Yesterday I went cross-country skiing and hiking with Christopher, Colin, and P.D. in the sunny-snowy-silent Nisbet Forest north of Saskatoon. We left the city as the sun rose to the fanfare of a glorious pallete of colours, and returned to the city as the sun set, and the thin sliver of moon was revealed. It was just a beautiful day.
As I habitually do from time to time, I was reading old entries from my pen/paper journal. Here is an excerpt from an entry dated Dec.16/2000:
"Mr. W- encouraged me so much. To get a good education and to make a career. Mr. W- is such an example to me."
Four years have passed. My age is now one score years. I regret to announce that (1) I did not get a good education, and (2) I have not made a career for myself. I have no high-school diploma. I presently have no job. By the world's standards, I'm not much of a success.
The world, if I may be plain, is stupid.
The world, Canada especially, is built on a foundation of temporal pleasure, good intentions, and the almighty dollar. In my country it is acceptable to murder infants and commit sexual perversion. The world is Godless and backwards.
My parents raised me with an attitude of non-conformance. I was home-schooled for all my school years, and I learned to read and study for myself, and to critically question the world around me. My parents taught me from the Scriptures, but they never imposed doctrines on me, and they encouraged me to question and form my own beliefs. I thank God for my parents. Recently, I've continued on that path. I have spent these past months studying in my home, and helping to teach my 11 year old brother, who is also home-schooled. I'm really glad for this opportunity to gain wisdom, and knowledge of the Kadosh One.
"However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race with joy and complete the task the Lord Yeshua has given me–the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace." Acts 20:24
5 Comments:
By the way not only is the world driven by "temporal pleasure, good intentions, and the almighty dollar". but they have "rights" to life and the pursuit of happiness, (gay) marriage, education, food, clothes and shelter. We have given up our natural rights for spiritual rights. Job didn't complain about his rights but clung to his innocence (righteousness given by God) and his God. We have the rights of children of God and if we ask for a fish will we recieve a snake.
Peace
תגובה זו הוסרה על ידי מנהל המערכת.
Tess, you are totally right.
As David HaMelech wrote,
"You created my mind; You have covered me in my mother's womb. I acknowledge You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully fashioned; wondrous are Your works, and my soul knows it well."
God gave us the parents and siblings that we have, and made us exactly the way He wanted us to be. And He is good, so His work also is good.
I really love my family and the way I was raised. I had a very special and unique childhood, and for that I am grateful. I thought I made that clear. The sentence about "regret" at my lack of career or education was intended to be completely ironic. The only thing I meant to be negative about was the state of this wicked world in which we live.
How do I gain knowledge of the Kadosh One? I let Him teach me as I spend time in prayer and in study of the Scripture. I don't have any man as my teacher, although I have several friends with whom I study and learn. Also, God teaches me huge lessons through real life experience. In addition, I'm currently reading through the Torah in Hebrew for the first time in my life, and it's becoming so rich and full of meaning in my eyes.
Does that answer your question?
“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists His will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory– even us, whom He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Goyim?
As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My people’ who are not My people; and I will call her ‘My loved one’ who is not My loved one,” and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”
-Paul, Letter to the Romans
Check out my next post for the story of "how it all started..."
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