Tag: faith

The Haitian People Need Us

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For 40 years I have been involved with Haiti and its wonderful people who have tried their best to overcome burdens placed on them by foreign governments and their own dictators. Some have been lucky enough to escape the hardship and violence 

I am saddened and angry that Haitian people are vilified by leaders of our own nation.

Certainly, the immigration system needs reforming but what is not needed are racist innuendos, rumors, and lies. The Haitian people are our neighbors, friends, brothers, and sisters in faith. How can we treat them so badly? Christian leaders need to speak out against those who would speak racist tropes against our friends. In what scenario would Jesus ever side with racism of such magnitude?  Below is the impact of such vitriol on the Springfield Community.

“Their community is reeling — confused, frustrated, hurt — from false accusations that they are eating their neighbor’s cats and dogs. The now viral and highly politicized rumors are being fueled by former President Donald Trump, his running mate JD Vance,  and others, and violent threats against the community are upending daily life in their city.

“Jesus is with us in truth, and the truth is that Haitians are not eating pets and geese in Springfield,” said the Rev. Carl Ruby, preaching at Central Christian Church. He invited community members to join his congregation in prayer and peaceful protest of the false rumors leveled against their Haitian neighbors.” -Associated Press Release.

Our leaders are turning us against each other in the name of political expediency. 

Why are so many Haitian people coming to Springfield, Ohio? Not long ago the population was dwindling until some companies moved into the area. There was a workforce shortage and word was passed on to Haitians in various communities in the U.S. They came here to work and worship within the communities. And more money is being given to Springfield to help with any effects of a population increase.

Here’s what one pastor said, “We are united. It is time for good to stand for good,” she said. “This time the city of Springfield, Haitian people, asked the Lord to stay together to fight for good … America is a great loving country, and American people care for people – it doesn’t matter if they are Haitian. We’re against lies.”

My wife and I have supported a young woman in Port-au-Prince Haiti who is training to be a nurse. We have helped her apply for a visa to come here because every day she lives in fear of violence. Now she has reason to fear that our country won’t accept her. Please don’t let our country be such a place.

I am saddened to live in such a good nation where lies and racism are endangering people who have come here looking for a better, safer life. So please stand up for those who have been mistreated by unjust people.

Please, dear God, forgive me and us for the attitudes that have driven our nation to such a divide.

Ways to help: 

  1. Contact your state representatives on behalf of the Haitian people.
  2. Contact churches in Springfield to show your support.
  3. Fly a Haitian flag at your house
  4. Pray for God’s peace in our country
  5. Contact local churches near you that support Haiti missions.
  6. Send this blog to others
  7. Express your support through comments on the blog
  8. Yes, support better immigration policies
  9. Go online to look for ways to help Haitian immigrants 
  10. Read comments from Ohio governor https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gop-gov-dewine-defends-haitian-immigrants-springfield-work/story?id=113690058
  11. Get to know Haitian neighbors

THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS

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Amidst all the rules, regulations, doctrines, and religions there is only ONE thing that matters. Paul calls our attention to it in his letter to the Galatians. Paul is writing to people who are coming to faith and in chapter 5:6 he writes THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS FAITH EXPRESSED IN LOVE. That’s it. The best definition of love I have encountered is ‘acting intentionally for the well-being of another’  That’s it. Any questions?

COVID AND ME

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Finally, I got the bug, the disease, the germ. It was a couple of days ago and it wasn’t pretty. But I’m better, thankfully. 

I don’t think God had anything to do with my getting Covid. It’s about a lot of complicated stuff in the world contributing to the original outbreak, and subsequent deaths, but none of that is God’s doing. God wants what’s best for us, not suffering or evil. God doesn’t do Covid or Cancer. Look at Jesus. Jesus did what the Father was doing… loving, forgiving, and giving health and wholeness. 

God does everything God can do through his influence, love, wisdom, and grace to effect change and bring about goodness. Last Sunday I was preaching about Romans 8:28 where Paul writes that God is working all things to the good with those who are called according to his purpose. That means that God is partnering with his creation to bring healing. 

Good doctors, good medicines, loving people, and wise scientists all are helping in this endeavor and in every situation of ill health, evil, and sufferings too numerous to name. There might be blame for Covid but none of it rests with God. 

Here’s what helped me on my path toward better health. First, my wife. I came home from an errand during which I had masked because I thought I had the flu and wanted to be kind and not infect others. But when I walked in the door of my house that day I started to cry. I felt so poorly. I sat down with Gigi and she prayed for me. She asked God to help me leave my burdens with God so as not to be weighed down and feel so down. She prayed for healing. And I felt the love. God’s love in her was now connecting with my soul and my spirit was lifted. And then I started hearing from my children and even one of my grandchildren called me to wish me well.

Then she went and got me Paxlovid from my good pharmacist. She forbade me to do any chores, and I heartily agreed. And then people from my church wrote saying they hurt with me and were praying for me. That’s love, the greatest power on earth. And it comes from God. And even if I didn’t feel better I am more than grateful for the love and partnering with God, church folks, my wife, and family. And I am thankful for advances in medicines and vaccines influenced by God’s grace in this world. 

