THE NASTY CHRISTIAN

Recently I heard a couple of stories from non-believers that made me think about being an "example of the believers." (1 Tim. 4:12)
1. In a work situation someone needed help from a fellow employee. This person was reading their bible in the lunch room earlier but refuses to help you. Why would you want to belong to a group like this?

2. Work again. You are under pressure with a project and need someone to support you but your office mate cannot do it because he is going home teaching. Is this what a real Christian would do?

C.S. Lewis has an answer in "Mere Christianity" that I love. He said: "We must...not be surprised if we find among the Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract "such awful people." That is what people still object to, and always will. " (P. 180)

Then Lewis goes on to talk about the pitfalls of "being naturally good" which I have posted here previously.

So, as one of those "nasty people" that hasn’t always been good at being an "example of the believers," I want to apologize for my bad example...especially to my children. I have hope in the scriptures that say we will also be judged by the "desires of our hearts." I have wanted to be better than I am. I want to be so good that when you see what I do you will want to know the Christ that I follow but I know I have failed on many occasions and will continue to fail...hopefully less and less as I continue to try to be better.

Some quotes from Mere Christianity:

"Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either." P. 87

"Virtue—even attempted virtue—brings light; indulgence brings fog. (P. 94)

"Good and evil both increase in compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. And apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch and attack otherwise impossible. (p.117)



"...be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 1 Tim. 4:12

A SCRIPTURE TO KEEP ME ON TRACK

And the cares of the
World,

and the deceitfulness of riches,

and the lusts of other things entering in

choke the
Word
Mark 4:19

"SON'' FLOWER

http://mormontimes.com/ME_index.php?id=1929
Here is the link to the Mormon Times version of
this story published August 28 in the Deseret News.

Isaiah said that Christ was a "root out of dry ground." (53:2) Maybe He is like a sunflower. From mid to late July Sunflowers begin to bloom around here in all the most desolate dry areas in the hills, roadsides and empty spaces. They continue to bloom until winter hits in November. I have seen little sunflower buds continue to show their sunny faces through the last hours of fall. On the empty lot next to me all the weeds are dying from lack of water but the sunflowers are doing fine and blooming. I want to know how to be a "root out of dry ground" – a sunflower but only idealistically. Mostly I want to live sheltered in a greenhouse being watered, fertilized and pampered daily. But, this is never going to happen for any of us because Christ knows that being a sunflower is a choice opportunity. He wants us all to have the sunflower experience.

Recently I finsihed reading the 4 gospels. During this time I have thought a lot about Christ and all the healing he did. Surely, a day never went by when He didn’t heal someone. It has made me think about wanting to be healed. I have wondered if I could ever muster enough faith to have my Rheumatoid Arthritis completely healed. There are wonderful words in the temple that focus on health and it makes me think that being well must be very important to our Heavenly Father. I have mulled this over and over as I have reflected on all the healing accounts in the gospels and my faith.

One day last week I walked the hills, amid the sunflowers to my wilderness temple, contemplating these things when a profound thought came to me. Oh, I am sure someone else has thought and taught this before but it was a new concept to my brain. Christ was not telling us to worry so much about being healed as that we should be a healer. He never took Paul’s "thorn in the side" from him. Do these thorns keep us humble? I have always appreciated that Paul didn’t tell us what his thorn was. We can all wonder if he had our infirmity.

Christ was always trying to teach us by example. So, His daily healing was also for us—to help us realize that we need to be a frequent healer. We need to be a bright sunflower growing up without all the nourishment we think we need and to bloom with our happy faces toward the "Son"—even when our life isn’t ideal.

I hope the profusion of these happy sun flowers, growing in dry rocky places, will remind me to try harder to be a healer, filled with love. Maybe it is the answer to healing ourselves too.

A CASE FOR ORGANIZED RELIGION

A few years ago I wrote a 15 page essay on this topic. The following is a story from that work that I like. If you are interested in the other 14 pages let me know.

Two Months ago one of the authors had the opportunity to visit Mexico. While visiting the ancient Zapotec site of Monte Alban, I stopped at a hotel in Oaxaca, about a day’s trip south of Mexico City. As one of the hotel workers helped me with my bags, he asked where I was from. When I replied "Utah," he asked if I was LDS. His name was Rene, and he, too, was LDS…

He was a wonderful young man, who was always kind and gracious. We visited his home and invited his family to dinner, during which Rene’s mother told us the story of her conversion. Their family is pureblooded Zapotec Indians. In traditional Mexican society, Indian peoples are usually oppressed, lacking social status and political and economic power. Many live in extreme poverty with almost no education. Although things have improved somewhat in recent years, Native Americans are still an underclass in much of Mexico.


Twenty years ago, Rene’s mother and father were living in a small two-room house on the outskirts of Oaxaca. They had two small children and a third on the way, but had never been formally married. In his despair, the father had become an alcoholic, contracting a terrible plague that afflicts many poor Mexicans. One day, two LDS missionaries knocked on their door. Rene’s mother answered, and was mildly interested in their message, but said they would have to return when her husband was home. When the missionaries came back, the father refused to have anything to do with them. But he allowed his wife to listen to the discussions. A few days later, when the missionaries were visiting, the husband was sick in bed from overindulgence. The wife asked the missionaries to give him a blessing. He was not only healed but touched by the Spirit; within two weeks they were both baptized.


Although it took the father a number of years to fully recover from alcoholism, their lives were completely transformed. Today, twenty years later, Rene’s family is still poor, but it is not a poverty of degradation and despair, "we are poor in material things, but rich in the spirit, as Rene’s mother put it. They have hope and purpose not only in this life but in the future life as well…The father is now the bishop of a ward in Oaxaca…all of their children have finished or are attending high school, and several are going to college; Rene is working toward a degree in computer science. All of this because two missionaries knocked on the door of a poverty-stricken family whose mother asked the missionaries to give a blessing to her alcoholic husband.


Of course, different versions of this story occur thousands of times a year throughout the world. Yet this should not blind us to the miraculous nature of what happened to Rene’s family. Such events emphasize the essence of religion, which is its capacity to change the human soul—to cause people to be born of the Spirit. The life-transforming reality of such experiences is what gives religion its continuing power and influence in the world today, despite ongoing predictions by secularists of its imminent demise. (William J. Hamblin and Daniel C. Peterson "Higher Things" LDSWORLD GEMS Feb. 15, 2001)

MOVIE REVIEW - LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

This movie was a fun surprise. The main character Lars is plagued with social insecurities and angst from his childhood. Someone at his work puts him on to a lifesize doll (known to be a sex doll but that is not why Lars gets her) The story unfolds as the entire community plays along and Lars learns how to function in the real world with his imaginary friend. This is clean with a few sex references but not to make you uncomfortable. Lars is a church going guy and the doll sleeps at his brothers house because he knows her history and she has been a missionary. DVD available.

YELLOWSTONE LAST WEEK