My Little Devotional #177: “Minimum Qualifications”

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availability, Bible, calling, Christian Life, Christianity, devotional, faith, God, inspirational, Jesus, mission, motivational, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, New Testament, Old Testament, righteousness, Yakity-Sax

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “Yakity-Sax”

I’d like to think most of us at some point in our lives will find ourselves in Pinkie Pie’s shoes; namely in doing something that we personally love but aren’t necessarily terribly good at it (or possibly even a bit bad). While a great deal of this episode focuses on Pinkie’s depression on realizing she isn’t any good at something she likes and her friends responding to it, when considering a message for this episode I focused on the resolution.

While Pinkie was definitely upset to hear from her friends that she wasn’t pretty tone deaf when it came to playing the yovidaphone, the real reason for her depression was because she realized that she was bad at playing it, and it wasn’t simply a matter of opinion. And as a result, she was more than understandably nervous to want to play the instrument in front of a yurt full of yaks as, demonstrated time and again in the series, they tend to go ballistic when you try doing any of their traditions and not make it absolutely perfect. Nevertheless, encouraged by her friends to do it as something she loved, she ended up most unexpectedly getting a round of cheers from the audience as it turned out the true spirit of playing the yovidaphone “perfectly” is doing it in a way that makes one happy. In that case, even not being good at that particular talent turned out to not matter; only that Pinkie made the effort to play.

Most of my devotionals have focused on the idea that people are ideally unique and made for certain situations, and that the call of God and what he wants us to do with our lives from day to day will often reflect what talents or aptitudes we possess. However, I want to stress that while I believe God will never call us to do something that we can’t handle provided we trust in him, he won’t necessarily always call us to do something that we feel we can handle with or without him.

While I highly doubt most of us will ever be called to do something incredibly stupendous and totally contrary to anything we have ever done or experienced in the least, to the point where the only way we could possibly pull it off would be divine intervention (like, for example, me being called to perform triple bypass surgery when I haven’t the slightest idea how to operate on anything), as early as the book of Genesis God makes it clear that what he really wants out of people is obedience…the willingness to make oneself available to God for him to use. It’s not raw talent, a person’s bearing, or how influential or powerful they are that God desires. It’s the ability to submit to him and his Will when he wants to make use of you. Furthermore, God also emphasizes that he desires individuals such as that more than those who are able, because it is when God acts through them, through people who seem to have no ability or fortitude that makes them stand out or capable of anything special, that he truly manifests his power.

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

There are several Biblical examples of this. Big ones include King David, who started off as the youngest (and therefore least-favored) of the sons of Jesse (1 Samuel 16:1-13). There was the judge Gideon who, by his own admission, was the “lowest of the low” in Israel (Judges 6:11-16). Amos the prophet was a sheep herder and a fig farmer (Amos 7:14-15). Among the Apostles there were a variety of non-religion-based occupations, like fisherman (Matthew 4:18-22), tax collector (Matthew 9:9), and even revolutionary (Luke 6:15). Jesus Himself was considered a carpenter (Mark 6:5), and His mother was a poor girl (Luke 1-2).

And of course, earliest of all, there was Abraham. While he was a man of considerable wealth, he was told by God to pack up and leave everything he knew behind so that he could become a “father of nations” when, at the age of 100 and by pretty much all accounts well past “dead”, he was still childless. Why did God end up blessing him? Abraham lived prior to the Mosaic Law and the ministry of Jesus, so there were no commands from God to keep or established sacrifices to present. In Abraham’s case, what made him a blessing, what made him the father of the faiths of most of the world today, what indeed gave him billions of descendants (either directly or through adoption of religion), was simply because he had faith in God’s blessing.

“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

He went where God told him and he did what God told him to do, even when he had to go somewhere he didn’t know and was told to kill his own long-sought-after son. In the end, God credited it as righteousness simply that Abraham was willing to go on nothing but faith. And that righteousness had a lasting impact to this day.

So while I have talked in great detail about God matching us to who we are and our talents, I don’t want to leave this behind. The message for today is that God ultimately desires obedience and surrendering to his Will, even in times where we are nervous and uncertain. Ultimately, if God is telling us to do something, then we have a confidence that so long as we commit to be available that it will work out both for our good and the Kingdom of God.

