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Friday, February 26, 2010

Is God Fair?

When a young child dies is that fair?
 

When a person looses all their possessions is that fair?
 

When a person wins the lottery and they already have millions, is that fair?
 

Is life fair?
 

Is God Fair?
 


About a week ago a young eight year old boy by the name of Cody Smith died. He had a rare type of brain cancer and when the tumor was removed it was found it had gone too far and he would not be able to survive it. The whole town rallied around the family. He got to meet the Maple Leafs his favorite Hockey team, and money was raised for his medical bills. He was loved dearly, but he died! Is that fair? 

Fairness is a difficult concept to really understand isn’t it? We all think we understand it, but we don’t. Just watch two teams arguing about it when there is a dubious call in sports, or listen to two adults having marital difficulties arguing, or consider how different others judge things compared to ourselves!

Fairness is different depending on your specific view of what is being judged.
 

We all consider fairness to be the situation when we are un-biased, not showing favoritism, or being free of deception. The problem is that as people we are very opinionated, and those opinions come from our backgrounds which are different resulting in different measuring sticks to be used when we get faced with a situation we need to judge.
 

That’s why law developed. We could not agree to agree and had to make rules or guidelines to help us clearly state what our assumptions and agreements are against which we would do our judging. The problem with laws is that they never really work. Think of how much money lawyers make by twisting and distorting laws to get what their clients want! That itself is often not considered fair!
 

So let’s agree that we really don’t have the ability as an individual to understand what fair is. It would take knowledge of everyone's perspectives and the truth of the situations to be able to decide what fair is! We just don’t have it. Our courts do the best they can and even they sometimes fail and put the wrong guy or girl behind bars. To be fair we would just have to have too much information, more than we could comprehend or is available to us!
 

That’s why only God can judge correctly. He has all this information! He know both the past, the present and the options of the future. All that is taken into account when he judges. And his advice to us is not to judge, but leave it to him. 
 

"If you do not judge others, then you will not be judged. If you do not find others guilty, then you will not be found guilty. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
[1]
 

Good advice! It hints that we will be judged with the measuring stick we use to judge others. God will provide our judgment using our own views, but within his supremely correct overall view of truth! So we need to be careful saying what is fair or not!

 
Let’s be honest, we all have to use our judgment to live each day. Every moment of every day we make decisions. We cannot not judge, and we need to try and be as fair as possible! This is good, but we must be very careful of judging God himself since we cannot start to understand what he does. 

If Cody had lived, what might have happened to him later in life. Could it perhaps have been nastier than the illness which destroyed him (as a side note, the illness in the world was the result of bad decisions by ancient man and spirits and cannot be blamed on God).
 

We all have a special purpose in life. That’s why we live! Not just to have fun! What is our true purpose?
 

I have found that by listening to the words of the God of the universe, by reading his book, I get wholesome direction, understand his purpose for the day, and my judgments are based on his guidelines. That is the way I can get closest to a fair decision since the only one that really understand fair is God himself. By aligning with God I ensure I am as fair as I can be.
 

Then, I can tearfully ask God to help those who are hurting, I can pray about apparent injustices and ask God to help because I know I am aligned with him. Forgiveness is more important than blame!
 

The world isn’t fair but God is.

I can only try to be fair, how about you?



[1] Luke 6:37 (NIRV)

Fri, February 26, 2010 | link          Comments

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Wicked and the wonderful!

People can be mean!

 
Sometimes we wonder how people can be as nasty as they are to one another! We are after all together on this one fragile world with life in common. How can we ignore the humanity of those alongside us. Yet we often do and we have huge differences that develop and often grow in feuds and wars. Where is forgiveness?

There is an underlying layer of evil that permeates the human race for as far back as we can track! It's often pretty obvious in the morning or evening rush hour in traffic. There is always the guy or gal that just thinks they have the right to swerve in and out of lanes cutting us off as they assert their importance over the "common" travellers on the same highway. Then, in the workplace, we get that vengefull boss or co-worker who makes sure to drain the last drop of energy right out of our lives. The wicked abound! Selfish, ignorant and nasty people (sinners like you and me) abound, but the good news is that the good do too!

