The Church by the Tootsie Roll-Pop Store

I was thinking about how I often times consider too highly the thoughts, praises and curses of those around me in accordance to myself. As I began thinking about how much I depend on what other people think about me it occurred to me the very first memory that I have of consciously doing something or rather altering something that I was doing because of the way that others might think of me. I was four or five I don't really remember but I recall that my family did still live at our first house in Tennessee, on Gossey-Hill Road. A mile or so from our house was a church next to a gas-station. This gas-station is one that stands out in my memory because of the large, orange ball that stood over it. This ball, I always thought was a giant tootsie-roll pop because the only time we would go into that station was when my dad would get tootsie-roll pops (chocolate usually).

This particular memory revolves around the church beside the "tootsie-roll pop store" (as I always thought of it as). I was enrolled in a Vacation Bible School or a Mothers' Day Out programme of some kind so I was there on several occasions and we made all sorts of things. I have only two memories about this church. he first is making The Ten Commandments out of some kind of (non-edible as I soon found out) dough material and after baking them, gluing the Ten Commandments onto these baked pieces of inedible dough. My second memory is the one that has to do with reacting to the way others might think of me:

I remember that it was recess or what ever they called it at this programme in which I was enrolled and I was wearing some kind of a suit. Nothing too fancy: probably a clip-on tie and those sorts of things. I remember running out of the church, straight for the play-ground. I think I was in front of the rest of the children there and as I ran I saw a plastic play thing. I don't know what it was exactly but has all sorts of things that we could climb on, though it wasn't very large. It had a slide attached to it and I ran up the slide. Just before I had run up the slide, I looked behind me and no one was following me anymore. It seemed everyone had stopped to do something else or had passed me up for other play-equipment on the play-ground. I remember getting to the top of the slide and thinking: "No. Better not play on this. Everyone will think I am stupid." So I climbed down, and I don't remember what happened after that.

Why does this stand out so much? I don't know. Though, I do know that I still do this sort of thing. I still run off on my own to do something that I want to so badly and then stop; either out of fear, or simply thinking that others will think that I am stupid for wanting to do that. Since then, as I said, I still do that but I would venture to say that I know better and am therefore more foolish for thinking this way. "Others do not determine our potential or our significance" I heard a radio-preacher say on the crackly radio in my car today as i drove down Scenic Highway. "It is God and God alone who determines our importance and He did so long ago when He determined that He would sacrifice Himself for us." Since then, these images and memories of all the different times that I considered others' opinions of me higher than that of God's.

The Truth is so clear, yet I don;t care to grasp it most of the time, that God prizes me. He loves and adores me. Other people's thoughts of me will fluctuate with the weather but God's eye of satisfaction is never changed. His view of me has not changed from the day He determined me conception. God is so glorious, and so marvelous. I pray that He helps me to never stop considering the words of other higher than the promises that He has given.

Trusting the Almighty

There is, in life, a certain richness and fullness. A certain sense of fear or longing for more. And for some, that fear or knowledge of an unkown is something to flee from as one flees his mortal enemy. But for one who professes to believe in Christ and depends on Him, this fear or knowledge of the unkown draws him closer and tighter into Christ. And to live in a world where every following moment is unkown and uncertain and yet still it does not fall apart is only proof that there is One who holds it all together. And for the Christian, this being is God. He is the Creator of all of the universe and it is in Him that hope and meaning can be found. In Him, and Him alone. And yet, to trust in God is to trust in a mystery. Yes, He is certain and unquestionably existant, but the doubt which exists in the human mind is such that doubt in God or His work in the lay-out of our lives is far too common.

As I am here, talking to my friend, Sheryce about the importance and the fright and utter joy of Faith or Trust I still struggle with the balance or rather, the struggle between Faith and human-reason (fallen, sinful reason). There seems to be a super-human struggle between these two at times, and though the two can also go hand in hand so well. As I read and learn from the Word I feel stronger and bolder in my faith of God and there are times, perhaps a few moments, or an hour where I suddeny fear, and doubt, bringing once again to prayer before that fear goes away. Te power of the Holy Spirit is powerful and I have felt His strength in my heart as time passes. I feel confident in Him and I trust more and more in His guiding hand and I have learned to better understand that His truly is guiding me and that I should have no fear. And that I should not question His work. Because to question Him wearies Him (Malachi 2.17) and it is a sin: it is dissobeying Him when He tells us to trust in Him fully! What a wonderful gift and blessing it is to have a God that we can trust in fully and that we can know, with full confidence is Good and is guiding our steps and will not let us deviate from that path, even when it is a path that we may not feel like it the right path all the time; we must pray and trust that He is working. And He is working! Praise God who brings deliverance and praise God who shuts the womb!

