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Funnily enough, this the the feeling I get when I hear my new favorite worship song. You know when you hear a song that makes something in your chest kind of constrict and you just love it the moment you hear it? I love stuff like that. It feels like you're a part of something bigger, and something in you swells and almost makes you cry just because you can't find another way to put it. That's how this song makes me feel. I've heard it for the first time today, and I've downloaded it on iTunes, and listened to it over and over again. I love it. I don't recall the last time that I've felt proud to be a Christian when I'm worshiping. That sounds bad...I feel love for Jesus, I feel conviction, I feel adoration, I feel blessed and special. But this one made me feel...taller. I felt good that I believed in God. Not in a prideful, ha, I'm a Christian and that makes me great, but almost that way. It makes God sound manly and strong. Not just compassionate and loving and kind. He sounds tough in this song to me. Like Aslan in Narnia instead of "a rose trampled on the ground" He is tough. He's strong. I felt proud to know him when I worshiped to this, if that makes sense.
Here's the link.
Here's the lyrics:
Everyone needs compassion
A love that's never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
A kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations
Savior
He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave
So take me as You find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender
Shine your light and let the whole world see
Singing for the glory of the risen King
It's been a little while since I wrote anything meaningful here at all. I've had a lot on my mind, and a lot has been going on, but putting things in words, has been surprisingly difficult lately. I think God has been trying to teach me something, and there's a good deal of hope in that, though it seems that he's using a hopeless situation to get his point across. How very...God...of him.
I was going to write a whole long rant on my new pet peeve, the movie "The Secret". Actually, now that I've started, I can tell you right now, it's not gonna be a short post boys.
Only in Western culture could something like this pass off as the newest, latest, greatest thing. What utter rot. I haven't watched the whole thing just the first 20 minutes or so, and maybe like a lame movie that gets good in the last couple of minutes, it redeems itself. I find it insulting. It states in the synopsis, "This is The Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted." Catchy huh? I want in...tell me, please? How can I have everything I ever wanted? The answer? Simple. Hinduism. The law of attraction. Everything that happens to you that is bad, you brought on yourself. Let us quickly note that this exact thought process started the caste system that is still crippling nations like India. They look like they're rolling in wealth....no wait...I've been to India. They're all POOR!! The movie actually stated "I know what you're thinking. 'So my dad dying, that was because of my own negative thought?' the answer, 'yes.' ". Wow huh? Sounds hopeful? This was when I turned it off. The Law of Attraction states that thought equals creation. Get that? Thought = CREATION. So here's the part you're gonna love: Yes, your negative thought process killed your father (woah dude, way harsh for Pops) however, your positive thought process can make you rich!! And there my friends, is where they are making money hand over fist. I'll buy that. It explains pain and suffering because the world would actually rather take blame for it than have it unexplained. And it produces anything that I want for myself. Wow. I thought that humanity was lame when we started bottling water and selling it to each other. I thought humanity was lame when I had to pay a dollar for air, to fill up my car tires. But this, this tops it all.
Note: I know that thinking about being sick, will actually make me sick. My issue is that thinking about sickness will NOT make Peter sick and die.
Here's my issue with people in Canada and the USA buying into this thought process. We've already won the lottery. Let's say you're going to school with approx. 6.5 billion people. At the end of the year, they take a test to decide who the smartest of those 6.5 billion are. You score in the top five percent. How do you feel? Pretty amazing huh? Way to go you? Let's say you score so low that your score, when added with others, doesn't begin to add up to the person in the top five percent. And then you hear the person with the killer grade whine about how unfortunate it was that they missed that one question. How do you feel towards that person? Furious? Nah, something stronger. Murderous? Yeah, that'll do since there's not one word for maim-the-cocky-bastard-and-gouge-his-eyes-out. Here's the thing. If you were born in Canada, or the USA, you are wealthier than 95% of the world's population. Here's the kicker for that other 95%. Their wealth, if pooled, would not be as much money as the 5% that we have. Bummer for them. And here we are, buying movies like The Secret in order to attract everything we want. My entire issue with this is, what we want, will NEVER be enough for us. We've won the lottery. This is what it looks like. Throw a party and hope that the other 95% never notices. The problem with global wealth distribution is that even if we all decided to share it evenly, the world economy would be crippled as the 5% pretty much controls that. If fair trade were ever an idea that was bought into globally, it would pretty much mean financial disaster for you personally. Yikes.
