needs, though.

The needs of my Big African family are another thing altogether. It seems we've had to continuously pray that God would provide enough to go around for those needs. Recently we became aware that the budget we could supply for Haven of Hope for one month met their food needs for only about one week. Of course we discussed with them every conservation method we could think of to stretch the food & the budget. We increased their budget the little bit that we could. We instructed our leaders there to make the need known to local churches in Ghana. And we began to pray and ask others to do the same.

We've received some very generous responses from American friends. We've learned of children planning to give their Vacation Bible School offerings this year toward food. We've had several Ghanaians also make generous donations. Today I learned that a local chicken farmer there donated significant quantities of eggs and promised to continue doing so on a regular basis. We are so very thankful to everyone, and especially to our great God who lays it on the hearts of His people to give. Thank you all.

Maybe God lets us experience need so that we will look to Him and depend on Him more fully. If so, it's working! So, Lord, give our Haven of Hope family their daily bread. And don't forget our faithful staff and volunteers and all the other children we are helping in every country. You know their daily needs. Please show Yourself faithful so that we may praise You together. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Transgender people problem in public bathrooms

This morning I received a notice about a transgender person the article called a "woman" who was pulled from a public restroom at a restaurant & beaten. They wanted me to blame the restaurant employees who stood by.

Hmm. Well, I would never condone the beating of a person. I know that however confused that poor person was, he/she was created in the image of God. Of course, that image did not include gender confusion. The Bible clearly states that "male and female created He them." We do live in a fallen world where our human tendency to choose our own way and to think we are smarter than our Creator has marred us all, myself included as well as that poor person who was confused about what gender he/she was and what bathroom he/she could use. I do not hate that person or wish that person evil. I would not wish to see that person harmed.

But the employees must have been just as confused. What were they to do? Were they to let a person use the women's bathroom whom others obviously recognized as not a woman? If so, how were they to protect the privacy of their other customers who entered that bathroom not expecting to find what they recognized as a man? The other customers did not attack the person in question when that person sought service at the counter. They only attacked that person when that person invaded the privacy of the women's bathroom. They were wrong in attacking her, but I can understand their outrage in finding no privacy in the bathroom of their own gender.

I would not want to say or do anything that would encourage attacking people who conceive of themselves as transgender. Probably I would have cleared my family members out of the bathroom and waited for the offending person to exit. That would have meant giving up our rights to use the bathroom freely, but it would have been preferable to the action that was taken. This incident, however, clearly shows the problems we face as a society when we decide to label ourselves as something other than what God created us to be. We all need the use of public bathrooms, so there is no way we can relabel ourselves without infringing on the rights of others. Yes, I do sympathize with the poor person who was beaten. I also sympathize with the customers who were offended to find what they perceived as a man invading the privacy of the women's bathroom. I also sympathize with the employees who in a split second had to decide whether or not to defend the person who was being beaten. When we leave God's ways behind, we always create confusion, not only for ourselves, but for all those around us.

Monday, April 18, 2011

How & Why We Celebrate Earth Day

When I first noticed that earth day fell on Good Friday this year, it seemed almost sacreligious to consider it. How could Earth Day possibly compare to the remembrance of the sacrifice Jesus made for me, His death on the cross that we celebrate in a special way on Good Friday? As one of our supporters recently wrote to us, when were we going to declare a “Celebrate Jesus the Lord of Creation” Day?

Our celebration of Earth Day is limited. It’s a time when we can reaffirm our desire to be good stewards of the earth God has made, and which He has entrusted to us. It’s a time when we can remember that we are creatures, and God is our Almighty Creator.

I know many people go far beyond that. I know that in some schools they sing songs of worship to the earth, using the names of ancient Greek goddesses. I know that some people consider the earth almost like their god. I know that to some, people are no more special than striped toads or slugs or centipedes. I know that to some, everything that lives is considered divine. As Christians, we at ECM stop long short of any of that. The earth is not our mother, our divine goddess; it is an object which God created to provide a home and to give a proper environment for sustaining all the various forms of life He created. We do not care for it because we think the soil is as valuable our eternal souls; we care for it because God gave us the responsibility to do so and in doing so we honor Him. We do not care for other forms of life—rare or not, protected or not, vanishing or multiplying—because we think we are a part of them or they are of as much value as we. We care for animal and plant life because it is part of God’s creation for which He gave us responsibility.

I think we care for the earth and all its inhabitants best when we see God as our loving Creator and us as His creatures. God has no beginning and no end, no antecedent and no equal.

The one correlation between Earth Day and Good Friday is that God the Almighty Creator came down to this earth to become our Saviour. On Good Friday, we remember the day the Son of God paid the most awful price for our sins, so that we could go free.

So this Friday I will remember the earth that God gave us, and I will remember that Jesus left His eternal home with the Father to come down here and become our Saviour. Because of sin, the whole creation groans, the Scripture says. When Jesus comes again, He will fully restore creation as God intended it to be and as He originally made it. The effects of our sin will be put in reverse and the earth will once again, even more fully than now, show the glory of the Lord.