Girls have cooteys (or is it cooties?)

Don't take this the wrong way (aside: when a person starts out like that, there's only one way it can be taken and that's the way they don't want you to take it), but when it comes to children, I have banned girls from our house.   Well, that's the way I used to think.  I only wanted sons and for the most part that probably still holds.  You see the problem with girls is that their dad becomes this mushy substance in their hands...  I've talked about this girl thing before in a blog in a post titled Father of the Bride.  And additionally, I've had a little bit of personal experience through our foster children.  We had one three year old that would cry just because she could.  And, I didn't know what to do with that.  And then we've had a five year old that just stared at me (until she needed help at which point we were best friends and then after that she just stared at me).  Again, I didn't know what to do with that.

But alas, I met a girl that made me wish she was my daughter.  She goes by Daisy (Her real name sounded like "Evon-Dee") and she lives in Haiti in an children's home.   She's 10 and like a number of the other children, she was just hanging out checking out the "blancs" (white people) and me as we worked on what was their church/school building until the January 2010 earthquake.  She didn't do anything but try to help like some of the boys had...  and in an instant she stole my heart and made me wish that I had a 10 year old daughter.

That kind of strange power that girls have is ridiculous.  If she didn't have four older siblings that loved her and would probably never let her go, I would look high and low for how to adopt her (with Kimberly's blessing of course).  Of course the only hangup with that is that Haitian adoption is a miserable process from what I've heard.  I think it barely has an edge on getting a camel through eye of a needle.

Much love!

It’s not what you think…

I have trouble being an American sometimes.  I think we can be too self-sufficient and too selfish.  A trip that I made to Haiti at the end of July has made it even harder for me to be comfortable.  I keep thinking about the words of Jesus and looking at my life and going something’s not right here.  One of the scriptures that I’ve looked to recently is the account of a rich young ruler.  Here’s what I see and what I wholeheartedly believe it teaches us.

In Luke 18 (also an account in Matthew and Mark), Jesus encounters a rich guy that wanted to assert himself as deserving of the kingdom of God.  So, he asks Jesus a question about what he needed to do to be saved.  It got down to Jesus telling him to go get rid of all his stuff, give the proceeds to the poor and to follow him (Jesus).   Jesus wanted him to unload all of the deadweight from his life so that he wouldn’t have any trouble being a worthy disciple.

Well, the young man refused to part ways with his stuff.  And as he walked away sad, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!  For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." And then, those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?"

So, what’s the confusion about here among the listeners?  Well, you’d have to go back to people like Abraham to see.  Abraham was very wealthy.  His son Isaac was very wealthy.  And his sons were also very wealthy.  And, if you follow the history and even the law of the Jews, it seemed that those who found favor with God had great wealth.  And, now Jesus says it is exceedingly difficult to enter the kingdom of God as a rich man.  Why?

It is because God requires our full allegiance.  If we will trust in him for salvation and not our stuff, then we have to take our eyes off our stuff to truly see what he desires for us.  Jesus makes several comments similar to this.  The whole line of conversations about one guy needing to go bury his father or another wanting to go say goodbye to his family; in all of these Jesus is saying that the kingdom has urgency and if you can’t get on board with the urgency of the kingdom then you’re not worthy of me.

Jesus also says that we must pick up our cross and follow him.  That’s right pick up the very tool that was used to kill Jesus and at least one of his disciples and follow him.  The kingdom of God is counter cultural.  Christ calls us to imitate him in denouncing the ways of this world and trusting him with every aspect of our lives which may mean that we lose our lives; as in we may not be popular with the people that like the world; and as in we may literally lose our lives pursuing what he tells us to pursue.

Jesus said lots of hard stuff.  And, it all makes me ask the question… “Have most “Christians” missed the mark of what it means to follow him, to really really follow him?  

Did something change from the Old Testament to the New?  I think so.  If you look at all the patriarchs and their wealth, they served God with it.  And, one of the primary goals of the Old Testament was to establish a nation and to establish a place where God could be worshipped (i.e. the temple.)  And, now both Christ and his followers are the temple of God.  So, it doesn’t take a lot of money to upkeep a body.  So, we give it away to people who are dying with the hope of saving their lives and saving their souls.

God has called us to himself that we would worship him and then he has commissioned us to go tell others about him that they might worship him.   And sometimes it takes us selling all that we have and giving the proceeds to the poor in order to accomplish that.  The gospel aint ya mama’s prosperity gospel.  

Much love!

Roots

Okay, some of you will see the title of this entry and wonder if I’m going to cover the book written by Alex Haley covering the history of his family from Africa into slavery in America. Some others of you may see the title and think of black magic. I can’t think of how many times I’ve seen an infomercial where somebody says, “She put a root on me!”, exclaiming that someone had done something through use of an old evil practice to hinder that person’s progress through life. And, lastly some of you know that I’m just an old country boy who spent too much time in the hay fields and the woods of rural Sumter County, Alabama. So armed with that knowledge, you might think I’m going to cover horticulture. But, none of these are it.

Instead, I want to talk about the root of who we are and what we do. I recently met a seven year old kid. In him I saw lots of things that had a root of some sort. And, by that word root, I mean an origin. And, in the experience I learned things about myself that I wondered, what are the origin of these? My experience with this little guy made me question where his parents were and what they were thinking to not bring him up with a solid structure? It seemed that he had wondered through most of his life not experiencing real love; the kind of love that I received from my immediate and extended family when I was his age. They thought enough of me and of themselves to guide me through life. Their love affirmed me when I did well. It guided me when I lost my way. It corrected me when I was wrong. But, I looked at this little guy and it was as if he had no consistent affirmation when he did well. He was lost but he fought the very idea that anyone could show him the way. And, he found for himself that he was never wrong. It was only those that offered guidance and correction that could be wrong.

So, to the root of the matter, how far back does blame go for one child who is passed from home to home, never staying long enough to really soak in real love and experience what it is like? And, I am partially to blame because he passed right through here but I find some challenges are indeed too much for one man and his family when work and many other things are calling. Oh, I pray that God helps us to get something right before we leave this earth. Help us to love and help us to explore our roots and eliminate the cause of shallow ones –roots that is.

Much love my friends!
J. Wright