Bridges or Walls

If the Holy Spirit leads me I will follow, if God tells me to do something, I will do it. What do those statements mean? How about this one, God never gives you more than you can handle. It is almost as if we believe in two different things. We either believe in free will, which means we make decisions and certain outcomes happen. God does not drive that decision, we do. If, however, we do not believe in free will, then I will have to say that God gives and God takes. That in and of itself goes against the teachings of the Gospel, but it is kind of like a wrestling match, one minute the mask man is a good guy and the next minute he is a bad guy. When in reality he is just a mask person masquerading around entertaining us. Is that who God is to you? I think God is the creator of love, he gave us what we need to make a life. He does not control our lives because then it would not be love, would it?

I see people, myself included, that seek out spiritual growth and faith formation. We are easily influenced by the environment in which we place ourselves. It is similar to the Stockholm theory, if we go to a Baptist church we believe as the Baptist believe. If we go to a Catholic church, we believe as Catholics, and so on and on. We become what we are around. That is neither good or bad unless it excludes groups of people that think and act differently than you do. For example, I personally do not believe God talks to us, I do believe in the formation of conscience that God placed in us at birth that guides us. Does that mean that people that believe God talks to them should exclude me or I them? 

In my faith formation I have seen acts of hate handed out in the name of God. I have seen people lash out in bitter defense using words like, The Holy Spirit guided me. As clear as I know to be I would like to say that any act that is not guided by love is not an act from God our creator. God is love pure and simple and any action that is contrary to that is contrary to that in which we were created for. 

If your words harm, they are not of God. I love this quote that I use often which reminds of me of God within me, it goes like this, if you have to chose between being kind and being right, choose kind and you will always be right. That is God in us. God is peace, love, acceptance, forgiveness, etc. God is the true model of agape love that we should seek to find. We can't find it by placing ourselves on a righteous pedestal. 

I will bring up a topic familiar to most but not a topic I care to debate because of it's polarity. Recently the TV show Duck Dynasty gained national attention because Phil spoke out about his beliefs about sin, morality, racism, etc. He had a true right to say what he felt like saying and his core belief is that he spoke the truth. I respect his right to say what he said BUT, I do not respect his right to divide and segment groups of people. When we speak in the name of God and our tongue speaks words other than love and unity it is not from God. We are products of a loving creator, it so happens that some of us have different skin color, different gender, different sexual orientations, different physical abilities, different mental abilities, and the list goes on and on. To alienate any one of these because they are different than you goes against the love of God. 

Even churches do not welcome others, our focus is so judgement driven and sin driven that we totally lose sight of the person. In the Gospels I love it when Jesus says, who would not leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep. Find me a church in existence today that would leave all to save the one. Our churches as well as the conditioning of our minds is to save the masses and forget the one. What we forget is that ONE just might be the one that matters most. Love is a powerful force when used with honesty. Hate on the other hand is also a powerful force and one that many do not recognize that they use. \

I do not blame people for using hate tactics when they speak of God because it is the conditioning we face from the media driven world in which we live. Very seldom do people use love, smiles, and hugs unconditionally to embrace people. Our society teaches to judge others while turning a blind eye to ourselves, expose everyone else's sins because ours are, well, just that ours. We see ourselves as better than others, we see their sins as worse than ours, and we see it is as our duty to expose others while hiding our own.

I think in life if you want to find true and deep spiritual formation you have to find that which promotes a feeling of genuine love. We are called to build bridges not walls. Bridges unite, walls divide. Think about your life and the words you speak. I had someone just last week tell me that people did not appreciate his bluntness and honesty. My question was this, why be blunt if it harms others, why be honest if it hurts someone, why not simply smile and be quiet. The truth about honesty is that who's eyes is it true too anyway. The truth is such a subjective topic that more times than not being kind and being quiet is a much better choice. Do you build bridges or do you build walls? Is your brand consistent with your behavior? The last question though and the most important, is your outward beliefs that you speak so fervently about are they inline with your inward beliefs that you hold in your heart and mind?

At the end of the day all that matters is did we share sign of hope, peace, love, and forgiveness today.

peace to you
Dale