Lately, I've been trying to figure out what I think about our soldiers in Afghanistan. I hate fighting, killing etc. as I'm sure all Canadians do. Then I realized though that the Taliban has been blowing up schools (obviously I'm biased in that direction) that Canada and other nations have been building. How can you negotiate with these groups and then how is it enough to only build up schools and infrastructure if others are just going to blow them up?
I had a nice, little chat with one of my favourite friends, a Mr. Darren Fleet. He challenged me that if the Canadian government actually did pour more amounts of money into the country (as nations did to Germany after WWII to see it rebuilt), the people of Afghanistan would be theoretically contented and not need to join and back groups like the Taliban. It would take a lot of money though. Where's all that money gonna come from? and am I willing to be one of those who lays down my comforts to raise others out of poverty? Something to think about.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Free me from pretense
I just finished reading AW Towzer's The Pursuit of God and am absolutely amazed by his deep insights into the heart of man especially around pride and how hard we work to protect it.
He talks about meekness and says "The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. " He describes a "sense of humor" that the meek person has learned to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you havee been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think." Then we can rest in God and let Him defend us. Wow! Does that go against the pride or what? But talk about freedom.
Then he attacks our pretense-our continual desire to put our "best foot forward and hide from our inward world of poverty." He describes the fear we so often have of being found out- perhaps the fear of not being as smart as we appear, as spiritual as we appear or the fear of meeting someone who is better than us in whatever gift we might think we have. He goes on to say the only solution is to become like little children. Little kids are happy with what they have without relating it to something or someone else, unafraid of what others think of them.
God's been really knocking me with this, because as a teacher I try to appear to other teachers that I am fully competent/got it all under control when really I have soooo much to learn. I think even with friends we try to appear in control, but we desperately need each other and we can't allow our fear of "being found out" keep up those walls that separate us from loving each other.
Here's a little prayer that goes with it: Lord, make me childlike. Delver me from the urge to compete with another for place or prestige or position. I would be simple and artless as a little child. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself. Help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding You. Lay upon me Your easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen.
He talks about meekness and says "The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. " He describes a "sense of humor" that the meek person has learned to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you havee been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think." Then we can rest in God and let Him defend us. Wow! Does that go against the pride or what? But talk about freedom.
Then he attacks our pretense-our continual desire to put our "best foot forward and hide from our inward world of poverty." He describes the fear we so often have of being found out- perhaps the fear of not being as smart as we appear, as spiritual as we appear or the fear of meeting someone who is better than us in whatever gift we might think we have. He goes on to say the only solution is to become like little children. Little kids are happy with what they have without relating it to something or someone else, unafraid of what others think of them.
God's been really knocking me with this, because as a teacher I try to appear to other teachers that I am fully competent/got it all under control when really I have soooo much to learn. I think even with friends we try to appear in control, but we desperately need each other and we can't allow our fear of "being found out" keep up those walls that separate us from loving each other.
Here's a little prayer that goes with it: Lord, make me childlike. Delver me from the urge to compete with another for place or prestige or position. I would be simple and artless as a little child. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself. Help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding You. Lay upon me Your easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen.
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