Are You Following Your Call Or Yielding To Push?

In examining my life, I realized that I made many decisions based on the influence of others. It was clear they pushed me so they could live vicariously through me. Some just wanted to control me. Others challenged me for their own amusement. Very few were concerned with my best interest. By yielding to the pressure of others, I made a lot of bad choices.

However, I did learn from my past. I learned we are all here for a reason. Each of us has a unique, specific, God-given purpose for our life on earth, a calling.  Our specific calling will create a deep hunger within us. This hunger will never be appeased by money, fame, sex, family, possessions, popularity, or anything the world has to offer. It’s a hunger that can only be satisfied by following God’s calling. And until we discover and pursue our calling, we’ll never be happy.

 

While watching the movie “October Baby,” I realized what I must do to satisfy the hunger within me. I must reach out to others through my words. I must tell everyone there is a God, and He loves them, just as they are. I must do my best to explain that each of us is important to the one who created us and He wants us to love and respect all people as He does.

Through His Son, Jesus, God told us that His greatest desire is for us to love Him and each other. He wants us to put the needs of others above our own. He wants us to serve others as His ambassadors, loving and caring for them. Yes, this is a sacrificial love. But He will reward us for all our selfless efforts. And if we’re truly sharing God’s love, we won’t care about personal gain.

If your chosen life-path isn’t satisfying your hunger, your empty feeling, ask God to give you direction. It’s okay if you don’t know Him. When we earnestly seek Him, He will respond. His response may not come immediately or even overnight, but it will come, as long as you keep seeking it. Understand that God first wants a relationship with you.  He wants to be your trusted friend. And when you trust Him, He will show you the way. And don’t be surprised if He takes you in a new direction.

The Power Of Words

In my daily devotional reading, I came across a line that resonated deep in my soul. It reminded readers that God created language to be powerfully used for good but sin made our tongues a potential force for evil.

We all need to choose our words carefully. This is especially true for writers because our words generally affect more people. Whether prompted by the Holy Spirit or the Devil, we write because we must. When we write for ourselves, the Enemy can easily influence us to express a world view that rewards and encourages selfishness. We know this ends in destruction but our humanity naturally attracts us to worldly fame, fortune and power.

As a teacher and defender of children, my greatest fear is that I will mislead them with my words. God has promised a stricter judgment for teachers because they have a greater influence on people than others. As writers, we are teachers. Our words have a profound influence on our readers, so we must choose our words very carefully. Those of us who are believers have a responsibility to write the words God gives us. In doing this, we can rest assured that our influence will be beneficial to our readers.

For those of you who deny the existence of God, your future is bleak. Whether you like it or not, when we die, we’ll all have to account for our choices in life, including our choice of words. This is not good news for those who write to gain personally by influencing others to pursue their selfish desires. You’re leading others down a path of destruction and you’ll have to answer for that.

For all of us, we need to recognize that our words do influence others, for better or worse, and take that responsibility seriously. As the Scripture says, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” Our words need to express the love of Christ for all people. We need to encourage them to experience the inexplicable joy that accompanies following God’s lead. We need to show them through our actions, and our words, that there is nothing more wonderful or fulfilling than the love of God.

As it says in John 15:13, there is no greater expression of love than laying down your own life for a friend. While this does mean we must be willing to die to save the life of a friend, it also means we must be willing to share our failures and mistakes with others so they can learn from them. This means we must write the truth, whether fiction or non-fiction, not just to entertain but also to teach.

The childhood defense of “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” is wrong. Most often, hurtful words will inflict greater and longer lasting damage than any physical attack. Let’s choose our words carefully. Let’s build one another up and express the love of Christ with each one.

My Day In Court

by Bruce Brady

I spent the day in Family Court yesterday. I wasn’t on trial. I was just observing. My wife and I are training to be Guardians ad Litem, advocates for children in court. It was hearing day and in the span of three hours, the judge heard and ruled on 16 cases, with another 12 to 16 to be heard after lunch.

As if working the drive-up window at a fast food restaurant, I watched one group of attorneys and defendants rush out while another group rushed in every 15 minutes. Expecting to see drawn, saddened, remorseful faces, I was disappointed to see most defendants were upset as if to say, “How dare you drag me away from my important life to sit here and listen to you tell me what I’m going to do!”

As the attorneys pleaded their cases and the judge decided what actions to take next, there was little to no mention of the children. My mind wandered to thoughts of how I might feel if I were yanked from the only home life I knew and shuttled off to some relative or to people I didn’t know at all. How would I deal with the uncertainty of never knowing if my parents would hug me or slug me? And I can’t even imagine the horror of being sexually molested by your father or a boyfriend numerous times before reaching the age of ten. Yet, these were the lives of the children who’d been removed from their homes by the state.

The official focus of the hearings was to decide the best courses of action to take with the abusive or neglectful parents, family members, boyfriends or girlfriends. It seemed little attention was paid to the fate of the children. They were seldom mentioned. And when they were, it was only to briefly describe the type of abuse or neglect they suffered.

 

Clearly, the children had no voice in court other than the Guardians ad Litem. And the Guardians are the only ones who don’t operate under the governmental pressure to get the cases closed and the children placed in the most cost-effective situations for the state. The Guardians, who are volunteers, are solely concerned with the best interest of the children and answer only to the judges.

Thankfully, most judges value the assessments of the Guardians and will adjust treatment and placement plans accordingly. So the Guardians do play an important role in the lives of the children and in helping the judges do what is best for them.

I learned many things by attending court. There’s a lot of selfishness out there. Most of us blame others or our circumstances for our bad behavior. And some people vent their frustrations by abusing children. Currently my county has less than 200 Guardians to handle over 1,000 children, and Guardians are limited to two cases at a time. If you have a heart for defenseless children, I encourage you to consider becoming a volunteer advocate in your county.