Life and Death

I have fantastic news! On May 4, 2010 at 4:30 pm, a child by the name of Lauren Katherine Maciej was born. She was 6lbs and 17 inches. And she is my new, adorable niece!!! She is my first niece or nephew and I love her :) I visited her in the hospital and I held her for a long time. It was really refreshing seeing new life and holding her in my hands. Her world is full of opportunity, adventure, and learning. She has many discoveries to be make about herself, God, and this world, and she began that journey on Tuesday. Seeing that in her reminded me that I am on that same journey. I am 24 years ahead, but on the same journey nonetheless.

Regarding that journey, I realized something in myself while the music played at church this Sunday. I have been holding in my heart judgement. I have been very critical of people's financial decisions lately in my own heart. I haven't expressed this in a way that I have to appologize for, but it is something I have to kill before it becomes a dangerous thing. I am not sure where this came from or why I am experiencing this, but that doesn't matter as much as stopping it where it is.

I think it stems from my desire to help people, and in this specific case financially. I want to see people free from debt so that they don't have anything that can hinder them from experiencing God or relationships with others. I am not saying that debt DOES hinder our relationship with God and others, I am saying that I don't think it makes it easy. I guess I see being debt free as just that, freeing. That may be because I have never lived paycheck to paycheck, and that is something my parents made sure wouldn't happen to me and I thank them for that. My desire is not for people to be rich either because that also comes with its own difficulties, you know the whole camel and needle thing Jesus talks about.

I think what was going on in my mind was that I was defining what financial freedom is for people. I can't do that because it is different for everyone. Financial freedom means one thing for me and another thing for you. What someone does with their money is between them and God and I shouldn't be the one to determine what is right and wrong for them. I think that is where judgement might come from. One person defines right and wrong one way, and the other person defines right and wrong another way. The first person thinks that their way is the only way and therefore judges the other person when they don't live up to the first person's expectations. We see this with many grey area topics such as the use of alcohol, and what sexual immorality means.

The problem is that person A and person B are right! I believe that we are to walk in the Spirit, meaning that we obey God when He convicts us of something or is leading us somewhere. Walking in the Spirit means being attentive to what God is telling us. This is where what I believe is not Relativism, but Absolute Truth, God doesn't tell us the same truths at the same time. See, we are works in progress. That means we aren't done at this moment, we like to think we are completed and that the truth we have now is all. Well, it is not. God is still revealing Himself to us and He is still destroying the sin in us. We are changing!! When we think that our salvation is complete we define truths for everyone, this causes judgement.

We are at different places at different times, spiritually speaking. God meets us where we are at. That means that God is teaching person A something different than person B. Now it is possible that person A and person B were taught the same thing in the past at some point, but it is also possible that person A was taught something and person B was not taught that thing yet.

God doesn't expect us to be perfect in everything immediately, and we shouldn't expect that of others either. God is more patient than we can know, and we should be that of others too. Although, God is not complacent; He is working, and working very hard in a loving way. Sometimes that way if aggressive and sometimes that way is gentle. It depends on the situation. God reacts to what He is faced with. He doesn't have an equation chart that He follows for our situations. We shouldn't try to make equation charts to follow either because every situation is different and what happened in the past does not define the future. The past can help the future, but it does not define the future.

This got way longer than I was expecting. Yet, I have so much more to say. Sigh, I will wait for another time though.

One Love,
Danger