The
Worthiness of Being Flawed
7/31/13
It
is everyone’s desire to be liked by their acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues
and everyone else in whom they have contact on a routine basis. Humans have a built in mechanism that when
one senses their status rising confidence builds around them and they self
indulge themselves in this atmosphere and rise in popularity with those in
their circles. But being popular is not
always the path that God has for our lives and as He has set in the past
popular people are not always the ones who He uses to get His message out to
the world, even though we continue to strive to be popular.
There
is not a child on this planet that has come home at one point in time and has
been upset with the amount of friends that they have or do not have. All parents have to deal with this type of
drama and explain to their children that their current situation is ok and that
in a short time their situation will change and there will be more
opportunities down the road that will warrant new friends or the return of old
friends. It is devastating to a child,
and adult, when a friend leaves or hurts a certain friend, and it really does
not matter what the circumstance is at that moment. So this type of relationship even though it
can be volatile is important to us and even though it can hurt at times our
desire to have friends, in our minds, makes us popular.
But
what price will we pay to be popular?
Anyone remember the old 1980s movie “Can’t Buy Me Love”, where one of
the geeks in the local high school buys a replacement dress for one of the
popular girls in the same school in exchange for her allowing him to hang
around with her? The plot is an
excellent one in that kids will do these types of activities to be accepted as
popular and to be considered normal. It
is this type of belief that can come back to haunt a person as well, just as
the movie projected. This grasping into
thin air is a normal human process and all humans have witnessed this type of
activity no matter what culture we are talking about.
We
see the popular culture all around us in our society. The western philosophy thrives on this type
of lifestyle and it sets a foundation of excitement that we believe is
necessary to be successful in this day and age.
But what price to we pay or what will we sacrifice in order to become
popular amongst our peers? Look at all
of the people that are involved in the entertainment industry around the world
and look at what they must do to maintain their appearance in the eyes of the
world. One must ask if this type of
lifestyle is worth the pain staking routines we must endure in order to be
accepted within a certain community.
A
few years back there was an incident in India that involved the murder of a
woman who was trying her best to become a world renowned movie star. She had left her family and moved away to
fulfill this dream. Her pursuit of
popularity in the film industry led her to meeting a couple to plan a movie
shoot which was going to be located in another part of the country. All of them agreed on a familiar location to
shoot the movie and since all of the people involved in making the movie were
familiar with the countryside, things would be over in a very short amount of
time. The “producers” asked the lady if
they could use her car to get to the location because they were new in the
local area and within movie business as well and were not financially well
enough to provide everyone with the necessary transportation. According to other friends that were with the
lady at that moment, she agreed without reservations concerning the traveling arrangements
and all three of them took a road trip to another part of the country. Immediately upon arrival in the secluded
hotel the true plans of the couple were revealed when they bound the lady and
informed her that she was now their hostage.
The
couple then used her lady’s cell phone to call the parents of their hostage to
inform them of what was occurring and to demand a ransom from them in order for
the safe return of their daughter. The
couple then promised to release the girl when confirmation that the full ransom
had been paid by official notification.
The parents immediately paid the ransom in full and the established line
of communication was then relayed to the couple. The couple then left the hotel and began the
journey back to their city on a bus.
The
couple did as they promised and released the girl, in pieces along side of the
road which they threw out of a window of the bus while they were traveling back
home; consequently on the same road that they had traveled to the part of the
country for the so-called movie shoot.
Now, was her desire worth her effort in trying to be popular? I know that this is an extreme example but
how many people have to agree to do unusual things in order for them to become
this way, and is this path really worth all of the risks and trouble? And is this path really what God wants for
your life?
Saul
is an example of this type of career move based upon popularity. And his rise to fame was strictly due to his
strikingly favorable status among the people.
The people were tired of God leading their ways and instructing them
through His laws so they demanded that God allow them to elect their own king,
a human king one that could relate to them more directly. Boy, did that decision prove to be a doozey and
look at what that one setting led to for Israel. Also one must take into consideration of what
happened to Saul as well and the torment that he must have felt during these
times. The Kingdom of Israel under his leadership
suffered greatly and one cannot pass by and not recognize the troubles of
Israel since this time in human history.
What
kind of person would you like to see as a king, president or leader of your
community, state or nation? A natural
response would be someone that would be respected, popular and one that
everyone could trust to do a good job while in office. Now, ask that question to ten people that you
do not know and write down the answers and ten make the totals and notice where
you stand in comparison. I can guarantee
that not every one of those ten people will give you the exact same answers as
yours. Why?
It
is because man‘s ways differ from each other and there is no way that two
people on earth can agree on every single issue when they answer honestly. Man’s ways and beliefs differ greatly and
this is due to the freedom of thinking and of choice that God has given
us. And since we are made with this free
choice mechanism that is buried within us somewhere we must logically expect
others to have different opinions and answers than what we provide. So logically, one could assume that
popularity could fit into this category as well, but one has to understand this
concept before passing judgment on those whom they believe do not fit into the
popular category.
