If Not For God's Grace That Would Be Me

This was a friends recent update on Facebook:
Frank Shelton I went to visit a friend in prison yesterday & I was thinking as I walked in all of us are one wrong decision from being in a similar place. I have learned to judge less and try to resemble Jesus MORE.

How true it is that we often become prideful of who we think we are, and forget the truth that we are sinners. It is easy for us to look at others and say, "I can't believe they did that." But is it so difficult to believe when faced with a moral decision that someone would choose wrongly? Before you answer have you sinned this week, yesterday, today? I am not making excuses for those who must face criminal justice, because there are consequences for our actions, but as my friend realized yesterday, "But by the grace of God there go I." In more modern terms, "If not for God's grace that would be me."

Spanking Is Not Hitting

I have actually entered into conversations with friends and we begin talking about spanking and they revert to using the term hitting. There is a psychology behind this. Hitting is what you do when you are fitting. Hitting is what you do when you want to hurt some one. Spanking is a loving act of discipline. I read an online news article recently with the intent of upping the ante. Discipline and domestic violence expert Murray Straus. He is also a professor of sociology and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. According to him, "The more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental ability." The difference in IQ development of 700 children surveyed was 2.8 points. Even one of the fellow researchers admits that there are so many outside factors that it is difficult to isolate them all.

The reality is spanking has been under fire since the time of Jean -Jacques Rousseau and his novel Emile: On Education. This work was one of the inspirations for the famous Dr. Spock whose book caused a revolution in American child raising in the 1950s and 60s. So what is the root of this movement that says do not discipline your children? Rousseau fathered five sons with a maid. In his time this was a impossible cross class relationship so they were not married, but this did not stop him from having children with her. He was unable to support any of the children so each of them after they were born were placed on the street to fend for themselves. Yes I mean infants set out in the gutter. Later he began to wonder what happened to his five sons so he searched orphanage records, but could not find any evidence of any of them. After his failed search he wrote a book on parenting in which he says that we should just watch our children fend for themselves and learn from them because they are untainted and discipline impresses on them our barbaric values. This to me sounds more like a defensive justification for a man who could no longer deal with the fact that he abandon his infant children to their demise. Of course who knows better how to raise children then a tormented philosopher who completely failed to parent his own children.

We cannot operate under the premise that people are basically good. The purpose of spanking is to help teach children obedience which must in fact be learned. Straus says that this is not possible that any hitting will lead to less and less controlled hitting, and that it is all abuse. I contend that a well placed and properly controlled spanking can be the object lesson followed by an explanation that will help in learning. That is right two firm spankings on the behind and then look your child in the eyes and say, "I said no. If you do that you will get hurt. Please listen when I say no."

As we continue to believe ourselves growing in intellect we make claims like cognitive development is stunted when you force you child to obey. What about the flip side of this argument which says that if your child will not obey they will not make it to the point that they will be informed enough to make a decision? We are trading obedience and discipline for free thought at the price of boundaries. Do not tell me I am hitting my child, I am disciplining my child so that he will learn obedience so he will be equipped to learn.

***Disclaimer: Everything can be taken to an excess. I am not claiming there are not people who hit instead of spank, but the exception does not prove the rule. Do not let abuse and misuse, as in any matter, scare us from proper use.

Trust and Obey

Tonight in Connect Group we finished with Francis Chan's book Crazy Love. Francis says, "What I can say is that you must learn to listen to and obey God, especially in a society where it's easy and expected to do what is most comfortable"(168). This is a huge challenge to us as Christians because as he continues to explain we try to plan everything out so if God doesn't come through then everything will be alright. Instead he has learned to try to put himself in situations where the only way he can make it is through God. We need to learn to truly trust God, and not just say that we are trusting God as we continue to build our safety net. We need to first of all genuinely put our trust in God so that we are completely dependent on him coming through. And second we must be willing to obey what we know we have been called to do. Stop making excuses and hiding behind Christian jargon that says I am waiting for God's call and just be willing to obey.

Desperately Seeking Someone

As a Christian college student there are many different challanges lobbed in my direction on a somewhat regular basis, but one of the things that I cannot seem to get over is the challange of discipleship. What I mean by this is the idea of a real personal investment from a mentor to a mentee. One that teaches them how to be more like them, and in doing so be more like Christ. Where has the fundamental of taking people under our wing and mentoring them gone? When recentely asked the question: "Who is someone who has exemplified holy/ambitious leadership in your life?" I was a little stunned. I have always wanted to have solid mentors in my life, but it seems like no one has the time or interest to take the time to really be a mentor. I am not pretending that this is a simple thing to do because it is not, but as our culture continues to teach us to be selfish with our time we need to say that our time is worth sharing. Otherwise when we reach out our matel to hand it to the next generation we will only beable to find a group of people that do not know how to take it up.

Reaching Into the Gutter

Today I heard a message on John 3:16 and the point was do we have Jesus' heart for the world? It can really be hard to love people. I am reminded of a man I met on the street in down town Dallas. We started talking and he shared a lot about his life story. He shared with me his struggles with alcoholism and trying to learn to do what is right. We talked also about Christ and the church and it was a great conversation. As we were coming to the end of our conversation I offered to pray for him and I did. Then he reached his hand out. I had noticed in the course of our conversation there were some kind of soars on his hand. In my head things were going a million miles a minute. I had just told this man I cared about him, that we were brothers in Christ, but now was I willing to reach out and take his hand? Fortunately, praise God, without a noticeable delay I took his hand in mine, we shook hands, and went on our ways. That is just one instance though. How often are we willing to reach down into the dirty gutter where we typically do not want our hands to go?

Following the Crowd

There was a psychological study done once where they had 4 desks set up in a small room. 3 of the students were informed to not leave there seats or react as smoke was pushed under the door from the next room. Then a 4th student was sent into the room with no particular instruction except to fill out the paper work at the remaining station. What was the purpose? Well the theory was that the 4th student would react according to how the other three reacted to the smoke. Normally if you see smoke coming from under a door you would assume that there was a fire. You would maybe call for help and certainly leave the area, but when the 1 uninformed student saw that the other 3 were not alarmed they were a little distracted at first, but they still continued to sit at their desk doing their work. It is easy for us to do what everyone else is doing, but it is difficult to be the first one to lead in a new direction. Too often we want someone else to go ahead of us and set the pace so we do not have to. Are you sitting pacified in a room slowly filling with smoke waiting for someone else to give you a cue or are you ready to lead?

The Discipline of Sacrifice

Francis Chan's book Crazy Love has been a encouragement and a challenge to me at the same time. The question I cannot seem to get over is: "What are you willing to give up to follow Christ?" Many times the Gospel is presented to people as a risk free offer. You don't have to give up anything, just let Jesus come into your heart and then everything will be better. This is not a right view of what it means to be a Christian. It is not that we must do certain things to get certain things, a works based salvation, but there are some things that must be given up in order to truly follow Christ. For one thing the Bible calls for us to believe and to repent. While i do not think this means that we must never sin again it does mean a different attitude that no longer readily accepts sin, but seeks to turn away from it. Christ gave everything even his very life in order to be a little Christ we must be willing to do the same. This is in fact how the Bible describes love. We know what love is by the example Christ set when he died on the cross. It is time for our faith to cost us something.