Voice of the Introverts

The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Titus who was a pastor/teacher that Paul had won to the Lord. The early church was not big buildings or big ministries, it was local teacher/pastors that were holding meetings in their own homes. Of course, these were not big congregations, but these people were meeting together in small groups and then dispersing out to the community teaching and witnessing to others of the love of Christ that these, themselves had witnessed and felt. It seems that Titus, as all pastors everywhere do, was having trouble with some of the congregants. Duh! So what else is new? When you oversee people and try to give some sort of direction to them, there is always some sort of trouble and/or drama. 

If you have not read the last couple of issues, this is third in a series and will finish it out. The first two were Our Only Hope, and Childlike Faith. I am providing the hyperlinks to the last two, so that you can see where I am coming from with all three writings.

When I am writing this, it is from an American viewpoint. I am not sure what is going on in the rest of the world, but Americans have gone bonkers. 

In the last edition, Our Only Hope, I touched on a subject that I think we need a little farther contemplation on: that topic is having faith as a little child.

“And he (Christ) said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” 

-Matthew 18:3

It is very easy for children to come to Christ at an early age. I was saved when I was six years old. When we get older, if left to our own devices, we have developed our thinking from ideas of the world. Modern thinking is to let children develop their own ideas of morality, to try everything and zero in on what makes the most sense. The idea is that everyone has some good in them, so just let it develop on its own and the world will become a much better place because the good will overcome the bad.

We struggle and fret; we worry ourselves into early graves. What do you tell yourselves when you lie down at night? Does your head keep spinning with everything going on in the world? Is it hard to sleep because of all that is happening? Does it seem like you have no control, even over your own life? Is there anything you can do about it? The simple answer is no, there is nothing you can do that will make it all go away. There is only one hope, and that answer is not within yourself. 

From People being sold land that’s underwater, or Madison Avenue creating ads that make you want to buy things that you don’t really want or need, all the way back to when hucksters would travel through the countryside selling bottles of elixirs called “snake oil” – all these things have one thing in common – they are all lies. Our government, our new media, Hollywood: they are all purveying the same thing at this point in time – they are spouting lies faster than they can make them up! 

I always thought that this quote was written by Shakespeare. It turns out this was first written by an old English dude named Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu. It is more than likely an American thing that I did not know this. In fact, I had never heard of the guy. I guess this means that Shakespeare’s pen was very mighty indeed, since a lot of us think that he said it.

Billions & billions of years ago there was nothing, and then there was something??? What was it and where was did it come from? It was apparently primordial ooze and it just appeared. Just one day billions of years ago, some sludge just appeared on the horizon and from this something that appeared from nothing a little pollywog popped up (again, out of nowhere), and from this pollywog that appeared from nowhere, from nothing, and with nothing but the universe egging it on more pollywogs appeared. These little pollywogs that came from nothing got together and decided that they were tired of the ooze and decided that they would hop up on land and grow themselves a pair of lungs. In the decision to grow lungs they decided they needed blood, liver, pancreas, and all other organs that necessitate life. They sprouted legs and a tail and walked up on land (which we don’t know where the land came from either) and started living a life. A couple of million years later, they decided that their tails got in the way of pooping so they got rid of those and became full grown men (and without the tails in their way they could now walk completely upright.  

I wrote an article awhile back about common sense, and where has it gone. I am going to retract a little on that statement this go-round. Everyday common sense is still a good thing, but I think sometimes that we, as conservative Christians have begun to believe that we have a monopoly on common sense. We are so sure that it is only we that have common sense that we have grown very prideful of the fact that we are the only ones left with common sense. Where does pride lead? It can lead to a down fall.

I am overlooked a lot, that is pretty much the curse of all introverts. Actually, that is a blessing and a curse. We don’t really want to be acknowledged in a big way. People think we don’t have much to say because we do not actually say a lot; that is why people think we don’t know much.

We live in a society that has taken the things that God has lain to for guides and trivialized them to near extinction. That should not be much of a surprise. 

“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator…” Romans 1:25