The
above example is one reason of why man cannot rely on human judgments and
laws. Is it reasonable to ask ourselves
why we continue to rely upon mankind and our methods of completing things since
it is impossible for everyone to completely agree on issues that provide us
with a false trust in a failing service?
There is a clear answer to all of the problems that we world is facing
and it has nothing to do with man’s ideas and capabilities. Does the old adage hope springs eternal
really have to come into play?
The
answers lie within God’s Word and it has been proven time and time again that
if we as a human race believe and implement His ways our lives will last much
longer and will find ourselves in a trustworthy state with everyone else that
inhabits the earth. It has also been
proven that if we do not understand and follow God’s ways our societies that we
have established will do nothing but rise and fall according to man’s
incapacity to work together and to form an adhesion with each other because of
limited beliefs.
There
are many things that we can learn from the examples in the Bible. If you take one story that is present in the
Bible and break it down verse by verse I can guarantee you that a person can
find an answer to a number of problems that we are facing today. The story does not even have to contain a
commandment or a specific law either.
How do I know this? Well, the
Bible is a book about people correct?
And the person reading this article is a person as well, correct? So, if people lived back in those days and
people are present on earth today that means that we are dealing with the same
common denominator, correct?
Since
humans now are the same as the humans in the Bible that means that the people
that are in the Bible should act similar as to us today, correct? So with a few minor details of technology
left out of the picture the human mind in the Bible should function in the same
manner as our minds do today, and if this statement is correct then the people
in the Bible had the same opportunities to correct measures or not to correct
measures with the same choices that are presented to us currently. So why can’t we learn from these people in
the Bible since they have already been through similar situations that we are
facing? Why do we have to follow the
same patterns that some of them lived?
Some
states have what we call a Lemon Law in which if a person purchases an item and
after it leave the store continually has problems, then the purchaser of that
item can return the item to the place where they bought it and with valid proof
of certain problems can return the item without penalty. All of us have run into this situation at
some point and we wish that we could have returned the item and then purchased
something else. But God does not have a
Lemon Law in place for us and it is our duty to understand that people before
us made mistakes and history has recorded those mistakes and we should do our
best not to repeat those same mistakes.
We do not have a second life in which we can restart things, so it is of
the utmost that we try and do things for the best at all times.
If a
person travels a passage way from Bethlehem from the town of Jerusalem on a
regular basis, then that person will have enough time to think about all the
possibilities that could happen to her / him.
It would be easy for us to understand that we might see a person
stranded alongside the road but what if we found ourselves in that
condition? It is a possibility that the
majority of us at one time or another has had a flat tire. What about in the ancient days or even the
early 1900s when traveling was atrocious and the conditions were not the best,
could people get robbed or hijacked? If
people had the same knowledge about how to do things to humans back in the
olden days, then the same can be said of us today, so why follow people who
have so many choices instead of the one God who stays constant and never
changes? Reliance on mankind to behave
ourselves will always result in a disaster or disagreement and with all of the
examples that we have to choose from throughout history, it really is a no-brainer
if you wish to put it in that language.
Each
man likes to be right and has a hard time with accepting the fact that his
suggestions and ways are flawed and that while the initial ideas may be
provocative eventually they will begin to crumble. It is normal for the human to be upset and to
react against those who disagree with said ideas, but I am so very thankful
that God is not like humans in this manner and that He gives us time to seek
Him and to learn His ways so that we do not have to suffer the same fate as
those in the Bible or such as the others throughout human history. God chose non popular people to get His
message across to those that lived in the Bible days and He is doing the exact
same thing today. It is hard for society
to accept this fact and it is difficult for a person who is honest and humble
with themselves, to accept such a role as well.
It
is quite easy for mankind to take their eyes off of God and place them onto the
visible everyday situations. But this is
where we must recognize that God is always with us no matter what we are going
through and if we have placed His words within our hearts we will have the
necessary means to make timely and orderly decisions with shear confidence
through the words that formed us from the beginning. It is much easier to place our cares upon God
and let Him deal with situations instead of using our finite capacities to
solve issues. Total trust in our Creator
will fail us in times of need and that is why the term coward can only be
applied to humans and not God.
Restore
your confidence and trust in God and He will never let you down. It does not matter what your surroundings may
bring you, He will never vary in His protection of you. But one must read His word and apply it daily
to our heart so that we may understand what is actually transpiring around
us. Our journey is not an easy one but
we can have so much more confidence in walking this pathway if we recognize
that we have our creator right beside us every step of the way. Our decisions will be flawed, that is a
guarantee but if we allow God into our lives those flaws will be in the back of
our existence and not going ahead of our shoes.
DLB
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