Yesterday, I needed to buy a small peice of burlap from a store. It being winter in Canada,  the ground is snow covered and the need for burlap has dropped to an all time low. Thats a summer commodity! Those that needed it before winter have got it, and the rest have little need for it now. So they pack it away for the winter if they even have any!

Calling the store I found they had some in their "seasonal" department and that it would cost $4 but they would have to get it out.

On arriving at the store I was directed to a really pleasent and helpful guy who then got four other guys to help him lock down 4 aisles of the store in order to get down a pallet from a shelf that was 30 feet up in the air. they then had to unwrap the shrink wrapped pallet to get one small pack of burlap out. The effort was enormous and the return to the store small! They were extremely helpful pleasent and courteous!

What a difference! I will be going back to that store again and again!

We appreciate those that do good things for us!

The question is whether we do that for others? I get pretty annoyed with people who disobey the laws that make us all safe and live well together, but I need to be sure I am not one of them. When dealing with the public or a co-worker, how do I come across? Pleasent, courteous, helpful, patient, kind, gentle?

These are the attributes God wants us to have. If we follow God's guidelines the world would be wonderful instead of wicked.

Let's go make the world a wonderful place today!
Will you going to join me with that objective today?
Let's be wonderful and reject wicked!
Thu, February 25, 2010 | link          Comments

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

These days, I don’t have to bite my tongue so often!


Conversation changes and the emotions start to climb, suddenly someone starts to slide in those torpedoes of innuendo and insinuation.
Things start to get ugly and then suddenly it appears as if I am the target.

In times like that in the past I would find my anger increase, and I would let it. "It is justifiable to get angry now. They are attacking me unfairly!" Then within seconds my mouth would let rip with something designed to counter-attack. Verbal war would start at that instant and my day's peace would be ripped to shreds. Being good with my mouth I often would win these exchanges only to find I hadn't really. Relationships were destroyed, I certainly didn't feel as if I had won, and then I would go into cycles of cross checking what I said, what they said and what I said again. A huge waste of personal energy and time!


I guess we all do this at some time or another. But I have now learned another, more successful way of dealing with these situations. The Christian way!


The sacred writing say something quite interesting. See Psalm 119 (about the middle of the bible)


41 Lord, show me your faithful love.

  Save me as you have promised.

42 Then I will answer those who make fun of me,

  because I trust in your word.

43 Help me always to tell the truth about how faithful you are.

  I have put my hope in your laws.

44 I will always obey your law,

  for ever and ever.

45 I will lead a full and happy life,

  because I've tried to obey your rules.

46 I will talk about your covenant laws to kings.

  I will not be put to shame.

47 I take delight in obeying your commands

  because I love them.

48 I praise your commands, and I love them.

  I spend time thinking about your orders..


Being Christian I need to understand that God loves me totally, and that anyone who attacks me is actually attacking God if I am living my life within God's guidelines. This means they are attacking God rather than me. It's pride that caused me to react in the past. That "I" word was very obvious in what I was thinking and later saying.

Instead of this, now my first reaction is to try and understand what my accuser may have mis-understood! I remind myself that God loves them and that he would want me to respond in a loving way. I pray silently to God and ask him for the right words.

Needless to say this takes up some time, and so I get to react AFTER the for wave of emotion has flowed. This makes my response more reasonable and controlled. Then, I check what I say against what I know from God's guidelines to see I am staying within them.

Now let's be honest, I don't always succeed, but my success rate is far outweighing my failure rate these days.

I am a happier person, peace follows me around, I have more friends and I am more tolerant to difference between them and myself. I celebrate the differences instead of resent them. It's good to have people around who give me different perspectives (even if they are different perspectives on what I do). I really love people and have learned what the bible means when it says "love your enemies". Even if they never see me as being helpful, they are sure helpful to me. They help me learn to be gentle in tough times, to consider aspects of myself and situations I would normally ignore, and if I can somehow show them the love God shows me, I often get new friends.

