YouTube - Voddie Baucham and Sarah Palin
     

Wow! I just came across this. I've been pondering on this lately, since I'm a radical conservative myself and yet I do believe a woman's place is in the home and at very least, not in leadership over men. I don't know that it is wrong for Palin to be where she is (although that is what my gut says), but I certainly do feel like it is a shame to our nation, not "progress." Just like Deborah's leadership was a shame to the men around her who refused to rise up, so Palin's position should be a wake-up call to all the men out there who have been abdicating their roles. It is certainly refreshing to see someone stand up for the right without wavering (referring to her abortion stance - not even for rape or incest) instead of trying to be a crowd pleaser and somehow appease all parties. I love Voddie here too and his unwavering adherence to the scriptures. I think they picked him because he is a black man (maybe an Obama supporter, they would think) and yet he refused to back down in the face of their name-calling. Praise God for him and other strong Christian men like him.

Kerrie

PS Here's a quote from Voddie Bauchum's blog (www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Blog.html):

Let me also say a word to those who argue that “we cannot hold political candidates to biblical standards.”  Why not?  What other standard is there?  Should we hold them to a Buddhist, Muslim,  or HIndu standard?  How about a Secular Human, neo-Marxist, or New Age standard?  What, pray-tell, should the standard be if not the Bible?  Do we have one standard for pro-life in the church and another for Mr. Obama?  Do we have one standard for pro-family in the church and another for Mrs. Palin?  I think not.  The whole point of my blogs was this:  We cannot trade in the Bible for pragmatic utilitarianism when election time rolls around. 

I stand with Jesus!  I’ll dump a political party in a heartbeat.  I am sick and tired of watching leading Evangelicals compromise in order to prevent the earth from turning to dust if the wrong guy is elected.  Where’s our faith?  We ought to speak God’s truth and let the chips fall where they may.  We must bow to no man.  If Mr. McCain  or Mr. Obama don’t want Evangelicals to say things that may hurt them in the polls, they ought to speak and act like the Christians they both claim to be.  Instead, they know that their constituencies within the Christian community (black liberals for Obama and white Evangelicals for McCain) will not speak too loudly when they get out of line because both groups are more concerned with winning than with truth.

I refuse to believe that following a party like sheep is the answer to our problems.  We must maintain our prophetic voice, and that voice must be consistently Scriptural.  I don’t have all of the answers.  I’m just trying to wrestle with the questions as honestly as I can. 

VB

A good morning to you, my loved ones - a term usually reserved for those related to one another, but equally applicable to those fellow members of the body of Christ! Today is obviously September 11th - the seventh anniversary of 9/11. We all have our memories of that tragic day. For me, it was a lesson of continuing on in the midst of trama. Miles was 71 days old and close to finally getting to go home from the NICU in Portland. He was finally off all ventilators and oxygen, but was having trouble gaining weight because of serious reflux and oral aversion issues. So September 11th was the day Miles was scheduled to get a g-tube. As my mom and I went to the hospital that morning in a state of shock over what was occurring in New York, it was amazing to see the hospital in full swing. As the rest of the nation "paused" for this event, the NICU had to stay right on task. Those doctors couldn't let the tragedy of the day keep them from assisting those in their own waiting rooms. Miles received his g-tube as planned, other babies were admitted to the NICU, and wounds were attended to.  I am grateful for the doctors and nursing staff that continued on that day in the midst of crisis. In the tragic moments of our lives, we can choose to give in to paralysis and despair, or we can realize that despite our pain, there are others who need our help and our care and our encouragement, and we can choose to offer those things as a sacrifice and watch God bring blessings in the midst of suffering.

Wow, I didn't plan to say all that when I sat down to type! All I meant to do was share with you this excerpt from a devotional by Ray Stedman. (www.raystedman.org) Coincidentally, it is about the pressures and trials of life. Be blessed!

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body (2 Corinthians 4:11).