Remember…while it might be true in many situations that there are people who would have greater aptitude for a task, be bolder, stronger, more well-spoken, or any of a host of other things where we find ourselves called, those people aren’t the ones in that situation. It’s us, and it’s our responsibility to make ourselves available when it happens.

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you for your Word, which assures us that when we are called to do something beyond our power and seemingly beyond hope, all you truly require of us is to trust in you and step out. Please help me to cling to this when fears, doubts, and anxieties hold me back from doing your Will. By the grace of God, I choose to always make myself available and step out boldly in faith when you call me. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

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My Little Devotional #176: “Wake Up!”

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bias, Bible, Christian Life, Christianity, criticism, devotional, God, grudges, inspirational, Jesus, motivational, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, New Testament, Old Testament, self-awareness, self-deception, self-improvment, truth, viewpoint

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “The End in Friend”

In this episode, Rainbow Dash and Rarity, triggered by an argument as to the validity of their friendship when they seemed to have nothing in common, ended up quite upset at one another and their hostility threatened to drive a wedge between them. To try and get the two to find common ground, Twilight suggested that they use one thing they mutually liked, reading, to do a book swap with one another in an attempt to get them to abandon their squabbling and reconnect.

However, both were mad at each other and, as many foolishly do, worked to keep their grudge going instead of turning toward reconciliation. Rather than even actually read the assigned book, let alone put any effort into the exercise to try and understand one another, both simply made a preconceived judgment about the selections that justified their own opinions, stood behind it, and even defended it as genuine criticism. At that point, one could hardly even argue that they had an opinion that was defendable. It was simply unreasonably hating something to begin with and shutting out any attempt to get them to think otherwise. Frankly, it was an act of being pigheaded on both of their parts.

There’s an urban lingo term thrown out around a lot nowadays…the idea of being “woke”. The term is a throwback to the movie “The Matrix” in which the majority of people on Earth are blind to the fact they are living out a digital computer simulation while being kept in suspended animation, and that when they “wake up” they become aware of how the world really is. What it means to actual society is the idea of someone becoming aware of how something really works or is when society/media/others say it functions a different way. (It’s somewhat analogous to the older term: “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid”, implying not to just go with the flow and buy into whatever people tell you about something.) Often this applies to cases of alleged racism, sexism, political bias, classism, etc.

Among the millennial generation, of which I am a member, “being woke” is a prized status symbol. Being woke, or aware of an incident of racism, sexism, political bias, classism, etc., that was “cleverly disguised” as being fully innocuous or normal, is considered to be a high point for one’s intellect. A person is smart enough to see the proverbial man behind the curtain. They are enlightened enough to realize what this is doing to other people. Most importantly, they are upstanding enough to present this “horrendous evil” to society so that it can be rooted out, and even better if they organize large public outcry about it. In other words, while on the surface this may appear to be purely public action or protest, it’s also a very uplifting and personally gratifying thing for those involved as it demonstrates to others how much more aware, upstanding, forward-thinking, and proactive they are.

The left gets the most flak for this nowadays, but really I’ve seen it on both sides of the political spectrum. (Honestly? If you want to see more of one or the other just get the opposite party into the White House…) To me, it all stems from the same thing I’ve hit on before: modern Internet culture. Everyone believes their opinion is worth more than it is and prizes people responding to it. The best way to make your opinion stand out is if it’s unique; and the easiest way to get it to be unique is to find some wrong in the world, whether it’s there or not, and shout about it.

I’m not trying to make the case that all of this is unjustified. Furthermore, the fact that a minority of people are particularly loud and even violent about it is no excuse for the majority of people to remain apathetic. What I am wanting to draw attention to, however, is how many of these individuals justify themselves; which ties into this episode. No one really cares about a fact that “is mostly correct, but occasionally doesn’t apply” or an injustice that’s only alleged. Likewise, no one wants to point out that they formed an opinion on something which is better in some ways and worse than others compared to what’s happening right now. People want to be right. They want to be fully justified. They want to have the one answer. They want to be the side that’s on top of things and not the side that’s stupid and clueless.

That leads to how modern debate goes about these sorts of things, if you can even call it that. Protesters, demonstrators, and proponents of an idea have no interest whatsoever in pointing out where their particular idea falls a little flat, talking about the tradeoffs, or seeing if there’s an element of their idea that applies and not the rest–let alone compromise. They don’t bother with the opposite side, and, in most people’s minds, they don’t have to. They believe they’re right already and that the other is wrong.