So, I am not lacking words, but they are worth of kings and they generally make those around me are happier. I feel ALIVE because I do what is right. I feel GOOD about my interactions with others each day.


 

I hope you can say the same!

Wed, February 24, 2010 | link          Comments

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Let’s find the good things today!

I was listening to the radio on the way home yesterday and there was someone on the radio explaining how she had taken city kids into the bush and forests for a vacation. Within a short time they were complaining,


"There is nothing to do!"


The wise Mom looked around and saw a creek running out of the trees into the lake. "Just go and find out where that creek comes from" was her advice, and be sure to be back by supper!"


With bad grace the kids relinquished their nagging for iPods, Wii, Videos, and computers and set off into the unknown. A week later as they were about to go home Mom asked what was the best part of the vacation. "Exploring the creek!" was the answer!


Now, I think we are a bit like that in life. We complain so hard, that we fail to see the answers around us. God is looking at the creek while we are in our mind looking at our needs. If we don’t stop, pay attention to what he is trying to tell us, we just miss out on some of the blessing that are right there.


Psalm 119:35-39 (NIRV) says


Teach me to live as you command,
      because that makes me very happy.
 Make me want to follow your covenant laws
      instead of wanting to gain things only for myself.
 Turn my eyes away from things that are worthless.
      Keep me alive as you have promised.
 Keep your promise to me.
      Then other people will have respect for you.
 Please don't let me be put to shame.
      Your laws are good.


When we pay attention to God’s guidelines for our life (I like to think of God’s law as guidelines), then we are happier. We are truely ALIVE! If we claim God’s promises for us, we are doubly happy as he shows us his power in our lives. God really loves us, and wants us to respond to Him. When we do he points out the creeks in our lives. It then may take work to explore the opportunities, but the reward is great.


When we follow God’s advice, we not only gain directly, we gain indirectly. Integrity is a by product of living a live with God leading us. What we say we will do, we do! We really care for others, and don’t just make out we do!


It’s great to be a King’s kid!


 

Let’s go look for our "creek" today!

Tue, February 23, 2010 | link          Comments

Monday, February 22, 2010

Cheating, lies and significant relationships! Who wins?

I love the definition of cheating the biologists use. It is. . .
 

Cheating, also known as exploitation, between organisms is a form of parasitism or specialized predation in which an organism engages in what appears to be a mutualistic relationship with another organism, but does not in fact provide any benefit to the other organism. The relationship between the organisms may be symbiotic, in which case cheating is a form of parasitism, or non-symbiotic, in which case cheating is a form of predation or herbivory.[1]
 

“Exploitation between organisms”
 

This really boils it down to the facts. When we cheat we are taking advantage of another person! We prey on another individual by making out that the relationship is mutually beneficial. This is where the lying comes in. We have to put up some sort of false representation of ourselves to be successful in taking advantage of the other person. Often we are really subtle about this and in many ways, we lie both to them and to ourselves.
 

Unfortunately lies take down the liar even if they don’t get found out! You See we all know lying is wrong because we don’t like getting lied to. We cannot escape this fact, so we distort it! We kid ourselves it’s OK to lie to others and it’s also okay that it’s wrong for others to lie to us!

See the problem? We simply screw ourselves up even if no-one appears to find out about the lie.
 As a Christian I know that at the great judgment those that don’t have Jesus as their attorney defending them with his life, will have every thought, action and word revealed to everyone as these are weighed to determine their future. Wow are we going to see some red faces! 

Let’s go back to that definition. Notice the “mutualistic relationship”, is only an appearance. i.e we only appear to not be taking advantage of the other. There is no real benefit! 
 

The biologists refer to these relationships as either parasitic, predatory. Parasitic cheating is one where the person profits out of the relationship where there is no advantage to the other person. Predatory is typically that girl or guy who hates the opposite sex but wants to have sex, so they scheme plot and manipulate someone into thier bed, and then discard them as soon after the climax as possible. They abuse the other and don't feel a thing! (often they justify it as "we both got what we wanted didn't we?")


