by Roseanna White | Oct 20, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
I admit it–I’m sick of it. All the politics on the news, the divisiveness, the fact that I can’t go on Facebook without my friends’ feed being an explosion of vitriolic “Who I’m voting for and why” posts. It makes me tired. But more, it makes me sad.
And here’s why.
Last weekend, my husband gave a message in our church that had been brewing inside him for a year, but whose time was finally right. In a way, it was about the country. But mostly–more importantly–it was about the church. And how we’ve failed.
Because here’s the thing. Politics and laws don’t change the culture. Ever. They reflect it. We as Christians are so up in arms over this election, convinced that if we don’t vote for the person who promises what we want, then we’re voting for Satan himself. That if one person wins, America is lost, but if the other person wins, then surely it’ll be a Samson or David or Solomon story all over again, right? God will work through one candidate to save us and the other to destroy us.
Um, here’s the thing folks. God isn’t going to save a country that doesn’t want to be saved. (Individuals, sure. There’s always a remnant. But I’m talking the nation as a whole.) So let’s look around and ask the real question:
Does American want God to save them?
The answer is terrifying. And undeniable: NO. America as a whole doesn’t want God. We’ve gone beyond tolerating sin–we embrace it. We as a culture have looked at the Bible, seen its wisdom, and chucked it out in favor of what’s fun and pleasurable and doesn’t make anyone feel uncomfortable. We just want to be happy. And we have that right, right? It’s written in our founding documents, for crying out loud! Everyone has the right to pursue happiness!
What we forget is that it’s not America that gives us that right. It’s the Creator. America is actually unique for giving the Creator that due rather than claiming it for the state. France, for example, in their revolution, said that the State gave its citizens those basic rights. So then, the State also has the power to take them away.
America can’t . . . unless we, as a people, let it.
So why do we today get so worked up over the system, the politics, and what those politicians can give or refuse, force upon us or take away . . . yet not expend half so much energy–or vocal power–proclaiming the Good News of Jesus? Convincing the world there’s a better way? Trying to change, not the politics, but the people it serves?
We’ve had politicians from both sides with senate majorities or in the White House. What have they done, really? Those who share our beliefs sure haven’t slowed down the moral decay. And those who oppose them have only instigated legislation that reflects the beliefs of most of the nation.
That is the problem–that is what we need to be fired up about. The fact that our nation, our culture, our neighbors have turned their backs on God.
No politicians, right or left or in the middle, can change that. Ever. Because we’re only going to get the leaders we ask for–the leaders we deserve. And right now, this is what we’ve asked for. What we’ve demanded.
So how about we turn our focus away from the leaders . . . and work on being a people who deserve the best?
It’s easier to just think we can elect people to do that work for us–but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the easy way is seldom the right way, and the right way is seldom easy. Let’s, as the Church, as Christians, as believers in the best news to ever be given to mankind, stop whining about party politics–and start trying to change the culture that has created it.
by Roseanna White | Sep 29, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Our Bible studies are famous for getting off track . . . but resulting in some awesome discussions. Last night our study of Daniel led us to a conversation on why people might lose faith–why, specifically, God might put them in a situation where they end up losing faith.
It doesn’t really fit our view of how God works, right? We have all those awesome sayings: God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. God is always going to work things out for your better good.
But is that right? Is that what He actually says?
As my hubby (who loves to ask all the hard questions in our studies) pointed out, God never promises to work things for our good–He promises to work things for THE good. And He certainly never promises not to give us more than we can bear. He just promises to bear it with us, for us, when we turn to Him.
But what if we don’t?
The example that got David asking this was from WWII, when some of the Righteous Among the Nations–the people who had gone out of their way to save Jews during the Holocaust–who had felt God calling them to help, then turned from Him, overwhelmed by the depravity of man and their own ineffectual actions. The Jews recognized them as doing great work, but they didn’t see it. They saw only the horror, and so much of it that they decided that if this was what God had called them to do, then they wanted nothing to do with God anymore.
