Women in War

I'm not a feminist and am very conservative in my views about women in the work force, minstry and in positions of leadership. It caught me off guard when my husband and I read Judges chapter four this morning in our daily study of Scripture.


It would be worth your while to read and consider this acount of history, so fitting for our times.


When reading the Old Testament I often find myself scratching my head trying to figure out how the text applies to modern living. But this chapter speaks boldly about God's view of women in leadership, war and obedience. And since we know that God never changes, what was true in the beginning still stands.


Let me refresh your memory. Israel was once again ensnared by corruption and due to their foolishnes had fallen under the oppression of their enemies. Now they cry out to God. Here's the thing. Every time Israel fell flat, she cried out to God for mercy and salvation. God the ever-faithful always comes through.


Now Deborah is anointed judge over Israel. She sits under a palm tree to hear complaints and give guidance, according to the will of God. You see, she was also a prophetess. There is significance to the palm as well, a symbol of righteousness, strength and victory.


Israel is being oppressed by the Canaanites under rule of King Jabin from Hazor, whose army is commanded by Sisera. This dude has some nine hundred chariots of iron in his employ, along with some mighty tough warriors.


But Deborah hears from God and she summons this fellow Barak and tells him to take an army of ten thousand to battle the Canaanites at the Kishon River, assuring him the Lord will go before them in victory. He says he'll go if she'll go with him.


Two things immediately strike me. The first is, she's a woman; she's also married and not to Barak. The second is, he won't go to war unless this woman goes with him. How buffalo chicken wings is that?


I understand she's a prophetess and all, and he's probably wanting a play-by-play to see how this all pans out. As was often typical with the Israelites when sent up against powerful nations, their trust in God was short of absolute. They cowered. Now Barak wants to hide behind her skirt.


Notice her answer to Barak. Dude, whatever! If you're so lame, I'll go with you but mind you this, if I go, you get no glory (paraphrased, of course.) The enemy will be delivered into the hands of a woman.


First of all, we are not far shy of our Jewish friends. My urgent warning the past few years has been from 2 Chronicles 7:14-15. Christians in the United States have fallen far from God, worshiping the idols of television, business, ipods, children, sports, pleasure, fast food - pick one, add one - you name it - we've worshipped these idols at the expense of God's blessings. And now look at where we've gotten ourselves.


The next thing that takes us by surprise in the fourth chapter Judges is that it isn't Deborah who brings the demise of the enemy, but another altogether. Here's Jael, minding her tent while hubby's out doing whatever he does for a living and along comes Sisera the weasel who ran from his men while they got slaughtered by Barak and company. Obviously Jael has a clue what's going on because her husband had a rapport with old King Jabin in Hazor. Why would she kill the commander of Jabin's army? She had to have known what was up either from the Holy Spirit or a messenger from Barak's troops. At any rate, there are ten thousand Israelite warriors not far off, yet one little housewife pokes a tent peg through this powerful man's head.


You want to lay blame on the Republicans? The Democrats who reigned before them? The sins of Bill Clinton? The corruption of Senators?


Folks, look in the mirror. You need only look at your own lifestyle and if you're willing to be honest with yourself, you will see that God is not happy with you. Nor me! I'm not sitting here pointing a finger at you without three pointing back at myself.


We've become starkly aware of our deficiencies, our foolishness, our idols, our sins. My husband and I are at a point where if we lose everything, we praise God, because we have repented. We fell prey to the lies like so many others. Our greed got in the way of common sense. The dazzle of desire for more and better stuff blinded us to the direction of our focus and the consequences of our choices.


Since we began to delve into the word of God on a daily basis, and to pray together every morning before Steve goes off to work, our eyes are being opened.


It's really not that difficult to walk in righteousness. We make out like it's impossible. Believe me, it isn't. Rather than being obedient to the will of God (because we don't even take the time to consider what that is,) we choose instant gratification, forgetting what lies ahead.


Here's the deal. Choose to walk the straight and narrow on earth and reap the blessings of God in life and even more in heaven. Or choose worldly pleasures now and lose the blessings of God on earth and who knows what's in store?


I'm just a woman. A married woman. The Holy Spirit has convicted me that our country is in this mess because Christian men have failed to lead righteously in accordance with the will of God. Does it take a woman to get us out of this mess?


Let me say this much. Have the men of our times been emasculated? According to this chapter they weren't all that tough in Deborah and Jael's time. But the fact is, with the feminist movement and increasing numbers of women taking leadership, we have undermined the power of the men in our country.