In this situation, when someone believes they are in the right and has some animosity toward an opposing viewpoint, debating with them usually not only doesn’t work but can’t work. That’s because people ignore anything good about the opposing viewpoint and embrace every bit of criticism and bad they can find and form their whole mental framework around that. Everything else is mentally excluded at the point of hearing it. Through a series of logical fallacies, they pardon away all other evidence that opposes their view and cement so much in their minds that such is reality that eventually they deceive themselves into thinking there isn’t an alternative viewpoint at all…just idiots who know nothing and people like themselves who are “woke”.

Worse yet, they do just the opposite with favorable evidence for their own point of view and let it all in without filtering or judgment. This is even if it’s based on nothing or is a bold-faced lie. I see this all the time on social media. As you may have guessed, I’m a conservative by nature as is most of my family, but some of the things they re-post as supposed “bombshells” or breaking reports are blatant misinformation. Some are clear photoshops while others are statistics that were pulled out of thin air or outright made-up fables. I don’t really care if they supposedly “support” my viewpoint when they’re blatant, obvious lies, as that not only doesn’t support my viewpoint but casts my viewpoint into doubt for people at large, but they go ahead and post them anyway simply because it justifies their thinking. And since they’re right, then anything that supports their view, even if it’s nothing but tripe, must also be right. Meanwhile, any genuine article that is against their viewpoint, even if backed with proper information and source, is either excused away or declared “just a lie”. It must be fake, because it doesn’t support their view, and therefore isn’t worth even considering.

As I’ve said several times before, we do not see the world as it is but as we are. If we choose to see something as good we will tend to overlook anything bad associated with it, whereas if we choose to see something as bad we will ignore anything good associated with it…all so that it perfectly fits our view of it. We’ll even claim the same is reality as I just illustrated. This sort of delusional thinking can lead to a lot worse than angry social media blogs and protesting. It can lead to totally warped senses of reality and even violent actions; all of which are assumed to be appropriate and justified. (Look no further than a group like Antifa, who prides themselves as being against any form of hate, violence, and intolerance…and uses hate, violence, and intolerance to supposedly “combat” the same.)

For the Christian, while there is always an element of social justice and a need to call out sin, in particular in individuals who are trying to justify themselves or behaviors for society at large, Lord Jesus had an emphasis on personal holiness and resolving the sin in one’s own life first. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5) This was especially true for those who claimed to be justified or “holy” without acknowledging their own evils and wrongdoing (see Matthew 23:1-33 for a lengthy condemnation of the self-righteous by Jesus). In the preceding passage, when taken with the Gospels as a whole, I want to point out that the priority is not so much on not condemning evil, but instead in being cognizant of one’s own evil as well. To not be so meticulous about finding what others are doing wrong that you ensure you are blind to what you yourself are doing wrong.

And that makes sense, because ultimately the only people we ever have control over is ourselves. And only to the degree that we are mature and complete will we be able to see not only the world clearly but also form relationships with others that are mature and complete, including with God. Most importantly, we will only see truth in regards to how much we keep our “lenses” free of warping, including truth God is trying to reveal to us.

Odds are if you ever hear criticism about your opinions or even behavior, your instincts are going to be to not take it well even if it’s justified. Particularly if it’s about a strong political or moral opinion you have. Admitting to yourself and acknowledging that you probably won’t like what you are about to hear can go a long way toward resolving your own bias; even if you don’t end up agreeing with it in the end. Owning up and taking control of one’s feelings and prejudgments is not only an important standard for a Christian, but for any mature adult. That means using our reason and self-discipline to realize when we truly see something that either supports or counters our strong opinions and when we are simply selectively listening to the messages that we want to hear, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant.

And that’s the kind of “woke” we could all stand to be.

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you for your Word, which emphasizes the need to never be so preoccupied with recognizing evil in others that we fail to recognize it in ourselves first. Where I have grown blind, ignorant, or have ‘fallen asleep’ in regards to my own wrongdoing or lack of ‘rightdoing’, please help me to awaken to that and enact the changes I need to make to better serve you and others. No matter how painful and uncomfortable it may be. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.