That’s hard. Right? And optimistic me says, “But surely God drew them back to Him in the end!” But what if these folks really had hardened their heart so much against Him that they didn’t want to turn back? I don’t know if they did. I don’t know if God treats these people in a different way, pouring mercy upon their souls. I don’t know.
But what I do know is that we’re less likely to be one of those people if we have a right view of God.
So often, I think Christians aren’t worshiping God as He is–we’re worshiping God as we want Him to be. We want to think that God is all mercy, when in truth He is also perfect justice. We want to think that God obeys our definition of “fair,” when in reality He probably shakes His head at how limited our definition is. We think in terms of us. We have such a self-centered view of God, of Christianity, that it’s hard for us to fathom that sometimes He asks us to die. He lets loved ones die. True, world-wide tragedy happens.
Yes, God asks us to work in a situation when we never see the good that comes of it.
Why? Because there’s more than we can see. And because it isn’t about us, it’s about the people we’re called to help. It’s about the Kingdom.
Yes, God asks us to trust in Him when men like Hitler are out to obliterate the Good News. When thousands, millions are killed.
Why? Because men have the free will to fight Him and to kill His people in the process. God will “let” that happen . . . but never to the point where it will destroy His Kingdom. Don’t you think Judah cried out at the slaughter at the hands of the Babylonians? That Israel thought God unfair, that He wasn’t worth serving when the Assyrians destroyed them? Yes. I’m sure they did. I’m sure some, whose faith was in their own idea of God, lost that faith.
But the faith itself grew. Exile was what turned Judaism from a general religion to a personal faith. These terrible, awful, never-should-have-happened things were used by God to further the Kingdom, even though it means some lost faith . . . lost faith in their false ideas.
We’ve been studying the ancient world in school, learning about the greatest of the ancient kings. And do you know what made them great? They put the kingdom above all else. Above personal glory. Above love of one individual. They would fight wars or make odd peace treaties to preserve and expand their nation.
God is the BEST king. He is working, always, for the good of the Kingdom. That means making decisions we, as mere peons in His army, don’t understand. It means people will die. It means war and famine and flood and cancer and dictators and atheism and . . . who knows what else. It means some will lose faith. It means more will come to it. It means the wheat will be separated from the chaff. It means so much more than we can fathom.
More, honestly, than most of us want to think about. We want life to be good. To be fair. To be easy. We want our loved ones not to die. We want our children to be perfectly healthy. We want respect and admiration.
Sorry, y’all. God promises us hardship. Disrespect. He promises that brother will turn on brother and father on son. He promises persecution and death and trial.
But He also promises peace and love and Joy and a wisdom the world cannot understand. He promises to lift us above our circumstances–not to change our circumstances.
And that right there is one of the greatest epiphanies I ever had, a few years ago. We don’t serve a God who changes circumstances alone–we serve a God who changes souls. He doesn’t say, “I’ll make the hurtful thing stop.” He says, “I’ll lend you My strength to get through it.”
Sometimes–often–that actually means stripping away the things we thought were important. To get us back to the place where we have only that one truly important thing.
Him.
by Roseanna White | Aug 25, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
I’m not sure when this thought hit me–but it was in the last month or so. One of those things that has niggled and wiggled around in my head and then burst into realization during a sermon in church one week.
I’d been wondering about blessings . . . and if we really know how to identify them.
Living as we do in a prosperous, rich country, we tend to think of things as blessings, don’t we? We’re blessed to have a nice house . . . a car . . . a paycheck. We’re blessed to have insurance . . . college savings accounts . . . and closets bursting with clothes. We’re blessed, we think, to have all we need.
But what if we’re not?
Let me be clear from the start–I’m not saying these things aren’t blessings, period, end of story. They could be. But I am saying this: I don’t think they are always blessings.
Why? Because a blessing shouldn’t ever get between us and God–and all too often, our possessions do. All too often we focus more on finding that new set of curtains or bookshelf or new car than we do on Him. All too often we give to others, offer our service or money, only after we’ve met our “needs.” But is that what the Lord instructs? Or are we to give Him our first fruits? Or our all?
