“Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:13-18 ESV)
The book of James is one of my favorite books. Yesterday our bible study teacher said “how do you know if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart?” The answer; can you rejoice in another’s accomplishments and life? Can you be happy for another? Can you look at their lives and feel grace towards them, or do you look at their life and wish you had all they had? Pretty simple definition.
This isn’t just about material things though. This is also about relationships, or feelings of dissatisfaction with our lives. It is feelings of anger, vanity, anxiety, worry, selfishness, greed, envy or guilt. We can not take material wealth with us. It makes life easier, and we are very accustomed to having things easy is this country. Are we able to rejoice at our blessings, or do we search for more? For most us the answer would be we search for more. We are not wise enough yet in life to see what is good, because we only see what we don’t have.
We love to complain in this country; including me. It has been stressful in this house lately, because of a project my husband has been working on. He’s gone a lot and it is bothering the boys and me. I thought about this yesterday. I should be rejoicing that he has a job to go to and that he comes home every night. I’ve got to keep it in check. I am being selfish when I get upset about it. This is marriage. We are always thinking about what our spouse isn’t doing instead of what they are doing. Constant work in progress.
Seeking wisdom and discernment from Christ is a prayer I think we all need right now. I think people have forgotten that they should seek wisdom from others if they can’t figure something out. Being afraid to ask someone is pride. Why do we that? I think we fear judgment more than anything. We are afraid that someone will look down on us. Why can’t we ask someone the tough questions we need to in this country? Why can’t we ask our friends, or family on how to handle a situation?
I had a discussion about abortion on Friday. I don’t believe in it, but I do know that we have to work within our laws if we are going to educate women about why this is a child and not a mass of cells. The disturbing part about abortion in this country is that the women that choose to have one are highly educated, white women. I have noticed that women that don’t believe in God, or have a strong relationship with Christ consider this alright because of circumstance. I was that way in the beginning of this journey. This is not meant to be offensive to some, but life is created at conception and there is a purpose for all life.
Women don’t want to be judged, or attacked because they make this decision. Most pro-life individuals don’t understand that this judgment is not ours to make. They will be held accountable by God. We get a little too radical in our thinking that we no longer have empathy, or compassion for another. We know that it is life. We made it a wrong into a right in this country. My question is have we ever looked a woman in the eye when she is terrified about having a child? Have we ever actually told her that there are people out their that will help them get through this.
Our self-righteousness and pride blinds us. We are so angry about everything that we can’t even reason with each other without love and respect any longer. I don’t care how far along we are in our journey God is going to question whether or not we have enough love and compassion in our hearts to see that an individual is hurting. I am so sick of seeing arguing and nothing getting resolved in this country. I am at a loss as to why so many of us have lost common sense and reason. I almost think we are too educated.
When we seek wisdom from friends I am going to put a little warning out. Seek it from friends that you know are strong in their relationship with Christ. I had to learn this a few months ago and the end result was extremely hurtful. The women that I seek advice and wisdom from are going to tell me the truth, because they love me. I have learned not to seek advice regarding my heart from women that are not Christians. The reason why I say this is because we are a very self-centered society and people feed our egos without giving us the bigger picture, or just flat out the truth. An example would be our marriages. Women talk about their husbands and husbands talk about their wives. If they don’t have Christ in their life they are going to tell us exactly what we want to hear, and not that we were wrong.
The below story is still my favorite in the bible. Whoever can cast the first stone go right on ahead and do it. Good luck with that. We have no right to judge another, only God has that right. We are going to have to accept what is going on in this country because God is allowing it to happen. I am not saying that we have to be silent, but sooner or later we have to accept the consequence of our actions and find a way to solve the problems we have.
“but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (John 8:1-11 ESV)
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