Category: faith (Page 5 of 7)

Shut the front door

October 15, 2014 / Michele Minehart

We’ve never purchased those door locks that go on kitchen cabinets to keep toddlers out. Our current house came with a few in the bathroom and I find they really only frustrate me and seldom fend off a child. Instead, our approach has always been to try to teach, as the kids age, how to interact with our things. Currently Mr. M loves to open the cupboard doors to my small appliances and bang them shut. An annoyance, for sure. If we give him a few minutes, he’s usually over the entertainment and moves on. If he lingers, we send him toward the drawer filled with his own kitchen goods where he is welcome to play instead. We don’t lock the doors, we simply try to teach the children which ones are appropriate to open.

Image via CC by www.geograph.org.uk

So, as I’ve been mulling over the possibility needing to make a decision, the popular Christian notion of asking God to close doors has come into my path several times. Obviously, I welcome all of God’s power to do this, and perhaps that’s the course it will take. If an opportunity doesn’t make itself present, then I need not worry about “which door.”

Yet I’ve decided to do the work of wrestling while I wait. Perhaps the excessive mental work seems needless, but in honesty, I decided that my relationship with God is no longer at a toddler stage. By now he shouldn’t have to Michele-proof the doors but rather have taught me which ones are appropriate to open. With hope, if I’m tinkering in an unwanted area, I will bore of it in due time or otherwise God will remind me of where I’m welcome to play and keep me safe.

I’ve spent some time recently reading 1 Samuel, the story of the rise of King David – beginning way back when Israel had no king, then had the wrong king, and I’m currently in the part where David is escaping with his life from King Saul because everyone and his son knows that David will wear the crown before long.

In what appeared to be a boring chapter (23) of reconnaissance, I noticed the way in which David interacted with God and sought direction. David heard of a town under siege and asked God, “should I go defend it?” instead of waiting to be told. And God answered, yes. After he saved the town, Saul decided to corner him in the walled city. David heard about this and asked God if Saul was coming. God answered, yes. David asked if the city would hand him over to Saul. God answered, yes. So David fled the city.

David’s pattern of watching and listening to the world and then inquiring of God’s wisdom and will seems to be different than the pattern of sitting and waiting to hear God call out from the heavens, “Go!” After God confirmed that Saul was coming and the city would hand him over, David didn’t even inquire what to do – he simply left. He didn’t need God to tell him which door to open. God provided the information David needed to make a good (and life-saving!) decision.

God calls to each of us in different ways, and perhaps uniquely at different points in our life, which is to say that “shutting the door” is always a possibility. We can give God ultimate veto power. But is that what God wants of us? Is this the approach to living he desires? Is he content to mothering a toddler, still learning what she is allowed to play with or is there hope that we will someday reach adulthood and know where to find the blender and when when to put away the spices?

Perhaps the will of God isn’t always the mystery we believe it to be when we seek the wisdom of God know the character of God.

Questions for God

July 17, 2014 / Michele Minehart

Nearly every year, without fail, I come across a church offering a sermon series for the “big questions” of faith. The concept is bright – people can invite their friends to hear the responses to the questions that keep them from believing. Typically the lineup includes questions like “Why is there evil in the world?” and “How can a good God let bad things happen to them?” Sometimes they get a little more specific, with “How do we know the Bible is true?”and “Can a good God send people to hell?” (We seem to love to talk about the heaven and hell questions.)

These deep existential questions for God have their place, both in the world and in the church. I’ve spent time pondering them and people have asked me about them from time to time. However, yesterday I was struck to wonder: Are these the questions that keep people from a believing life?

At most, I have 2 true atheists in my circles, (friend of a friend, facebook-friend kind of relationships). According to the wiki, Atheists comprise just 2% of our population. It seems a very small percent have decided against a belief in God.

I posed the question to my friends: do we think that people struggle with a belief about God? Or do they simply not understand why a belief in God matters? My life is filled with people who have church experience and a basic understanding of God, Jesus and even some Bible. Yet that baseline understanding doesn’t lead them to a church each week or to open a Bible on a regular basis. I would say the majority of my friends are “believing” yet only a subset of them do something with that belief. Why is that? (See, who is asking The Hard Questions now?)

When people are likely to agree with the presence of God in the world yet remain unclear on why it even matters, I don’t think we’re answering the questions they hold closest to their hearts. Perhaps it’s because sometimes we struggle to truly find an answer. When I posed this question to friends, and they flipped it back on me, I struggled to give a succinct answer on why my faith in God matters that wasn’t cliche. My friend said, “Sometimes the best I can do is offer the Footprints poem.”