Barack Obama hasn't got the widsom or fotitude to stand against the enemy. A self-proclaimed Christian, he won't even take a stand against abortion. If he won't protect unborn babies, what makes us think he'll protect our nation from an enemy as evil as Al Qaeda, whom he feels is no longer a threat to the US?


We seriously need some Joshuas and Calebs to stand up to the giants and lead us out of this mess. Women, get behind your men. Build them up with encouragement.


The painting above, rendered from a photograph of my sister-in-Christ and prayer partner, shows a tiny woman under beautiful towering trees. This image symbolizes to me right where God wants us - sheltered in His care. Ruth and I have a prayer ministry targeting a very specific group of Christian leaders. There are just the two of us when we go on our prayer journeys and we often feel insignificant. One day a pastor and mentor shared a story about his mother, what a powerful woman of prayer she was. It was a story both of tenderness and power.


Women don't need to take leadership in our country. They need to lift up their men so the men can effectively rule the nations. I am not saying women necessarily shouldn't lead, only that it needs to be the will of God, not humans. I believe this story of Deborah and Jael is not about women being tougher, more obedient, or more willing to do the task. It's about trusting God and doing what must be done in accordance with His plans.

That's the long and short of it.

Who are We to Judge

Nick Vujicic is one of God's greatest achievements in human creation.

There are many people in the world who believe blood tests and ultra sound imagery should be used on every pregnant woman to determine if there are abnormalities in the fetus. Many of these same people believe every deformed fetus should be terminated.

Perhaps if Mrs. Vujicic's Obstetrician had told her that her son was deformed, he might have convinced her to end her pregnancy. Click the link to see a video of Nick and watch it to the end, then click the back buton in your browser to read the rest of this important message.

http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html

Perhaps you've heard it said we may be entertaining angels unaware. I believe that just as the Israelites of the Old Testament found themselves faced with the angels of the Lord, God is manifest today in ways that would blow our minds. Blinded by materialism, we have lost touch with our Creator, who is alive and well in 2009, just as He has always been. The face of Jesus shines through those who bring His message of hope to the world.

Man sets the standards for "normal" on earth. God sets the standards for outstanding.

Nick Vujicic brings hope and blessing to a broken world. Should he have been murdered before he was born because he didn't look like you and I? What makes me any more worthy to live than him? My life is insignificant compared to his.

Take a stand against abortion. Let your representatives in Washington know God cares for every human being, especially those we view as mistakes or freaks of nature. They are perfect sculptures from the hand of our Creator - the images of God sent to challenge us to look up.

God open our eyes. In Jesus' name, amen.

Living on Planet Earth

The focus of the September 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine was on problems with soil degradation and food source concerns. This prompted a slew of passionate letters from readers in the January 2009 issue.

These expressions covered a wide range of opinions including overpopulation, ignorant farming practices, suburban development, materialistic Americans who want bigger houses at the sacrifice of land, soil poisoning via pesticides and toxic waste water, and starving children in third world countries.

The ignorance of mankind amazes me. I'm just a simple woman, largely uneducated (unless credited by life-trials academy,) but even I can see through the thin veneer of self deception we've covered ourselves with. The greatest minds on the planet can't seem to agree on what the problems are and how to fix them. They need to first get to the root...

If every adult would consider the larger scheme and train their children properly, we wouldn't be in this mess and whatever problems created could be repaired. The problem is sin. You can call it selfishness if you're uncomfortable with word sin. It's all the same thing. Let's take a look at the "Seven Deadly Sins." Incidentally, all sins are deadly. These are just a few we'll look at.

Lust - the unchecked desire for immediate sexual gratification. Lust causes pregnancy outside marriage, unwanted children, over-population, STDs, teen pregnancy, child abuse, squalor, shame and hopelessness.





Gluttony - the uncontrolled desire to sate one's palate at any cost, all the time. This results in overeating, binging, bulimia, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack and a host of other medical problems, higher medical bills, higher insurance rates, high production of packaging and trash associated with junk food like Twinkies, snack bars, candy, etc.



Greed - insatiable materialism. The person driven by greed can never have enough stuff - clothing, toys, electronics, cars, recreational vehicles, and homes. They must upgrade every time they see something new, or when technology changes. Two people living in 10,000 sq. ft. mansion, earning $8 million per year is grossly selfish and contributes to global poverty.



Sloth - lack of self-care, letting one's property deteriorate, utter laziness and lack of concern for one's connection to the world. Sloth is the greatest reason for welfare systems, high unemployment, drug addiction, aberrant behavior of all sorts and poverty.




Wrath - lashing out against others rather than looking in the mirror to find the real solution. Wrath directly contributes to divorce, child abuse, gang activity, and war.





