Don't Poison a Child's Mind.

I was bless with an experience I will never forget when passing through Immigrations in Singapore.  We were in line and in front of me was a Filipino mother and two children.  One child a boy about 10 and a girl about 3. In the next line was an Indian mother with two young boys maybe 5 and 8. 

These children started reacting with each other in spite of language and cultural difference with pure love - no bigotry, no bias, just pure love and delight. It was a reminder to me bigotry is a learned habit or character trait. It is not a God given characteristic. Matthew 21:16 - "...out of mouths of babes and sucklings God prepared praise ..."  NOT HATE!  Oh, if we adults could only learn from the  young children the world would be a better place indeed!

"Hatreds never cease by hatreds in this world.  By love alone they cease.  This is an ancient Law."  

I have shared many thoughts over the year's concerning our thinking for ourselves and not depending upon others to think for us or teach us absolute truths about God, self, world or the universe.

It is delusion for us to allow others to teach us to cherish pride and selfishness when we all know in the end it leads to suffering, loneliness and death.

God did not put upon the heart of every person the right way to live with self and others simply for us to think about them. God put them there for us to practice and to make them part of our daily lives. 

We should control our own minds and keep them clean of evil thoughts concerning greed, jealousy, prejudices and hate.  Love, respect, humility and faithfulness to God (not denomination, nationalities, preachers, priest, bishops, traditions, anger, religions,etc) is the only way to a happy life.  

The youngest Indian child at the airport had a bottle of water and without words he walked over to the youngest Filipino child and sat it down in front of her and backed away.  I knew instantly he was sharing all he had to offer the other child love (water).  Tears filled my eyes and I knew I had witness pure love. 

Our minds, our learned behaviors, can make us like God or like the devil.  We should control our minds and not allow others to leads us away from the right path.  RESPECT each other. Human's have more in common than we have differences.  God created us to be like milk and water to mingle together not like oil and water that repel each other.  

I honestly believe if you do not feel this way you have never had a personal relationship with God.  You certainly are NOT a follower of Christ.  

Life is becoming more clear to me as I grow old and my body falls apart like an old worn out car that has traveled many, many happy miles.  Do not make the same mistakes I did if you are still young in body.  You cannot cram five lifetimes into one there is only so much time.  

You do not need to see or do everything to have a full life. You only need to recognize the importance of love and service to each person you meet.  

God did not ask us to solve all of the world's problems just do the best we can with those we encounter. 

There are always people around you that need an encouraging word, a person willing to listen and or a helpful hand.  It is not all about having large sums of money to give away.  A little becomes a lot when good people come together for one cause. 

Few if any of us would sleep with a poisonous snake in our bed so why go to bed with a poisonous snake (our mind)?  Ephesians 4:26 "...do not go to bed while you are still angry..." Go to bed filled with hate, anger, bitterness, jealousy, prejudices and discontent and  you will awake the next morning with the same bed partner not beside you, but inside you.  You should control your own mind.  Protect your mind from poisonous thoughts of others. 

We should practice being like the children I witness in the Singapore Immigration line.  

The Book Of Jonah is more than a fish story.

I am sorry if I offended you when I wrote about Jonah and the big fish the other day. I have never said or written anything in an attempt to change anyone’s mind to believe as I do. All during my ministry I have spoken and written to try and get people to think for themselves. If it helps you to have a better relationship with God by believing that Jonah literally was swallowed by a big fish then I encourage you to do so.

It is significant to me that the fish in the Book of Jonah is only mentioned in three of the forty-seven verses of the book, which leads me to believe that the fish is a minor character in the story, and is not the central theme of the book.

I would also like to clear up that I know technically a whale is not a fish.

I happen to believe the book of Jonah is not really a book about a fish, but a book about priorities, obedience, and submitting ourselves to the will of God, even when God's plans conflict with our own personal plans.

God had a plan for Jonah's life. Jonah had other plans. Jonah had to learn that in the end it is God's will that has to be done rather than his own. The book of Jonah is a challenge to each of us to submit ourselves to the will of God. If we do not we will find ourselves in a struggle with God until we do.

I have said many times we can understand the Bible better if we know the history of the time period in which it was written and the Book of Jonah is no exception.  The issue that would have upset Jonah in the book and the issue that would have upset most of the original readers of the book was not that God had a plan for Jonah's life, but that God called Jonah to prophesy in Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. Jonah and the original readers hated Assyrians. They hated the Assyrians because the Assyrians had a history of killing them.

God was asking Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach to the people there, and call on them to repent and Jonah did not want to go there. If you were in Jonah’s sandals would you want to go?

Jonah was not God he was human and he thought like a human.  He hated the Assyrians and he feared the Assyrians, but he also did not want to do anything good for the Assyrians.  Jonah feared God may use him to do good for the people of Nineveh and Jonah certainly did not want to be an instrument of good for the people of Nineveh.

National hatred of an enemy’s race or religion is a terrible thing, but something we are all familiar with. Hitler hated the Jews, Muslim radicals hate the Christians, in Ireland the Catholics and Protestants hated one another, genocide in Africa and parts of Europe. The Book of Jonah confronts these prejudices.

It is quite possible the Book of Jonah was being read around the same time that Ezra and Nehemiah were active in trying to rebuild the ancient city of Jerusalem - a city that had been lying in ruins since the Babylonians had destroyed it 50 years earlier. It was a time of great nationalistic fervor. The Jews were returning to their homeland and they were rebuilding their ancient city and they were rebuilding their temple, and all of a sudden, for the first time in many years, it felt good to be a Jew again. Ezra and Nehemiah did a great deal to encourage the patriotic fervor of the returning Jews and to get them excited again about their city, about their religion and about their God. In the process of doing that the issue of racial purity became an important issue for a lot of people. Ezra and Nehemiah - became very upset over the issue of inter-marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

Ezra accused the men of mixing their 'holy seed' with the people of the lands and he encouraged large numbers of Jewish men to divorce their foreign wives and to send them away, along with the children of their mixed marriages. I'm not saying that the Book of Jonah was written specifically as a response to the nationalistic 'reforms' of Ezra. I am suggesting that some may have been bringing up the story of Jonah to demonstrate the God of Israel loved and respected foreigners too - even the people of Nineveh.

The Book of Jonah is a very appropriate book for our time It is a book that strikes at the heart of every sign of religious nationalism, it confronts religious arrogance in all its forms, it reminds us that the God of Israel, the God of the faithful and the God of the upright, is also the God of the Assyrian, of the unfaithful and of the not-so-upright too. It is time for Muslim, Christians and Jews to once again hear the message of the Book of Jonah.