Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Why I can not choose sides.

I have been wrestling in my soul with why I can not find myself either for or against this current war in Iraq... What has come to me is the thought that we will be judged by the measure that we use to judge... I believe we are exposed in this conflict not in the best of our humanity, but in the stuborness of our humanity. Stop for a momment and imagine how foolish we seem from the perspective of the Creator who gave us this earth. Apocalypse (as in the book of Revelations) is nothing short of God taking it -- this planet -- back from us because in our current state as people we can't handle the earth ourselves. I refuse to think in us and them categories. The Old Testament Prophets talks about God Judging the nations -- all of them. To whatever degree we are wrong with the world... we are responsible. Most of us take the trash every week and think nothing of the land-fill that we are filling with garbage. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. We need a whole lot of grace -- all of us. God will hear the humble cry out where ever they are in the world. May we be the humble in the end... seeking to live out of a heart of love. When 2 Elephants fight... it is the grass that suffers (an African Proverb). Matthew 25, Isaiah 58, II Peter 1:3-11, and Ephesians 3:14-21 are passages that are keeping me focussed and bussy with my life -- all realted to my sense of life calling. I do not think that I have grown to the point of knowing where and how I will be engaging the larger structures. I am able to call others with a similar call to a path that can lead to faithfulness to God's initiative. I keep hearing my sense of the Holy Spirit saying to me do not neglect to plant small seeds of faith. I have more important things to do than to argue the rights and wrongs of this war -- I have to stay on track with my part. All of the great trees in the world started out as seeds. I go on rooted in my faith -- in God. I will keep on planting seeds.

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