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Articles from this month's issue of the Berean News |
Perspectiveby Larry UrbaniakWe live in a very wealthy and materialistic society. In comparison to the rest of the world, most of us are very rich. Compared to past history, we have an unbelievably high standard of living. We live better than out parents did at the same stage of life. And our expectations of what we hope to have are constantly rising. Yet there seems to be an irony to our lives. Although we buy more, we seem to enjoy it less. We spend more, but feel as if we have less. We have more convenience than ever before yet seem to have less time. We have access to more TV channels, but there is seldom anything on worthwhile watching. We have bigger houses and smaller families. We have more information more easily available, but we read less. We have a multitude of ways to communicate quickly, yet we seldom say what we really mean. We often talk more, but say less. We’ve added years to life, but not always life to years. There is a problem with owning as much as most of us do. Actually, there are several problems. One problem is the cost of acquiring all this stuff. It costs us money, energy and time. We begin to confuse our wants with our needs. We think we need everything we want. So we work hard and longer for the money needed to purchase all this stuff. As a result we have less and less time and energy for what is really valuable and worthwhile. Stuff never satisfies us. There is always more stuff to desire. And of course there is always better stuff. Stuff keeps improving. We want to keep up and the old stuff makes us look and feel out of date. And then there are the hidden costs of owning things. There is insurance, storage, cleaning, and repairs. Too often what we own soon begins to own us. Because we own so much, some of what we own often winds up unused. We save it and store it because some day we think we might actually use it. As a result, our lives become cluttered. Many people think that clutter is caused by inadequate storage space. More closets or boxes or bins would surely solve the problem of clutter. (Of course, such additional storage costs more money.) But in reality, closets, boxes, and bins are simply containers, not organizers. The real cause of clutter is indecisiveness. It is the indiscriminate collecting of things we really don’t need. One way to prevent clutter is to make prompt decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of. And of course it helps to buy less to start with. I am convinced that all this clutter hinders our spiritual lives. And that is the greatest hidden cost of having all we have. We are so busy feeding our physical and material hungers that we don’t even notice the clutter in our lives is often starving our spiritual lives. We are not going to be judged for our place in eternity by how much stuff we have. It will not be what we have, but who we have become that counts. Unclutter your lives. Expose the hidden costs of all that you own. Make time for meditation and prayer. Put effort and energy into deepening relationships with fellow Christians – and with God. Attend church every Sunday and prepare your heart and mind for worship and learning. Join a Bible study group and use it as an incentive for regular personal study. Resist the rat race. Instead, join the race for the high calling in Jesus Christ. May the high standard that you live your life by be a spiritual one. |
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Roy's Reflections It’s Monday morning. The weekend is over. The alarm clock blares out its irritating jangle and suddenly you are snapped into the world of reality. First comes the struggle to get out of bed, then the rush to get to school or work on time, and then comes the stress of trying to juggle all one's seemingly endless responsibilities. Is this how your week starts? And aren't these pressures mild compared to the ones you face as the day and the week wear on? We live in a world of ever-increasing stress and worry with school, work, family, financial matters, social pressures, terrorists and impending war. Not many people are free from worry of some kind. Worry or anxiety is a major problem that plagues our contemporary society. In excessive amounts, worry can take years off your life and can cause any number of physical and mental ailments. Some people like to believe that things don't bother them. "No problem," they say as they put on a brave front and reach for the aspirin or alcohol bottle to deaden their fears and concerns. However, it isn't possible to deaden inner anxiety. It will eventually reveal itself in various ways. For instance, George withdraws when he is upset, hurt, or uptight. Susan talks endlessly to cover her anxiety. Bill chain-smokes to avoid facing his feelings. Harry attacks when he feels threatened. Jack dominates and Joy procrastinates. Mike is a constant complainer. Joan is a compulsive eater, Fred a compulsive drinker, Tom a compulsive worker, and Frank a compulsive gambler— all because of unresolved worry and anxiety. Anxiety may also express itself in a physical way. Stuttering, abdominal pains, high blood pressure, a twitch, allergies, ulcers, nervous stomach, and tension headaches—all have been named by doctors as symptoms of anxiety and worry. Yes, sooner or later anxiety will win out. When a person fails to talk out his worries, he will act them out in one way or another. Long ago the Bible pointed out that "a relaxed attitude lengthens a man's life." Jesus himself said, "Don't worry about things—food, drink and