From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
Kind of haunting isn't it? Well, it definitely stuck with me and it's been rolling around in my head, and really bothering me...I've been asking myself, "Well do I have to give up then? Are we all just going down? How do we stop this?"
Then I realized, this progression is not a sure thing. This doesn't HAVE to happen. It does follow a logical sequence, but let us not forget that at each step a choice is involved, and in this case the wrong choice is presented. You see, It clearly veers off of the biblical, godly progression of things when it enters complacency. We predict that abundance leads to complacency, which is true in most cases (e.g. Israel throughout most of the OT) but there's no need to be fatalistic here. Complacency is NOT the only option. In fact, it's not what God says should happen at all...
God's mandate has always been (and always will be) "I will be your God, and bless you, SO THAT you will be a blessing to the rest of the world." (See Gen 12:1-3, and, like, every old testament convenant with God ever). We are graciously blessed by God because He's just that good (see my last post), but then in turn, we are instructed to give it away. We are called to represent His character and His nature towards others through sacrificial love and giving, not to mention He knows our selfish and sinful hearts and how much we loveeee comfort.
Don't you ever wonder why He was always so upset with Israel for being ethno-centric, greedy and complaining all the time? He created man in His image, and choose the Hebrews to be His representatives on the Earth. They were instructed to be a royal priesthood that the world could go to receive love, affirmation, and acceptance from the One True God. And it's the same mandate today...His people are being called to give themselves away.
But do we learn this in church? Hardly- God wants you to happy and healthy and full of cash, right? Do we learn this in school? No way- take all you can get, babe, look out for number one. Do we learn this in politics? Well, there are two sides to this beast: "It's mine and you can't have it" OR "I feel bad for making so much money, so I'll just throw it at broken systems that don't require me to care about whether or not the money is properly being used".
Let me be clear in my opinions: I think we can change the world. I do not think God intends for things to get worse and worse and then He's going to come back. I think God has given the stewardship of the WHOLE earth (that includes government, education, nature, economy, recreation, media, family, and the church) into our hands. And it's time we stepped up and did something responsible.
We've missed a very important link here, and I think it's time for a bit of optimism. We were never meant to be trapped in a vicious cycle of doom and gloom, and live with the mentality that "we're screwed cuz we were born at the wrong turn of the century".
No, I think life is always hard. There is always opposition to the ways of God. And there is always a right and a wrong choice to make. (Makes perfect sense if you believe in the God of the Bible, because that means there's also a Devil with His own plan for things...)
But, I'm thinking, if our founding fathers could make the right choice from spiritual faith to great courage, and great courage to liberty, who says we can't make just as good of a choice? And we don't even have to cross the ocean, start up a new country, and fight for her survival while being up against all odds.
You know, some even might say, the hardest part of the battle is over for America, and our only job now is spread the love. I for one am willing to try, are you?
Let's pray that within the next 10 years, the progression looks something like this:
abundance to RESPONSIBILITY.
responsibility to generosity (to those OUTSIDE ourselves):
Those receiving generosity, then in turn begin a new cycle:
gratefulness to self-worth.
self-worth to spiritual faith. (IF someone is there to tell them why they matter...yay missions!)
spiritual faith to great courage.
great courage to liberty. etc, etc.
....and the multiplication of God's blessing continues as His people have finally heard the call to not only be blessed by God, but to BE a blessing to the nations of the earth..
P.S. Bono has a few things to say as well, if you're interested: This is his Op Ed piece from Sunday's NY Times.