Yet so many times we heard people say, “Thank you, Lord, for giving me ________ [insert possession here].”
This has made the thought wiggle and niggle with increasing frequency. Yes, I think God does help us get the things we need, absolutely. The things that will aid us in our walk with Him, the things that will help us help others. I do fully believe that it was a gift from God when our friends with a calling to hospitality found a great deal on a big house, which they frequently opened up to visitors and missionaries.
Yes, I think it’s a gift from God when the funds come in to buy a new laptop that allows a writer or blogger to continue their ministry with words.
Yes, I absolutely think it’s a gift from God to find a dependable car at a good price so we can get where He wants us to go.
But for every one of those clear blessings, how many murky ones have we seen? I can’t count them. And I certainly can’t judge them in anyone’s life but my own. But I think, in order to keep them straight, I need to give myself a new definition of blessing.
Blessings aren’t the things God gives us–
they’re whatever brings us closer to Him.
Does my house bring me closer to Him or get in the way? My car? My clothes? My bank account? Does air conditioning make me a better Christian? Does my full pantry?
Does heartache? Does loss? Does having to scrounge around for dollars enough to cover an expense? Does needing to lean on Him in hard times because my own strength isn’t enough?
Sheds a different light on things, doesn’t it? That sometimes, those things we thank Him for might not be the real blessings in our lives at all (though sometimes they certainly are). But the real blessings might be the hard parts. The valleys. The days of darkness. Because those are the things that make us curl up in the lap of our God and cling to Him as our Father.
There are always going to be things we need, things He gives us. Yes. Absolutely. But there are also so very many things that are just that–things. And we need to be careful about how we look on those–as what we ought to be striving to possess . . . or as mere objects that litter our lives.
Remembering always that the real gift, the most valuable is the eternal. Is Him and His salvation. That is the dearest, most precious, most expensive thing in this world–it cost Jesus His life! So if that is the best thing, the thing we ought to guard and yet share, what is the rest? Nothing.
Yet we offer people God freely–because it cost us nothing–and hoard our belongings. We’ve got it all backwards, my friends. And until we realize it . . . well, then I’m going to stick with my new epiphany. These things around me aren’t always a blessing. And that’s why sometimes God has to take them away from us.
That isn’t God removing His blessing. That’s God removing a curse we’d been clinging to.
The biggest blessing is something He’ll never take away, ever. Him.
by Roseanna White | Aug 11, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
As a writer, I know all about picking the interesting times to write about–we leave out the boring stuff, right? Or the unimportant stuff. We certainly don’t spend pages describing something that will never come up again.
It’s something I’ve noticed in biblical narratives as well. When the ancient writers are telling us a story–like in Esther or Daniel–they don’t tell us all. They tell us the parts that are relevant to the particular idea they’re trying to get across, or to the particular events they’ll really be expounding on. I noticed this quite a lot back in the day when I was writing Jewel of Persia. It was the first I’d really noticed the huge gap of years between when Xerxes had the queen removed from the throne and when he started looking for a new queen. This wasn’t a next-day or next-year thing. It was literal ages later.
We’ve been reading Daniel in our Bible study the last month or two, and the same thing is apparent there. Nebuchadnezzar reigned 43 years. We know it was near the beginning of his reign when Daniel and compatriots were brought to Babylon. And we see his story all the way to the end of his reign. But it’s easy to read it as if it all happened within the course of a couple years.
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a statue.
Nebuchadnezzar built a statue–surely they were linked, right? The nerve!
Nebuchadnezzar admits to the greatness of God.
Nebuchadnezzar thinks only of his own greatness–what a short memory he has!
I said several times in our study at church, and keep thinking now . . . it’s not that his memory is short. It’s that our narrative is truncated. And then I ask–how would our life stories sound if we only hit the major ups and downs?
What if our story were written, and included, say, the first time we admitted that God was up in Heaven watching us . . . and then skipped to the first time we questioned Him? What would our story sound like if the next tale written were of our conversion . . . then it was directly followed by that time someone died suddenly, and we railed at God?