So typical examples of cheating vary from flirting with the opposite sex, i.e cheating on being true to our significant other, to having secondary relationships such as keeping a mistress or a woman having sex with another guy while being in relationship with the first.
 

Often we consider the first, flirting, not be cheating but the second to be cheating. Both are in fact cheating. In both cases, we are not being true to the person we have promised to be true to! They are being hurt even if they don’t say so.

What about the person with whom we are cheating? We cannot be true to them in the relationship.  We have divided loyalties but often make out these do not matter or are not important (when we  know they do). The worst form of this is when the person being preyed upon doesn’t know they are taking the place of another while we use them.



This abuse is often a result of the cheating person being abused. Ever noticed how abused people abuse people? Cheating is a common form of this. It is a means of exerting power in a relationship in which our true partners have no control. It’s selfish and nasty, In the best case we are ignorant of the fact that we are going to hurt ourselves, the person we are cheating with, and the person we are supposedly being true to. No one gains! Now if you follow my blogs, you will be aware that selfish, ignorant and nasty things we do are called “sin” in Christian terms.
 

Have we sinned in this way at one time or another? 
 

Jesus said if we think in an cheating way when married we have committed adultery. Then he had this advice for us!
 

Matt 19:19 (NIV) Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'
 

Why does he say these things? To hurt us and make us feel bad? Not likely! God loves you and me so much! He wants us to reach our potential and do the best we possibly can!

Let’s be honest, we know cheating is wrong, we know it’s a quick fix that will end up in long term pain. In fact I have seen that many times it’s the women and men that have a poor self image that do the cheating. It’s almost as if they are trying to confirm to themselves they are not worth anything. They despise themselves for what they are doing but feel compelled to do it. 
 

God doesn’t see you this way! God loves us so much that he died to prove it before you even had a chance to tell him you are sorry. He sees our potential and sees our sins as holding us back. I really wish we could see it the same way!
 

So, lets choose to let God control our lives instead of inappropriate passions! Let’s ask God to help us when we fail, lets pick ourselves up dust off the sin and move one step at a time. If we have been flirting or having relationships inappropriate to significant partners in our life, lets tell God we are sorry and agree to stop it.
 

We need to do this to be true to ourselves!
 

Mon, February 22, 2010 | link          Comments


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Rift in Evil

By Ken X Briggs

  • Published: September, 2010
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This suspense thriller centers on Kiara, a beautiful young woman pursued by a murderous group of people, who relentlessly and ruthlessly hunt her and her sisters. Kiara has no idea why she is being targeted! When Kiara and her family turn to the law for help, this fails. Her pursuers’ powers reach deeply into the political and law enforcement world. Family support for her dwindles when they too have to flee her pursuers. Can Kiara escape the clutches of both the law and dishonest big business? With the media broadcasting that Kiara and friends are dangerous and subversive, can Kiara clear her name and bring her pursuers to justice?

 

 
  

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 RiftInEvil.gifThe town of Zinaville is dropped into a spiral of evil causing a young man and a beautiful but abused woman to launch into an investigation that unveils an evil conspiracy.

A horrific mining accident results in Joshua Robyn's father being killed. Joshua struggles both with himself and his townsfolk as he tries to make sense of an incomprehensible situation. Is it an accident or a murder? Why is there a seeming link to evil? Why is his work environment suddenly threatening? What is the conspiracy about and what are they trying to do? As action moves dramatically from exotic African grasslands to the heart of North America's cities, the plot unfolds and the pace quickens. Will there be time? Why is a beautiful abused young woman in the center of this plot?

Evil tendrils tighten on their lives and the interplay between the visible and invisible world shows opposing forces at work.

Will there be a rift in evil?

Will they be able to stop the evil in time?

 

 

 
Click here to order Rift in Evil (ebook or Paper available)
  • Published: September, 2010
  • Format: Perfect Bound Softcover(B/W)
  • Pages: 208
  • Size: 6x9
  • ISBN: 9781450250894 

Available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. Chapters

 
  
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