Pro-Life?

I think the pro-life movement needs to be more pro-choice. I don't mean they should advocate for abortion, but strangely enough, I'm thinking many choosing abortion do so because they feel they don't have any other choice. Christians need to do a better job of giving them another choice and accepting our responsibilities.


In a blog about some articles showing that calls to abortion centers are on the rise presumably due at least in part to the economy, Jason Kovacs of the ABBA fund notes:

I think the implications for the church are massive. We have an opportunity
to stand up and save lives or swim with the current of our culture of
self-preservation. There is no difference here between the women who are
killing their babies because they don’t believe that they can afford to
raise them and Christians who think they have no responsibility in caring
for these babies. The root of both is selfishness.

I'm sure many will consider this harsh, but I have to agree with him. We're selfish. I am too, way more than I want to be, and I have opened up my home once already to my son. There's still more I can do.

Maybe at least if we're going to keep the pro-life label, let's agree that the life we will choose to protect won't be our own cushy, comfortable one. If you're not willing to sacrifice in your own life, why would you expect a mom contemplating abortion to make a sacrifice of her way of life.

Please pray how you personally and your church (and mine) can meet our responsibilities and fulfill our biblical mandates.

A random rundown of some of the things I've been thinking about.

Many of these probably deserve a post of their own, and I may still do that, but in the mean time:

Did you know that islamic sharia law forbids adoption? This is one more example their god is not the same God I believe in.

To sort of steal a famous line, I'm thinking more people should start asking not what Jesus can do for them, but what they can do for Jesus. (I also don't think if they start asking it will be hard to figure out. The need is the call.)

To steal another one, imagine there's no heaven, imagine there's no hell. I'm thinking even if there were not, God our creator is still worthy of our entire being and supreme love.

They'll know we are Christians by our love. How well are you loving?

Has anyone ever thought through how many times we are shown in scripture that to receive God's blessing, he requires some type of action or movement from us. Go. Come. Get up.

Churches are not and should not be run like businesses.

Our calling and vision should determine how we do things instead of letting how we normally do things restrict our vision and calling.

Job was outnumbered 3-1, but was closer to right than any of the 3.

Have a great night! -T

Adam and Eve needed a better lawyer.

Isn't it such a shame for us all that Adam and Eve weren't more like today's politically hyper-active Christians. Just think about it, if they had been, surely we could have headed all this whole 'fall' thing before it ever happened. What they seemed to have lacked was the foresight to hire a great Christian legal team. If they had simply done that, I'm sure they could have filed suit to have that offensive tree removed from the garden. Sure, it might have taken a long drawn out legal fight, but having anything as troublesome as that tree still standing is a direct insult.
Hey, but wait a minute! Didn't God himself put the tree there? And seeing as he'd likely be the judge...oh well.

I realize this is a silly picture here, but sometimes I'm convinced so many of the 'fights' that 'Christians' choose these days are a bit ridiculous as well. This came to mind hearing about the debates in Texas over having a Biblical account of creation and the theory of evolution included in science textbooks.

I guess what it comes down to for me with this debate is why are we so scared of the theory of evolution? It is after all, only a theory. Part of me can't help but wonder if it's because many aren't as believing as they'd like to be in the Biblical account.
I'm not saying it's a bad fight necessarily. I do wonder sometimes if the time and the money just wouldn't be better used in a positive fashion, better teaching truth, than always just fighting against things.

When your own creativity wanes...

just resort to linking to others. And so here I go:

Here's an article that really interested me. It's discussing immigration, and how the church and really any of us should respond. I don't picture it being too popular among too many, but I actually agreed with most of it if I'm honest. As much as we celebrate the good old U.S.A., in reality, it's just some artificially defined boundary that someone's power over someone else created.

This article from the same site as above addresses multi-ethnicity. Again, it might not interest anyone else, but it made me think. I've been rolling thoughts and questions around in my head for a while now about how we always try to categorize everything/everyone, mainly for our own convenience, and sometimes out of our fear of complexity. Things that we can't define, and by defining, control to a degree, make us uncomfortable, and we don't like to be uncomfortable.

Stuff Christians Like has to be one of my favorite sites. If you've never read it before, give it a try.

A couple of sites that I've really been digging around on lately are these:
hopefororphans.org
showhope.org
The ABBA Fund - I especially enjoy the blog.

Well, maybe that will be keep you thinking for now. I hope everyone is doing well.

A plug for my wife's blog post.

In case anyone missed it, I wanted to make sure and point you to a post on my wife's blog which I think is very good and very important. She addresses a great point about adoption and helps clear up a major misconception many people tend to have.
Please read it here.
I'm biased obviously, but I'm proud of her for writing it.
Thanks!

Saving for a Rainy Day

Here's where I'm really going crazy. It's absolutely one of those things that has me unsure of what in the world is going on in this brain and heart of mine. Lately, I've become increasingly more and more unsure if the time tested idea of saving for a rainy day is actually Biblical. I'm ALMOST to the point of being fairly sure in some ways it's not.
Going back to Matthew 6, verse 34, where God is speaking about providing everything we need, even the basics, he says:
34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Then there's the old testament story of manna. Remember the principle God taught the people there. He provided for them one day at a time. In fact, anyone who tried to get just a little extra for the next day, found a nice jar of nastiness in the morning.
And there was a certain rich fool in Luke 12:13-21. He was going to build some barns for all he had saved up. That didn't go so well for him if you read the story.
Is it really related? Well, keep reading again in Luke. It's back to the do not worry about what you'll eat drink or wear as related in that book, so, yeah, I think it definitely is.

What does all this exactly mean? I'm still working on that part. And still praying. But something tells me things cannot just remain the same. And, if you did keep reading in Luke, don't worry. Verse 12:33 scares me a bit also.

Treasures

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." Matthew 6:19
This verse and the following passage have been on my mind a lot lately. Perhaps it's the constant talk of the economy that seems to be everywhere. Some of it has to do with questions I've been asking myself lately about some decisions that might have significant impact on the future.
While my world is still relatively small, adoption did open it significantly, and I pray daily my eyes continue to open to what is outside what we know.
Trouble is, the more I see, the less sure my footing sometimes becomes. I only seem to question what I've mostly always been taught and what constitutes regular expectations in most people around me. To say it very harshly, I'm not sure that the "American Dream" isn't one of satan's greatest tools. Rarely do we ever truly define success by anything other than monetary gain. We push kids through increasing levels of education to get a better job. Then, somewhere, we reach a point where we have so much, that we then constantly are fighting just to keep what we have and get more.
We get accustomed to doing it ourselves, and working harder, so that we no longer have to trust or seek the Lord. Then we no longer have time if we wanted to. As a man, I'll admit there's the feeling that I have to provide everything my family needs. It's hard not to worry about that sometimes. Yet, God promises us what we need. He tells us not to worry about them, not even the basic stuff, like food or drink or clothes. Our heavenly Father knows that I need them. If I seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness, He will provide these things.
He doesn't say only if I work as hard as I can for them. He doesn't think like we think. He wants to show us His glory sometimes, and He can't always do that if we're constantly getting in the way.

A note to any potential readers: This may not make any sense. I'm okay with that. It sort of doesn't make sense to me either. I am in a process. I'm not exactly sure what that process is. I am mainly blogging here to myself, trying to sort some of that out. If you've landed here, pray for me. I promise to do the same for you.