If our go-to list of questions for God aren’t what stand in the way of people living in active faith, then what is? How do we begin to answer why God matters to our life on earth?

Rule #1 of writing (and marketing, public relations, sales and business development) is know your audience. Do we have a clue what our friends who live outside of churches think and believe? I think far less of them are faith-illiterate than we assume. I have countless friends who grew up in the church and could probably tell you the difference between Moses and Noah and why God so loved the world. Actually, I’ve experienced church-outsiders who know more about the Good Book than some current attenders.

Onward with the research. Why does God matter today? Why is life better in a pew on Sunday rather than believing from home? (The coffee is most certainly better on the comfy couch, and you don’t have to get dressed.) What do people really wonder about life with God?

Jesus and Preventing Babies

July 1, 2014 / Michele Minehart

Fact: I never went to law school. I have, however, read a large number of John Grisham books, which is kinda the same thing, yes? Ok, not really. What about those Law & Order reruns I became addicted to my freshman year of college? Certainly those count, especially when they’re “based on real life events”?

Now that we’ve established my credentials on posting about a Supreme Court ruling, let’s also bring out my achievements in the world of health care. Like the fact that I hate it. If health care insurance companies showed up at my party, I would politely ask them to leave or, at the least, I would spit in their food. In general the American health care model of all forms has made my life miserable.

And now, on to Christianity. Ding ding ding! A winner! I’ve got a degree in that. I’m pretty well practiced when it comes to loving Jesus. I even have a pretty good grip on my Bible. So allow me to direct you to the chapter and verse where it says we should make all healthcare decisions for one another because we value life. Just let me find my Greek and Hebrew concordance. It’s around here somewhere…

I fully support the right for businesses and organizations to exert their “personhood” and I don’t believe they need to foot the bill for products and procedures which oppose their values. Catholic institutions have been doing it for years (and I believe their success lies in their consistency – they didn’t get all picky-choosy, allowing the pills yet leaving out the IUD). Yet I would ask Hobby Lobby to think again. They can continue to make their personal healthcare decisions based upon their view of when life begins but enforcing it company-wide might not be the best form of proselytization.

My Christian Ethics class, and professor, taught me that our ethic should inform all areas of our life, parts that seem unconnected. Small things do matter and if it matters, then we should live it – kudos to Hobby Lobby for wanting to remain true to something they identify with as wrong. However, that course also taught me what seems the obviously right choice might not take into consideration the very people whom Jesus spent his life ministering to – the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised and the unreligious. Jesus had very high ethical standards for the religious elite; for the common folk, he tended to speak with words of grace and compassion before jumping to behavior modification.

In fact, we can see in Jesus’ stern words to the priests and Pharisees in Luke 11 (verse 46) – “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.” This came in a whole series of harsh remarks toward the religious ones. I think if you want to wave a religious freedom flag you have to put yourself into the category of “religious” when it comes to Jesus’ teaching. These warnings are for us, the ones who love our religion.

We the religious tend to take our stand against something, anything, to differentiate ourselves. But in taking a stand against issues, we’re creating distance between our values and the people we’ve been directed to love. “Us and them” is the very language Jesus opposed; you can see throughout his life and ministry he wanted people to begin to understand that all of creation belonged to God, not just the ones privy to the ancient texts and their meanings.

I don’t love Hobby Lobby’s policy because it rejects the only form of birth control my OB will allow me to use (the copper IUD is the only non-hormonal option) and if I’m in that boat, surely others will be as well. It’s not “my right” that an employer cover every health care need (more on our poor view of health insurance later), but to feel singled out and even accused of moral shortcoming because of it and using Jesus as the reason, makes me uncomfortable. According to this, in order for me to remain un-pregnant, I am un-Jesus-like and practicing something on par with abortion. I’m not sure that’s the message Jesus would want to give women.

I also don’t love how again the fellow Christians have responded in outright support of such a decision simply because it’s “Christian.” Which leads to the division it creates, a direct opposition to the way of life for Jesus. (You want to come at me with the the “I come with a sword” and division of family verses? Bring it. Post forthcoming.) Any time we the Christians want to exert “our rights” I have to wonder at the expense it comes. The cost may be the invitation for a civil chat at the table about issues that matter because we’re all the time yelling about our beliefs, unable to listen.

I have to wonder how Jesus would deal with issues of reproduction and health care and working. How would He love all parties involved? How would he consistently point toward God and reveal our own selfish tendencies when choosing a “side”? I can’t think that he would vilify anyone but those who use religion to their own advantage (because that’s how he dealt with most issues in the Gospels).

And I’m positive he’d be cool with the IUD.

Category: faith (Page 5 of 7)

Shut the front door

Questions for God

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