Psalms 119:125-I am your servant; give me discernment that I may understand your statutes.
This verse serves two purposes today. First, I have been praying and thinking about blogging of late. Why? Why would anyone care about what I have to say? That’s a valid question and one that deserves some attention. To be perfectly honest, I cannot answer that question. On one hand, I think it is almost egotistical to think anyone cares about my opinion or yours for that matter. At the same time, God has placed me as the under-shepherd at Danville Baptist for a reason, so I feel obligated to speak as long as its Him speaking through me.
Why not just do this from the pulpit? My intention is to address everyday matters we are faced with and tackle them from a biblical worldview. These are things that I do not feel called to do currently from the pulpit. I am quite sure no one (including Lori) will agree with me on everything I post which is my point for posting; I want us all to think. I want us all to ask what does the Bible say about this? When the Bible is silent on something (such as wearing masks or how we vote) then we will look at how do we respond to a situation.
I cannot type which is funny becasue I love to write (type) because writing makes me think. Writing makes me research. We are shaped by our upbringing and our environment whether we believe that or not. We have a tendency to view things from: our point of view, Danville Baptist point of view, Morgan County point of view, Alabama point of view, south east point of view, Christian point of view, rural point of view, American point of view and lastly and Western world point of view. Very rarely do we look at things from a point of view from a person who lives in downtown Seattle or someone who resides in Jordan or Brazil. Usually we do not see things as single mothers see them if we have not been a single mother ourselves.
What is the point of all of this? If you are reading this and you are a child of God, then you have been commanded to love people like Jesus does. This means we love people we don’t agree with politically. We must always tell people the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we must also do so in love. Do you struggle with either of those? Some of us struggle with hurting feelings, so we hold back the truth and that is not biblical. Others don’t struggle with the truth but struggle with expressing the truth in love. This is why this blog will be Psalms 119:125. I need God’s discernment in how to manage these tough obstacles we face.
This brings me to my last point today: Did you know that arguing with someone forcefully only makes that person more dissenting? This is backed by psychology. One reason is that the angry person trying to force his/her point is emotional and so is the other person. We let emotions cloud our judgment. When we get emotional we don’t focus on facts. I will say much more about this in the coming weeks. My hope is to not make light of anyone on this blog ever, but my advice for anyone is to tread lightly on the social media preaching. I have heard all of the arguments such as “people ask for my advice” and “I cannot be silent on these issues.” I am not saying that people should never voice their opinions, but to forcefully condemn people is not winning people to your argument but in fact (by research) running people the other way. Insread of saying “Only selfish people don’t wear masks” or saying “only scared sheep wear masks” how about we say “this is why I choose to wear a mask” or “these are the reasons I have chosen to not wear a mask.” Trust me on this one, I speak from experience. I have learned the hard way the on line arguments have NO WINNERS. May we all ask for God’s discernment and understand His commands more today~JD