I hate that the "law of attraction" (as though it's a law or something) annihilates compassion. Why should we help out India? That must be one sad nation of negative thinking suckers. Again, we're back to the caste system. You're where you are because of your own dumb fault. Get it together, meanwhile, I'm meditating my way in to...what did they say....oh yeah "unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth". Sweet.
Here's my question, and what I've found to be God's question to me lately:
-What for? What do you want to win the lottery for? Really?
-I want to be mortgage free?
-Why?
-Because debt is very stressful, financial stress is the number one cause of ruined marriages you know.
-But you live in a country where if "hard times" hit, you can go into debt. We have a whole economic structure worked out for you. You have to pay it back, if and when you can...oh wait. Unless you file bankruptcy. We have a system for that too.
-But then I'd have no money. Where would I live?
-Well, incidentally, we have something called Social Assistance. We'll pay you to live at home with your baby if you make a mistake and get pregnant too early, or if your husband walks out on you and you have no marketable skills. We understand that you can't work. It's okay.
-Really? How much will you pay me?
-Well, how about $800 a month? That's three times what they make in Nepal IN ONE YEAR, will that work for you? We get that things are more expensive here than in Nepal.
We have such a screwed up idea of wealth. This is what God's been bugging me on. Our hard times right now are purely financial. Becky's hard times are not. Money isn't going to fix what keeps Becky up at night. What a jerk I am. Becky, e mail me, I'll give you my address, and you may come and gouge out my eyes. I'd deserve it. Unfortunately, positive thinking will not fix what keeps us up at night either, just like being afraid of Peter dying will not kill him. Thank goodness. Our God is more merciful than that. He's much too merciful to give us everything we ask for. A guy I know once said this:
"God is much more concerned with our wholeness than our happiness"
Well said Matt. Here's the greatest thing about God: His ideas of wholeness for us, will make us happier than we've ever dreamed of being. Not only have I won the geographical lottery, where I was lucky enough to be born here, instead of in India; I have won a spiritual lottery. Everything that happens here, means literally nothing unless I am meeting the God who put me here. It means nothing if I am not serving others, not because I am better than them because of my wealth, but because I am in debt to them because of their poverty in the light of God's love to me in mine. I believe that when God said to feed the hungry, that that wasn't a metaphor for something greater. I believe he meant, "hey Melanie, there's hungry people on the planet. They need food. Could you do something about that?" I believe church without active missions is selfishness of the worst kind. I believe God will call us on the carpet for this. Soaking services and not soup kitchens. "The Secret" and not Service. God didn't yell at prostitutes when he was on this planet. He yelled at church people. Shame on us. Shame on me. I have been sitting in that 5% of global wealth and whining about the 4% that are still richer than me. My currency is all messed up. I'm trying to use Rupees in Canada. I'm trying to use Dollars in Heaven. "God, if you could just give us some more money, we'd go into full time ministry. Promise."
"Come, all you who are thirsty come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. WHY SPEND MONEY ON WHAT IS NOT BREAD AND YOUR LABOR ON WHAT DOES NOT SATISFY? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." (Isaiah 55)
You who have no money. Come. Buy. Eat. Not only milk which nourishes, but wine which is enjoyable. Not just life. Life abundant. Want me to tell you a secret? It's not about money. It's about this. Delight your soul which will live forever. I have a framed poster on my wall which says "Want what you already hold." Get your currency straight. What if you switched your mindset so that everything you wanted was in your home, and not in "that guy's house"? What secrets to life can this world offer me, if the secret to real life isn't in this world?
