Who Is Speaking For You?*

 Parents, Who is speaking for you? After college, I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for a month with a college friend. The country is beautiful, rich with natural resources and very culturally diverse. The Afrikaan family that hosted us lived on a large and lovely farm not far from the Mozambican border. After several days in the sprawling guest house, the host family sent us to explore the rest of the country. They probably needed a break from the Americans, but they also wanted to “show off” their wonderful country. We visited the amazing and historic Cape Town, the beach town of Durban, as well as Johannesburg and Pretoria. The highlights also included a night in a lodge in Kruger National Park and a couple of nights in a private Game Farm on the edge of the park. Our game viewing experiences were awe inspiring and wonderful with lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes. We saw almost every African animal you can think of. We met many new friends and explored several regions. There were, however, a few harrowing experiences while we were there. The first involved a lion roaring just outside of where we were staying in Kruger Park… there were no fences between us and the king of the beasts, it was terrifying. The wildebeest it was about to eat was probably terrified too. The next scariest was a night we were supposed to stay with our host family’s friend near Cape Town. He had two large and ferocious Dobermans who did not want us to stay there… we opted, rather than being eaten, to sleep in the car! But perhaps the most nerve-racking, was a night in Pretoria. Again, we were staying with a family friend of our host family’s son. He was in his young 20’s like us, fun, and always up for an adventure. It was winter there, but after some coaxing, verbally and with distilled liquids (these were during my, not-so-proud-of “rebellion years”) we all decided to take a swim in the above ground pool in 30 degree weather at midnight. Needless to say, we were frozen when we went inside. Our host had a fireplace, but no kindling to start the wood to help thaw us out. So, he suggested that we go outside and get some “dennebol,” aka, pine cones as a fire starter. He sends us out with large black bags to collect any dennebol we could find. What we didn’t know, because we had arrived after dark, was that the South African equivalent of the White House was right next door. So, as we are unsuccessfully wandering the neighborhood for the illusive fire igniting pine cones, we see lights and hear sirens of a rather intimidating paddy wagon speeding to where we are. Tires squeal as they stop, two soldiers jump out with Uzies locked and loaded. They begin shouting at us in Afrikaans, my friend and I drop our bags, throw our hands in the air and look at our friend, who begins laughing and speaking in Afrikaans. Our lives were in the hands of a brand new, fairly intoxicated friend we didn’t really know, who also didn’t know us, advocating for us a language we didn’t know, in a country we didn’t know. I envisioned at that moment being thrown into a South African prison and never to be heard of again. The national police were not amused by our friend’s humor and they kept shouting, guns raised and walking toward us. It was a couple of very tense moments of our Afrikaan speaking friend, talking fast and trying to explain our silly decision to take a frozen swim, and subsequent search for “dennebol” to start a fire to warm us up, that somehow, between his words and our petrified faces, these soldiers finally realized we were not a threat, lowered their weapons, and let us go, with instructions to go straight home. As the open air, steel barred, paddy wagon drove away, we counted our blessings and quickly returned to the house. At the time we were in South Africa, there was much turmoil and tension. There are 23 different people groups there, including Asians, Indians, English, Afrikaners, and several different African tribes represented, each with a different perspective and agenda for this rich and beautiful country. It was a time when some unfairly repressed people were on the edge and many people had ideas about how to resolve the many difficult issues in that nation. For all these national soldiers knew we had some agenda too. Our agenda was only to have more fun and find a little warmth from pine cones. I still don’t know what our friend said to the officers, but I’m glad I’m not writing this from an African jail.

I’m also glad we don’t have to come before the God of the Universe with no advocate. We live in a hostile spiritual world that we know relatively little about. The Apostle Paul tells us that when we belong to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, is our advocate before the throne of God the Father. We don’t know the words to say, we don’t know what to ask, we don’t even know what we need… There are so many things we don’t understand about God or the Heavenly realms. But Paul tells us as he encourages the early church, “In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8:26-27 (CSBBible) I am so grateful to have the Spirit living in me, but also that the Spirit, who is God, can intercede for me for things I don’t even know I need, much less able to verbalize. Who has a God who loves like that? A God who loves us so much He sends His Spirit to live in us when we become one of His children? And then, because of Who He is, He has His Spirit advocate for us, even in our ignorance of godly things, for our good and His glory. Who is speaking for you? If it is the Holy Spirit, join me in being grateful! If you are still attempting to still speak for yourself, I would welcome you to choose to belong to Jesus. Jesus has also not only advocated for us, but taken our punishment on Himself so that we can belong to God and be His child. If you decide to accept His forgiveness and belong to Him, you too will have The One who knows God’s language, knows God’s country, and also knows what you need because He is living in you AND He is interceding on your behalf.

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

What Do You Do With Your Strength?*

 What do you do with your strength? As a kid, I looked forward to getting up on Saturday mornings and watching cartoons in my pajamas on the console TV while eating Sugar Smacks (wow, just wow, but that’s another conversation). I anticipated the mindless entertainment of a good, humorous Looney Tunes short. Mel Blanc was the man of a thousand voices and he voiced the cartoons in a way that seemed to perfectly match the characters. One that I remember was Ralph the Wolf (who looked strangely like Wylie Coyote) and Sam the Sheepdog. They would both greet each other pleasantly and punch their time card. Then "it was on!" Smart and savvy, Ralph would try to steal the unassuming and vulnerable sheep in some novel way, sometimes even dressing up like the sheep to get closer to them, but the then strong, protective Sam would catch him, disable the predator in some way, return the sheep to safety, and bring peace back to the flock.

We all have strengths. The important question is, “what do we do with our strengths?” Do we use them only for our own advantage, to exploit the weaknesses of others? Do we keep others down or do we use our strengths to protect and elevate others, bring peace, and help people thrive? It really depends on our identity and who we belong to… (to whom we belong, sorry English teachers). This world and its Evil Ruler say, “look out for number one,” you gotta look out for yourself because no one else is going to, its survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. Jesus says of the Evil One, he ONLY comes “to steal, kill and destroy.” But Jesus comes as a Shepherd, to love, save, protect, and help people thrive. So, If we belong to and identify with Jesus, we use our strengths to protect people, grow them, nurture them; we will have compassion for their weaknesses and love them well. However, if we belong to the Father of Lies, we will use our strengths to lie, cheat, and steal to take advantage of people and exploit their weaknesses for our own benefit, all while trying to appear "a good person," (i.e a wolf in sheep's clothing). Our society seems to value competitiveness over compassion most of the time.

When the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was reminding the early church of who they belonged to, and how it was like them to act. He said love was most important. Jesus had said that those who belonged to Him would be known by their love for one another and Paul was reminding the church of what that kind of love looks like. He says, love is not self-seeking, “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV) When we get scared or are provoked or we are feeling vulnerable, sometimes we forget who are and Who we belong to and we go back to self preservation mode. We act like Ralph, taking advantage of and harming the sheep. It is in our human nature to look for weakness, whether we realize it or not. It is innate in us, we can spot vulnerability it from a distance. It is what we do with our strength when we discover a weakness in someone else, that reveals our identity… are we going to be a “Ralph” or a “Sam”? Predator or Protector? Child of the Devil or Child of God?

Hang in there people! God is always glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!