2014 Topps Gypsy Queen - Framed White #185
Looking out my window you can also say that it is "framed white", but with a lot more speckled white inside of it.
So I live in Iowa and once every four years, people in the USA(ok, really it only Washington D.C.) seem to care about whats going on in Iowa. Politicians do and say everything they can to make us think that they care. To be fair, I think that there are several that do care. But now that the caucuses are done, they leave and go on to the next state and Iowa is mainly just a faint memory to most of the candidates, I'm cool with that. Iowans are a people that band together when things get tough. We don't throw out a lot of blame and when disaster strikes, we band together and help rebuild, usually without any national attention. As for me, I keep a watchful eye on what's going on in the political field, but don't let it rule my life. It wasn't always like that. I used to have to keep my eye on the national news and watch or listen to certain interpreters of the new. Yes, I said interpreters. If you have read my last couple of post, I am a follower of Christ. Am I always the shining example I should be? No. But I thank God that he is chipping away everything that doesn't look like Him more and more everyday. So the balance between politics and my relationship with God is something that I have struggled with. Mainly because I use to think God took a passive roll in politics and it frustrated me. Why were people that appeared to me to be very ungodly and against Yahweh getting into power all over the world. A couple of years ago I made the decision that God wasn't passive, but very active, but we weren't able to understand why he was doing what he was doing. We had to just live by faith, but recently I started reading through Daniel and I think God has revealed a couple of things to me with the help of some very studied scholars. In the first 2 verses of Daniel it states "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. The Lord handed Jehoiakim king of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels from the house of God. Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Babylon, to the house of his god, and put the vessels in the treasury of his god." There are three points that I have taken out of these verses that has changed a lot how I look about how God works. 1st it states that the Lord handed Jehoiakim to Babylon. Meaning that it wasn't that Babylon won the battle, God gave Israel to them. There are also other numerous verses that state that kings and rulers are put into the positions they have by God. So first thing I take from this is that God is in control of who's in control. That is both a scary and comforting thought, 2nd thing, why is God doing this to his chosen people and not laying judgement down on Babylon? Simply, God disciplines and redirects His own children, before destroying the enemies of His children. Babylon was destroyed, but much later. Israel had fallen so far away from Him, that he needed to discipline and redirect them back to Him. God states very clearly in scripture that God will put his children trough times of trials and discipline us. It is one of the ways to know that we are His, 3rd thing I got from the passage is about how Nebuchadnezzar took some of the items from the temple, but most of it was destroyed. What I get from this is, God will preserve that which hasn't fully fulfilled God's purposes. We read in Ezra that the current king gave those items back to Israel to put back into the new temple. Which makes me not hold on to things to tightly and treasure what God has entrusted me with.
I think if Christians understood these 3 principles:
1. God is in control of who's in control
2. God disciplines and redirects His children, before destroying His children's enemies
3. God will preserve that which hasn't fully fulfilled His purposes
it will change their perspective about the life that God has given them. The ultimate question is are we as Christians comforted by the understanding that we are under the rule of a fully Sovereign God? It will change how we look at everything: Politics, education, occupation, and basically life in general.
I said in the last post that I don't consider myself lucky any more, but blessed. God is showing me that more and more everyday. Luck had nothing to do with where I am today. But it is late and I need to get up early tomorrow shovel the blizzard away from my sidewalks. I am hoping that someone will snow blow them for me. We'll see if God chooses to blessed me in that way. If not, oh well, God is still very good. But for now it's late and this guy is ready for bed. Good Night!
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