clothes . . .don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow. Live one day at a time." And the Apostle Paul wrote, "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs and don't forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can comprehend. His peace will keep your thoughts and hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in your Heavenly Father." However, it's one thing to know about God's peace and another to experience it. It begins with being able to see and admit your real fears, by facing and resolving them, and by learning to give them over to God — and not take them back. The causes behind worry can be many and varied. The following are some of the major ones with some helpful ideas for conquering them. First: If anxiety is situational—that is, caused by adverse circumstances or too much work, I find it helps to list all my worries on paper. This is half the battle. I then eliminate the least important matters, work on the things I can do something about, and am learning to accept the things I cannot change and stop worrying about them. Second: If the problem is repressed, pent-up feelings, such as resentment, hurt or anger, those feelings need to be expressed in healthy ways. If you're nursing a grudge, you will need to put things right with the other person concerned and forgive them. Some feelings can be talked out with a trusted friend or minister. Or, if it helps, go for a walk in the forest or some other quiet place and shout your feelings out, go to your bedroom and cry them out, or write them out as David often did in the Psalms. One night when I was worried and couldn't sleep, I got up and wrote a letter to God sharing all my feelings with Him. Within a half-hour I had released my pent-up feelings. I then read them back to God, tore up the letter, went back to bed, and fell asleep immediately. Good, hard physical exercise is also very helpful when you're feeling worried or anxious. Third: If your worry is caused by unmet emotional or spiritual needs, you can remedy this by growing in your relationship to God and other Christians—both of which are keys to vital, worry-free living. A spiritual growth group and/or a Christian sharing group can be a big help for this. As you open up to these brothers and sisters and to God and feel their love and acceptance, you can slowly change feelings of fear, guilt, anger, inadequacy, anxiety, and worry into feelings of hope, confidence, peace, and love. "Perfect love drives out fear," wrote the Apostle John. So we need to ask God not only to help us overcome our fears, but also to fill us with love. The more we love and trust God, the less we will fear man and circumstances. Every day, visualize yourself opening up to God and being filled with his love, joy and forgiveness. In 1929, business tycoon J.C. Penney was in the hospital because of his severe anxiety. One night, he was sure he was going to die, so he wrote farewell letters to his wife and son. But he survived the night, and hearing singing the next morning in the chapel, felt drawn to go in. A group was singing, "God will take care of you," after which followed a Bible reading and prayer. Penney said, "Suddenly something happened. I can't explain it. It was a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into warm brilliant sunlight. I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before. I realized then that I alone was responsible for all my troubles. I knew that God with His love was there to help me. From that day to this, my life has been free from worry. The most dramatic and glorious minutes of my life were those I spent in that chapel that morning." The cause or causes of our anxiety and worry always lie within ourselves. Usually they are triggered by outside circumstances. Only when we admit to and resolve these causes, are we free to fully surrender our worries and anxieties to God and experience His peace. Whether this peace comes instantly or over a period of time doesn’t really matter. The important truth to remember is that God is always there. His agape love and power are constant and available to all. As we reach out to him through the fog of our worry and damaged emotions, we discover that He is always waiting and willing to help us if only we will respond to His love and give Him the chance. |
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Viewpoints
Warning: This Article is Extremely Sappy by Jon Larson Sometime in the future, your great, great, great grandfather has been resurrected. He’s gotten up to speed on what’s going on, and then one night after dinner he says to you, “I’d really like to see one of those newfangled movies.” What would you recommend? There’s not a doubt in my mind what movie I’d recommend. As a matter of fact, I think I’d like to sit there and watch it with him. The opening scene is up in the clouds: you’re like a bird flying through the air, gradually descending into the mountaintops. There’s music coming out of nowhere, building in volume. The mountains are becoming more vivid and green, and the music is loud now as you swoop down into a meadow and circle a lady twirling around with her arms extended, singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” Don’t tell me that Great, Great, Great Grandpa wouldn’t relate! Anyone with a soul relates to the sound of music. Birds chirping, brooks gurgling, wind rustling; these are sounds I know he has heard before. Hearts are blest with the sound of music, and he’ll sing once more, or maybe we’ll do a duet. After the development of the plot in the Abbey, I really like the next sequence. Maria’s on her way to the mansion, singing, “I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain, I have confidence they’ll put me to the test, but I’ll make them see I have confidence in me!” Then at the end, she says, “Oh, help!” It’s a song I committed to memory as a teenager, and have sung many times over the years as I approached some frightening event. Next time I give a sermon, it’s very possible you’ll see me singing that song under my breath during the worship service: I’ve done it before! I think Great, Great, Great Grandpa will relate to the kids as the captain lines them up and whistles them to attention. It seems that the kids needed a woman to teach them to sing, “do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do.” Personally, I’m still working on that putting-in-a-word-for-every-note business. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll have to stop the tape and explain to Great, Great, Great Grandpa who the Nazis were. I’m afraid that knowledge will make him very sad, but, on the other hand, living in the kingdom of Christ and his Church will be a joyous counter-point. My dear wife has always been annoyed that they sing, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” as she walks down the aisle at her wedding. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but to me, it’s the answer to the question, “How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” She marries a captain with seven children. God works in mysterious ways. Now, I gotta believe that Great, Great, Great Grandpa will have a tear in his eye at the end, as the family crosses the Alps with “Climb Every Mountain” playing in the background. Come on, it’s very poignant. “Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow till you find your dream.” You’ve got to feel uplifted at the end of that movie! Yes, Great, Great, Great Grandpa is gonna find some wonderful, new-fangled things in the kingdom. But I think he’ll say they pale in comparison to knowing Jesus and the truth He will then be bringing to the world of mankind. That will be the time of the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31: “They shall all know the Lord” and Isaiah 35: “They shall come with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” As the song says, “Beyond the blue horizon waits a glorious day.” Even so, come.
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A Daughter's Heart
Things of Secondary Importance I’m a list person. I love to make lists of what needs to be done, then cross things off as I accomplish them. I’ve actually been known to write something on a list that I’ve already done just for the sheer pleasure of crossing it off! I get such a great feeling of joy when, at the end of the day, I can look at my list and see all the items crossed off. Ahhhhhhh. It’s proof to me that I’ve been productive that day. Since I’m a stay-at-home mom, my listmaking keeps me accountable for what I feel I need to accomplish in my “job”. I’ve been reading a book by Jean Flemming entitled, “A Mother’s Heart.” In it, Flemming made a comment that has really changed my outlook on my job as wife and mother. She tells a similar story, how “good days” for her were “when I scratched lots off my to-do list.” Then she said, “As I reflected on my good-days, bad-days syndrome, a startling revelation surfaced: I realized that if I lived life for what made me feel good at the end of each day, I would give my life to things of secondary importance.” That statement hit me right between the eyes. If you ask me what I value more, reading to my children, developing their character, teaching them Godly truths, or a clean house, I’d of course choose the first. However, my actions many times reflect the opposite. It’s almost a daily occurrence when Mark will say, “Mommy will you play with me?” And my response is, “I can’t right now, I’m cleaning up.” Jesus spoke to this issue in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Housework is necessary, but it is of secondary importance to spiritual things. It’s very easy to get sucked into the worldly ideals of how to spend our time and energy. I’ve realized that much of my desire to have a clean, neat home stems from pride. I want to look good to others; I want people to think I’m a good wife and mother. But those are treasures on earth. The praise I receive for all my efforts is all the reward I will get. I’d much rather work for a spiritual reward. I still make lists, but I’ve started putting things on the list that are of utmost importance. I daily list Bible reading and prayer time. I also list at least one activity I want to do with each of my children. One day it’s “do a puzzle with Mark” and “play dolls with Sarah.” The next day it’s “read a book to Mark” and “build blocks with Sarah.” I still list some things of secondary importance; after all, they do have to get done sometime. But I’m learning not to judge my “job performance” strictly by outward appearances of what tasks I’ve accomplished that day. Investing time and energy into my own spiritual growth and into my children are the most important ways for me to spend my day. My job description as stay-at-home mom can be found in Deuteronomy 6:7-8,“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” That doesn’t just happen; I have to make it happen by devoting my day to the task. So, next time you visit the Elliott house, don’t be surprised if you see a few cobwebs and the kitchen floor doesn’t look mopped. My kids come before housework. I don’t want to give my life to things of secondary importance.
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