To a reader, it would look like our memory was short. Like we forgot how great God is. To a reader, we might seem to go from praising God for taking us out of Egypt to crying out against Him in the wilderness in a couple seconds. A reader might not understand that our children are dying of thirst, so of course we cry out. Right? A reader might not understand that it’s been a decade since that high point, and the world has been pressing in, and it seems like God has forgotten us . . . so we question whether He’s what we first thought.
In this world of commentaries and footnotes in our Bibles, it’s sometimes easy to take the quick, simply explanation–and in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, most all the notes I read on him were pretty harsh, dude. But I think the man deserves a lot of credit. His chapters in the book of Daniel are the only chapters written by a so-called pagan. Ever wonder why? I think it’s because of the ending of his story.
Yeah, he had his ups and downs with God. He didn’t quite believe fully at first–it didn’t square with everything he’d been taught since he was a kid, you know? In his world, admitting to the power of one god didn’t negate the others. He had to go on a journey to understanding the true nature of the one who is God over all. It involved some fits and starts. Some battles with pride. Some days where he forgot what Israel’s Lord was all about.
But it ended with him declaring our God supreme. It ended with a declaration of faith. Think of that–a Babylonian king, declaring his faith in the God of Israel. That is why his story is worth writing about–and why Daniel took such care to show us the rocky road that led him there.
Our own roads not be rocky to the same degree. But they all have their peaks and valleys. And if those were all anyone knew of us . . . what would our footnotes say?
by Roseanna White | Aug 4, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
I just got back from a couple days at a church conference, and the director said something in one of his presentations that resonated with something my husband and I had been discussing too. And that is this:
One of the greatest perceived failings of the modern church is that we put more thought into what we’re against than what we’re for. As in, in a survey of modern America, this was listed as one of the top 5 reasons that people stopped going to church. All they ever heard was the negative. The don’t-do. The can’t-have. The stay-away-from.
The negatives are important. They are. God’s pretty clear on what we shouldn’t do.
But . . . but. If we carve out those places, what are we then filling them with?
I kinda look at it like this. A successful diet isn’t one that just says “Eliminate these foods.” Right? Because if you just cut out the chips and dessert and saturated fats or whatever and don’t fill your meals with anything else in their place, what happens?
You get hungry.
A successful diet is one that says, “Eat this. Instead of a banana muffin, have a banana. Instead of chips, have some hummus.”
Not that I’m an experienced dieter, LOL, but I have definitely noticed that when I’m focused on getting my five servings of fruits and veggies in a day, I don’t have room for the junk food. If I make conscious decisions to eat something healthy first, then I rarely get around to the unhealthy stuff.
This is true of spiritual health too. Yes, we definitely, 100% need to avoid things. But if all you preach and teach is a system of DON’T, you leave your people empty . . . and that makes the way for apostasy and legalism.
When it comes to faith, we need to be careful to focus on how to fill ourselves with Him. That is the #1 most important thing. Because if we’re filled up with His Spirit, there’s no room left for the sins. If we’re full of His love, there’s no room for hate. If we’re dwelling in Him and He in us, that old man will fade away and we won’t still desire the same old junk. If we’re basking in His grace, we won’t even notice the “lack” we now have of those things of the world–we’ll only notice the fruit of His presence.
I don’t want to be known as “the person who doesn’t . . .” even if that “doesn’t” is an important distinction. Yes, I am absolutely the person who doesn’t murder, doesn’t steal, doesn’t commit perjury. But that doesn’t tell you a thing about who I am. What I do.
This holds true in a church as well. We can’t just be known for the sins we don’t embrace–we have to be known for the spiritual fruit we do produce. Let us be known for our kindness and goodness and self-control. For our giving and serving and need-meeting. Let us be known for being Jesus’s hands and feet in a hurting world. Not for just shaking a finger at that world and judging.
