Hate and Humility, part 1

I'm going to be completely honest with you for a few minutes.

I hate myself.

Not just in a cliché, "it's the Christian thing to do" type of way, but in the actual, "I'm a despicable person" type of way.  I lie.  I cheat.  I steal.  I idolize.  I do so many "wrong things," at times I think I'm beginning to compose a dictionary of antonym actions for the Ten Commandments.  It's not like I try to do wrong things; I don't awake in the morning, sit straight up in bed, and suddenly yell, "I want to be bad today!"  No, sin is an action that's much quieter, stealthily creeping up on you when you least expect it.  I was reading in Romans the other day, and stumbled upon a set of verses (chapter 7:14-25) that describe what I'm talking about to a T. 

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  "

Paul seems to be going through the same phase I am here; he's unspiritual, a slave to sin.  He doesn't understand why he sins, and doesn't necessarily want to sin, but it happens anyway.  This next passage makes a bit more sense, and helped me to understand how this "living in sin but not knowing it" thing came to be.

"And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.   For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.   For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

That passage was a bit longer, but I want you to read it anyway, and slowly.  It makes sense after reading that passage why I do sin when I don't want to.  It's not me sinning.  It's my sinful nature.  Now, we can't give up that easily though—we can't just say, "oh, it's my sinful nature, not me doing the sin, so it's not my problem."  We need to battle the sin.  As a servant of the Most High, I don't want to botch my job and become a servant of my sinful nature (by letting it do whatever it wants) instead of God.  But how do I do that?  Paul is asking himself the same question here in this next passage:

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"

Continued in part 2.

Seventeen

Today is my seventeenth birthday, and I was going to use today's post to write down my hopes and goals for the coming year.  When my fingers hit the keyboard, instead of hopes and goals, this is what came out.  I want to share it with you.

Dearest Jehovah,

Thank You for the adventures You have led me on, the growth that You have prepared for me.   I have passed through both the flames of Satan and the sun of the pleasant fields of beauty You have created with me in mind.  I have fallen from Your grasp of my own accord, left Your embrace for a life of my own, thinking foolishly that it would give me the freedom I wanted, the freedom I thought I deserved.  But time and time again, no matter how far I, in my inability and weakness, have fallen, You are always there to catch me, to hold me tight, and to love me the way that no one else could ever love me.  Though I am but a slave, a worthless waif, You guide me into the paths that the Prince once walked, the paths that I now walk in His name.  You have made me Your princess, loved me as Your daughter, and let me call You my Abba, my Father.  You have become the One I live for, and with my every move I pray that I may achieve my desire to become closer to You and learn more of Your ways. You are my life, for my own has died.  You are my mind, for my own has perished.  You are my heart, for my own has broken.  You are my spirit, for without You I would not have one.  You are my Father, my Brother, my Love.  I live for You, and one day I shall die for You.  Thank You for rescuing me and loving me as Your own, for taking me from the sinister paths of the Evil One and giving me a new direction in which to travel. You are my All-in-All, my Alpha and my Omega, my Beginning and my End.  You hear the cry of my very soul when I am in anguish and You come to my rescue, forgetting the reason that I became hurt, forgiving the fact that I have time and time again turned my back to You.  In this next year, let my life be lived with the sole purpose of giving my all to You.  I cannot leave Your presence, or flee from Your Spirit. You are always here with me, to comfort and protect me. And I love You, Yeshua.  I love You, my Lord, my Protector, my Provider. 

Love,

Grace

Slavery: An Overview

Today I want to talk a bit about slavery—a topic of conversation I've been well-known for!  Some of you may not know this, but slavery exists in nearly every continent and in all countries.  There are twenty-seven million slaves throughout the world, half of which are children.  To warm you up to the subject a bit, I wanted to share this quote from Zach Hunter, a teenage abolitionist, in his book, Be the Change.

"You may be wondering how people become slaves.  Many think it all starts with a dramatic kidnapping, but that is rarely the case.  Usually, it has to do with money, or lack of it.  Sometimes a family allows a child to go with a trusted family friend who promises a good job to help meet the family’s needs.  The child soon discovers this “friend” has sold them into slavery.  Or, in some instances, a desperate parent will sell their child into slavery.  Often the parents are misled to believe their child will have better living conditions and maybe an opportunity for a better education.  Instead, the child becomes a slave."

Here are some facts that I've uncovered about modern day slavery:

1. The term “slave” means a person under the threat of violence and unable to walk away.
2. Slaves live on every continent, and in most countries.
3. There are 27 million slaves in the world today- that’s more than all 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade, put together.
4. It is an estimated 2 million children are trapped in forced prostitution.
5. The trafficking of humans the third most profitable underground trade, Illegal drugs and weapons.
6. There are at least fourteen thousand, five hundred slaves trafficked into the United States every year.
7. Six hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand people are trafficked each year.
8. Approximately two children are sold every minute.
9. Up to seven thousand Nepalese girls are sold each year, mostly to brothels.
10. In Haiti, one in every ten children are slaves.
     

Slavery erases confidence and any thought of freedom.  It also erases the dreams and hopes of many people, both young and old.  It destroys whole families, and even whole cities.  Can something this terrible be ended?  If enough people think that it can be stopped and make it their goal to stop it, I really think it can.  Ending slavery is a large task but with God, all things are possible.  We need to act though; we can’t just sit and wait for God to change things. We need to be willing to get out and be His hands and feet in the world.  One of the most important things we can do is pray.  We should be praying for the people all over the world who are enslaved in so many ways.  Children in carpet industries, girls in brothels, families in brick yards– pray for them all.  This is the most important things that can be done.  Just by praying, we could be changing 27 million people’s way of life– that’s how powerful prayer can be!  Please take a few minutes today to sit down and pray for slaves all over the world!