Envy - leads to greed and wrath. It is a major contributor to depression, anxiety, lack of faith and hopelessness.






Pride - which should be at the top of the list but is last for impact. Pride contributes to every other sin and is the most likely to destroy us. Pride says I deserve something. Pride says I'm better than that guy on skid row. Pride says it's okay to max out my credit cards for whatever I want. Pride says who are you to tell me how big my house should be or how much money I can make?

Pride is the reason for every problem on this earth.

That last sentence was pretty bold but if you'll humble yourself and drop your wrath a minute I'm about to tie this all together in a way that makes sense if you'll just stick with me.


In the beginning there were two human beings. They were perfect. And they had choice. Believe me, even if you don't believe in creation and the story of Adam and Eve, hang in here because human thinking began somewhere. Let's say for the sake of argument, it was Adam and Eve and it went the way the Bible says. You could just say there were two cave people who made bad choices. The fact is, somewhere in the beginning, people were faced with choices.


How did people choose at the start? Perhaps if something looked good to eat, they ate it. Yum. This could have resulted in instant death. Might common sense have prompted them to feed something to a rat first to check it out? Really. What made them just bite into that apple or whatever it was that was their downfall?


Perhaps it was greed. "I have everything else in this garden, why can't I have this? I want it all."


It might have been sloth. "Picking this fruit is easier than tilling the soil to grow something else."


Possibly it was gluttony. "Oh that looks so yummy, I just have to have it."


Or it could have been Lust. "The alluring woman looks so luscious over there eating that thing. She wants me to have it too. If I do this for her, maybe she'll let me have my way with her."


Was it wrath producing a seed of rebellion? "What do you mean we can't have that fruit? That adorable little snake over there says you're just tying to keep us from knowing all we could know. I'm going to try this anyway and see what happens."


Maybe it was envy. "The birds are eating it and they look fine. I just want to taste it..."


Likely it was pride, encompassing a few other dark desires. "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing. Don't tell me what I can or can't do."


Wisdom guides us to think, consider, experiment, then act. What is this thing? Is it safe to handle or eat? How can I find out? Here little rabbit...Well, he looks okay, I guess it's okay for me.


So how can we be so foolish? Why are we paying millions of dollars for research on drugs that literally destroy our natural functioning systems for the sake of hiding one symptom or curing something we shouldn't have to cure in the first place?


Seriously, consider this. If we had never put pesticides onto our plants and into the ground, if we'd never invented gas powered devices that create pollution, if the industrial age had never come, if we were still uncivilized, we wouldn't be fighting most illnesses including cancer, lung disease, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, mental retardation and the list goes on ad-everlasting.


You might argue that people have always battled sickness.


Then I would ask, "why?" The simple answer is "sin."


Man was given all the wisdom he needed to deal with life on earth. God gave man instructions to live a good long healthy life, beginning with, "It's all yours, enjoy everything, except this one tree..." Man's choice to do things his own way was his downfall and he made one bad decision after another. He chose pride over prudence, greed over God.


Man was instructed about how to set up camp. Waste, dead bodies, and anything unclean was to be deposited far from the living area and burned. Instructions were given how to prepare foods. Man in his self-will run riot chose to eat imprudently, practice unsafe hygiene and introduced disease into society.


So you see, no matter what you call it, man's blatant rebellion has gotten us where we are today. We can track every single disease and detriment to mankind back to bad decisions based on sinful desires. Many people think we're doing just fine as they sit in front of the television smoking cigarettes and guzzling beer. They wouldn't change a thing.


I say we've just traded one set of hardships for another. Now we must find a way to live with past mistakes and clean up our act, God help save us from ourselves!




Embedded art: I have tried in vain to discover where the sculpture photos used in this blog originated but had no luck. If you know, please write me so I can seek permission and assign credit. Thank you.

Email forwards

I don't know about you but email forwards are a curse and a blessing to me. Here's a short sampling of the types of messages I receive:

• Political babbling (whether in my camp or not) that makes my skin crawl - I want to find the originator and throttle them (in a gentle Christian way of course.) Come on, for crying out loud, screaming at me and a million others about what's going on in Washington isn't going to change a thing. It just brings everyone down. We need encouragement! Send your gripes and opinions to your local newspapers and talk radio if you must air your feelings. Better yet, send them to your Representatives and the President! Please. Complaining to each other NEVER fixed anything. As my mother was so wont to say (and so right,) the squeaky wheel really does get greased. (I have proof but that isn't the forum today.)