Let’s not just be against things . . . let’s stand for things as well.
by Roseanna White | Jul 7, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
A few weeks ago, I heard an analogy about the kind of life we should live; that we should be an oak tree, solid and tall, a pillar of the community, the kind of person people respect and will miss when we’re gone, etc. That we shouldn’t be a tumbleweed, aimless and despised and dismissed by everyone.
I got the point of the story. And I certainly love oak trees as much as the next person. But this analogy also bothered me. Maybe that’s a fine image for the world, but for a Christian? I’m not so sure. Not that there’s nothing to learn from an oak, but that we should dismiss tumbleweeds so quickly. I think . . .
I think that we need to be tumbleweeds when it comes to our faith.
In our homeschool science, we read about these plants, and they’re pretty amazing. The tumbleweed bush can grow with very little water. The seeds can lie dormant until moisture comes, then bang! Up the plant sprouts. Quick, but also firmly rooted. The wind doesn’t rip it from the ground. Oh, no. When it’s time to reproduce, the tumbleweed, its seeds ripe and ready, breaks off from its roots. It’s so light that the wind can take it anywhere. Everywhere. And it rolls around–but not aimlessly. It’s spreading its seeds. Seeds which can lie dormant until that little bit of moisture touches it. Then bam. A new bush springs up.
How perfect an illustration is that of what Christians should be? Yes, we need to be firmly rooted in God–but not in one particular place. Our faith isn’t tied to our geographical location, like a tree. Our goal shouldn’t be just to reach ourselves toward heaven, right? Our purpose here isn’t to stand strong and tall and thick, to drop our seeds right by our feet, where maybe one or two eventually grow a bit . . . if they’re not gobbled up by the world or denied water and light by our shadows and thirsty roots.
Our purpose is to spread the Word. Spread those seeds of faith. Far and wide. Our goal is to go and make disciples. Our faith should be fast to spring up in Him, should be able to survive even the driest spells. And oh, if those seeds we planted could spring up so readily!
Now, I’m not saying there aren’t lessons to be learned from an oak tree. Their nuts feed the forest creatures–that’s important. And the cycle of acorn crops is pretty amazing too, the way they go through lean cycles to actually decrease the animal population that feeds on it, then produces a bumper crop that’s way more than the animals can eat, so that some acorns have the chance to grow.
But oak saplings are easily choked out by other species.
May our faith not be like that.
Oak trees can’t move.
May our faith not be like that.
It takes an oak 20 years to mature enough to produce acorns.
May our faith not be like that.
I say, let’s give those things called weeds their due. Why are they called a weed?
Because they grow everywhere.
May our faith be like that.
Mankind can never get rid of them, because the seeds are so numerous and spring up so readily.
May our faith be like that.
Tumbleweeds break off from their roots to spread their seeds.
May our faith be like that.
They roll far and wide, spreading those seeds.
May our faith be like that.
They can flourish with the smallest bit of nourishment.
May our faith be like that.
It takes a single season for a tumbleweed plant to grow, reach maturity, and produce.
May our faith be like that.
Animals feed on tumbleweeds where no other plant can grow.
May our faith be like that.
When a tumbleweed breaks off, the dying of the original plant is the fuel for new life.
Our faith is founded on that.
I really pray that Christianity be what the world terms a weed–that we spring up everywhere. Quickly, incessantly. That we constantly get in the way of the ideals the world is trying to sew. That we are so numerous we cannot be counted. That we spread our seeds of faith far and wide, caring not about our selves, but about the message we’re spreading. That we care little for where we are, so long as we’re where He planted us.
There’s beauty, yes, in that grand oak tree planted and fed by the water. There’s beauty in the strong and sure, in the fact that such a huge tree can grow from a little seed. There’s beauty in the scads of animals that eat of it and rest in its shade.
But don’t dismiss the weed. The weed is vital to nature–it’s just to man and his desire to control his environment that it’s a nuisance. Exactly what Christianity should be. Make me a dandelion, Lord. Make me milkweed. Made me a tumbleweed. I don’t need man’s praise and glory–I need only to spread Your word.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.