What we want, of course, is to be like Him. But the power of God is the miracle of others seeing in us, in the midst of our pressures and trials, the character and the life of Jesus. I have always been amused and challenged by the verse in Colossians 1, where Paul prays that his friends in Colosse may be "strengthened with all power according to his glorious might" (Colossians 1:11a). What are they going to use all this power for? It sounds as though Paul ought to say, "So that you can go about doing great miracles; so that you can astonish people with the tremendous magnetism of your preaching and teaching and be followed by great crowds." But that is not what he says. He says, "I pray that you may be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience (Colossians 1:11). That is what takes power; that is where the life and the power of God is manifest. That is the "life of Jesus."

...

Have you been in those circumstances recently, where no matter what you do you cannot seem to get any glory or credit for yourself? That is exactly where God wants you, because out of those times of inordinate pressure, times of hurt and despair and heartache and a sense of being wasted and not used, God is working His will. Others, perhaps, are being given life because of the death you are going through.

Lord, there are times when I go through trials. How my heart longs to cry out to You to deliver me from them. May I rather learn instead, Lord, that wonderful attitude of the Lord Jesus, "if it be possible, may this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done."

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. - 1 Peter 4:1-2

God is good, but I have not completely graduated from the lesson he has me on yet. I am trying to find the balance between Miriam, who wanted to remove male leadership, and Bathsheba, who "did not stand up to sin and is guilty of not pleasing God and pleasing men." (to quote a letter from our former pastor's wife [meaning former pastor, not former wife], Donna Prosise) I have most often been in the camp with Bathsheba, but in recent days, I have felt the pull that Miriam did. 

The ultimate proof of a life that is God-pleasing instead of man-pleasing is one that is willing to suffer for what is right. The Bible even says that one will have ceased from sin by having a heart that is perpetually God-centered. I tell myself I am willing to suffer for Christ, but in truth, I am not usually willing to "suffer" at the hand of my husband. I tell myself I can excuse and forgive an unbeliever, but that Josh, as a Christian, has no excuse. I am not sure that I have yet to respond properly when I am "attacked" by Joshua with words or ways I feel are unloving. I am still believing the lie that he will be motivated to change by my disrespect and that my meekness would only encourage his "unloving" treatment. Help me to win this battle, Lord, one day and one word at a time.

(See http://paigespages.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!684FB94140827047!1403.entry for a fellow-blogging friend's words of wisdom on this topic)

I am also reading from Elisabeth Elliot's book "Discipline - A Glad Surrender" - not for the faint of heart - my ears feel boxed! Here are some gleanings from the chapter on discipling the body:

"Pursue... the sanctification without which on one will see God." Hebrews 12:14

"Each of you must learn to gain mastery over his body, to hallow and honor it.... For God called us to holiness, not to impurity." - I Thess 4:4&7

More spiritual failure is due... to... the failure to recognize this living body as having anything to do with worship or holy sacrifice. This body is, quite simply, the starting place. Failure here is failure everywhere else.

... habits...must be broken if we are to be free for the Lord's service. We cannot give our hearts to God and keep our bodies for ourselves.

... This seems to me to indicate that few men who have not succeeded in curbing the appetite will make it to the top. Physical restraint is basic to power. They do it for this world, we do it for another.

[my comment: When was the last (or first!) time I thought of exercise as means to more than just a temporal end?]

...It is a good thing to me, to learn to do with less.

"You do not belong to yourselves. You were bought at a price. Then honor God in your body." - I Cor 6:20

It takes discipline to go to bed when you ought to and discipline to get up. My father had a ready answer for those who expressed incredulity at his "ability" to get up so early in the morning: "You have to start the night before."

          "Awake my soul, and with the sun

           Thy daily stage of duty run.

           Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise

           To pay thy morning sacrifice." - Thomas Ken

"Joyful rise?" Not very realistic, is it? It does not come naturally for us. But it never did for anybody. Dull sloth is natural... so instead of dismissing the hymn writer as hopelessly outdated, might we not ask God for His help in being joyful makers of sacrifice?

I am reminding myself that, as E.E pointed out earlier in her book, discipline is not a drudgery, it is a glad surrender of my life to His will - His best for me. How can I not profit from that?

On the subject of discipline, here are some pictures of Blake helping me discipline my body back to its pre-pregnancy state (well, hopefully!)

Growing in Grace and Grateful for the Gift of Friends,

Kerrie