• Sweet and sappy junk dazzling with sparkly animations that make me want to vomit from the overload of sugar. I feel terrible because I find them stupid and childish and at the same time guilty for being so judgmental - not to mention it was kind of whoever sent it to consider me worthy of all that sap. Then of course at the end, the guilt prompter is always there: Send this on to all your girlfriends who have made a difference in your life...


• Send this on to prevent breast cancer. Excuse me? Just like the political diatribe, cancer is not going to be cured because I send a message to all the women in my address book. Cancer will be cured when we stop ingesting, breathing and drinking chemical laden food, air and liquids. Or of course those who feel led can always donate their money to cancer research if they really want to support the pharmaceutical companies that continue to develop new poisons to eradicate healthy cells for the sake of killing cancers. If we eat right to begin with we won't have to poison ourselves to be cured from the cancer we got from eating poison foods.


• Dirty jokes that I wouldn't share with criminals let alone anyone I associate with.


• Funny jokes I'm glad I got when I needed a good laugh.


• Stupid jokes that make me want to find the originator for a good gentle Christian throttling


• Catholic novenas with admonishments to pass them on or "or else..." which make me want to find the originator and send them to an Iraqi torture chamber.


• Messages that tell us to pass it on to so many people and see what happens - the only thing I want to see happen is the originator being throttled by 13 gentle Christians.


• Messages of false hope of any kind - our hope is in Jesus. Period. Who, by the way, would probably have been as disgusted by all the junk pass-it-on messages as I am. Didn't He say something about not wasting words?


• Poignant and touching military photos with a message encouraging people to pray for our men and women serving (these I often share but I always delete the line that tells people to pass it on.)

Here's the "thing" (what the heck does that mean anyway?) My complaint is against anything that tries to guilt people into passing it on, things like "if you love Jesus..." or "if you care about our soldiers..." and wasting precious time. Give it a break. Many times I ask, does this person have absolutely nothing else to do with their time? Surely the bathroom needs to be cleaned...

The originator tries to make the receiver feel like a dolt if they don't pass it on. How do they know the recipient is not personally writing an encouraging letter to 50 military members every month, sending care packages, praying for them, sending money to their families, or any number of things people do to encourage others? We're all intelligent thinking human beings and these admonishments assume we can't think for ourselves. My mantra is, I'll pass it on if I think it's worth sharing whether you want me to or not. Don't tell me what to do because I will probably do just the opposite on principle. Most people I know feel pretty much the same way.

Ever watch the TV show Lost? That whole show is based on that deep-seated bit of narcissism in all of us that says, don't tell me what to do. We all want to be credited with enough brains to make our own decisions. The minute someone tells us what to do, our hackles go up. That is at the core of our rebellious sin nature.

Next time you pass on a message, perhaps if you want people to actually do something with it, let them decide what to do. Chances are, if it's worth passing, they'll share it.

Oh yeah, and one other pet peve. Leave my email address out of it. If you must forward a message, be sure to delete everyone's email address from the body of the message and use the Bcc: address line so their addresses don't show up to everyone on the planet. If you need some education about the dangers of exposing one another's email addresses, please check this out. This is VERY IMPORTANT. One thing not addressed is that there are actually Net Bots that crawl the web looking for email addresses for SPAM purposes. They do not see addresses in the Bcc line but they are able to cull addresses from the To: and Cc: lines. When I send a message, love you so much that I address personal messages using Bcc: even if it's only going to you. Thank you.

In the love of Jesus, have a good day...If you feel like it.

United or Divided

Matt 12:25-26 Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, "Any kingdom at war with itself is doomed. A city or home divided against itself is doomed."

We survived the election and for many it felt like a loss. But Christians prayed fervently for the outcome at the polls in November and I believe God is in control. Whether we agree with the chosen candidate or not, we must live with his leadership for the next four years at least.

I'm convinced that whoever leads our nation, "our man" or the other guy, we have an obligation and responsibility to be vocal about our desires for our nation. The way to unite with the opposition is to make our voices heard.

What are the values that are important to us as Christians? For me, the right to freely express my faith is at the top of the list. Protecting unborn infants is also at the top. There are a host of other conservative issues that have been under attack by liberals in the past few years such as traditional marriage, home schooling and school choice concerns which are important.

We'll either sit back for the next four years and complain about our country crumbling into the pit of liberalism or we can be active and vocal in expressing our views.

Some would ask, what good will it do? I believe with all my heart that collectively we can make a difference. But only if we speak out en masse. Silent we remain divided. Divided we are doomed to fail. This country needs to get it together. This country is us.

Lord, draw us together according to your plans and purposes, to protect this great nation, to protect the values You've instilled in us, and to protect especially, the promotion of the Gospel and all that message encompasses. In Jesus name, amen.