Allah

As Christianity flows into the next century a strong force fronts it: Islam. It is this Islamic culture that I feel called into in some capicty. As many know, the Muslims worship "Allah." This is seen as a different god than the one that we as Christians serve. But consider this: "Allah" is the Arabic word for "god" or "God." How to Christians worship God, and how to translators translate God into the Arabic language where the only word for God is Allah? I have been struggling with this for a while, especially as I start to learn some Arabic phrases and am trying to learn such phrases as "I love God" and other such things. I found this article which is very interesting and I am hoping that anyone out there would be interesting in reading it and perhaps sharing your impressions and opinions. Your words will help a lot in my wrestling with this topic.

“Allah” is the Arabic word for “God” and has been so long before the existence of Islam. The names “Allah” and “God” are generally interchangeable within the Muslim religion and in Middle Eastern cultures. Some English translations of the Qu’ran (Koran) use the name “God,” others use“ Allah.” This sometimes comes as a surprise to Christians who were raised in Western cultures. Among former Muslims, many converts to Christianity commonly refer to God as “Allah.” (This is despite the fact that they recognize clear differences in the character of God as described by the Bible compared to Islamic writings. For example, although both Christians, Muslims and Jews firmly believe there is only one God, Christians have the additional doctrine of the Trinity.)Of course, the word “God” does not actually appear in the original Hebrew or Greek manuscripts of the Bible, accepted as Holy by both Christians and Muslims. “God” is an old English word which developed from an Indo-European word, meaning “that which is invoked,” which is also the ancestor of the German word Gott (meaning: God).The Navigators, a well-known evangelical Christian organization, published the following:“…It’s interesting to observe that, in rejecting the Athenian’s erroneous concept of God, Paul did not reject the word they used for God, Theos, which was the common Greek word for God.Some Christians unthinkingly say 'Allah is not God.' This is the ultimate blasphemy to Muslims, and furthermore, it is difficult to understand. Allah is the primary Arabic word for God. It means 'The God.' There are some minor exceptions. For example, the Bible in some Muslim lands uses a word for God other than Allah (Farsi and Urdu are examples). But for more than five hundred years before Muhammad, the vast majority of Jews and Christians in Arabia called God by the name Allah. How, then, can we say that Allah is an invalid name for God? If it is, to whom have these Jews and Christians been praying?And what about the 10 to 12 million Arab Christians today? They have been calling God ‘Allah’ in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over nineteen centuries. What an insult to them when we tell them not to use this word ‘Allah’! Instead of bridging the distance between Muslims and Christians, we widen the gulf of separation between them and us when we promote such a doctrine. Those who still insist that it is blasphemy to refer to God as Allah should also consider that Muhammad’s father was named Abd Allah, ‘God’s servant,’ many years before his son was born or Islam was founded!”--excerpted from BUILDING BRIDGES by Fouad Accad (Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress), p. 22).

"A Long Road Gone"

I picked up a book the other day called "A Long Road Gone" by Ishmael Beah. It's a true story about Ishael's journey as a boy-soldier in Siera Leon, a country in Africa. I am not a very fast reader by any means, unless I'm reading an incredibly dull text book and I skim . . . very quickly. But this book was a different read for me. It took me only two days to read, maybe two hours each day and full reading and I was pulled into it. It's a view on the war that was very difficult to read. This twelve year old boy is talking about his favourite ways of killing a man and what tactics he wants to try on the next village and the only things on any of their minds is where they'll get more drugs (cocain, brown brown, marajuana, and a white capsule that went un-named), where he'll get more ammunition and how many people he wants to kill on the next raid. The majority of the book takes place while Ishmael and his friends are running from the rebels and all that happnes to them during that time, and only a few chapters are dedicated to his life in the army and then the majority of the second half is about his time in the camps in the cities when the UNICEF workers are trying to create little boys out of them once more. There time in the city under the care of UNICEF is just as, if not more traumatic for the boys that joining the army or rebel forces. If you can get your hands on this book, I recogmend reading it more highly than I would any other book I have read over the past few years. This is a very important issue that is plaguing our world right now and it is something that is so hard for us to imagine.