One more thing. I have learned that when I hurt, God hurts with me. God is in me as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To them belongs the glory. Amen

NEVER APART FROM OUR HEAVENLY FATHER

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My wife loves to sit at our kitchen table and watch the birds bathe, eat, feed their young, and flit from tree to bush to the sky as they delight in their lives. And sometimes they have been observed ‘meeting their maker’.

It put me in mind of words from Jesus to the disciples as he assured them of God’s care for each of their lives:

“29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Matthew 10 (ESV)

The point is that God does not send these little creatures spiraling to the earth any more than he purposely would send us into harm’s way. Rather, we are told time and time again as the old song goes, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” God is in all the details, circumstances, coincidences, joys, and sorrows of our lives.

We are NEVER outside of God’s loving care. As the Apostle Paul once said, ‘In Him, we live and move and have our being.’ Acts 17 When you or I see suffering in this life and care so deeply about what happens to soldiers in war, shooting victims and their families, helpless children, the sick, the homeless … please know that our Father cares more than we do and his heart breaks more than ours. And God will act, is acting, through any possible means, to bring his love to bear in the form of healing, justice, and redemption.

In the meantime, we wait and keep faith knowing that there is not a moment when we are outside the life and love of our heavenly Father. That truth revealed through the Bible gives us the mission to live this life as the agents, the missionaries of God’s love to a hurting world until the Kingdom comes in all its fullness. 

THINKING ABOUT DEATH

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Now that I’m in my mid-seventies I’m thinking more about my own death. I used to say, “When I die I’m really going to miss myself.” Not so funny anymore. I’m actually troubled by death. I sometimes find myself in the ‘dark night of the soul’, to use a phrase from St. John of the Cross (ancient guy now dead). 

If I don’t write these thoughts down I fear they will haunt me. Two months ago my brother died. Then several friends. And many obituaries I read list more people my age and younger. My body parts are aging and need more attention. Doctor visits are becoming a part-time job. My wife tells me I need a hobby that takes me out of my head, whatever that means. 

Faith? Yes, I have faith in God. I trust Jesus whose own death surely weighed heavily upon him at times. I read the Psalms that often begin with complaints about being forgotten by God but end on a more thankful note for God’s providence. Perhaps I have yet to embrace an acceptance ‘with joy’ that enabled Jesus to endure the cross because he was so assured of God’s eternity.

This death preoccupation is the shadowy part of my trust in Christ. “I believe”, I say resoundingly, “but Lord please help my unbelief.” And just maybe this darkness or emptiness I am feeling is preparing my soul for God’s spirit to find a better dwelling within me.

I know God is not angry with me over my doubts. God loves me right here and right now in the depth of my despair. There is no place I can escape his gracious gaze and encouragement. Even as I write these words I am feeling some sense of peace.

I long for other Christian people to walk alongside me on this journey for in their grace and understanding comes the hope that eternity will become more real than any dread.

In Hope

George

P.s. More to come…….

MY BROTHER DIED

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On November 22, 2022, my next younger brother, Bob, died at 71. I cried. 

We grew up together two years apart in school.

We shared many sports activities together. We clammed together. We worked together farming and mowing lawns as kids.

He taught me how to find my ancestors and create a family tree going back seven generations.

He was a more avid Yankees fan than me. 

He was quieter than me, read more books than me, and remembered more movies.

Separated by almost 2000 miles we talked by phone nearly every day for the last year having grown closer through ancestry searches. We were less close before. These past ten years changed that.

We studied the Bible together when I lived closer to him.

Bob was kind, easygoing, and reluctant at displays of affection. I was grateful for the times he could say, ‘I love you.’

He was an expert chess player. I never learned. 

My brother died 59 years after the assassination of JFK. We won’t forget that date or this one.

I watched him draw his last breath and I trust Jesus that Bob is in one of those dwelling places that our Lord was preparing for him. 

It wasn’t easy to believe at that moment having watched 71 years of earthly life with its joys and sorrows ebb from him. All the memories, love, successes, and failures are gone. Perhaps.

I don’t really know. I trust Paul’s words that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord but I’m not exactly sure how, since this life is what I mostly know. Is my brother with my mom and dad? Does he know them? Maybe faith is found in the many questions and less in the answers so quickly given. 

It’s Advent now, a time of hope and waiting. I wait with tears sometimes, and laughter other times.  I look at memorable photographs and think of times when life was simpler and seemingly more joyful. Age brings troubles of many kinds. “Bound to come some trouble in your life,” is how Rich Mullins put it. Seems that thoughtful Christians know how best to grieve best. Love will do that.

Could more have been done for Bob? Or me or you? God knows. This life is fragile at best, its strength coming from God’s grace and earthly relationships. I am richer for the one I have had with him.

Someone told me that my brother would want me to be happy now. Maybe.

Bob never complained about his illness or any other troubles. Maybe he wanted to but I prefer to think that he carried the burdens well. I think he had help.

I think in some mysterious way Bob surrendered his life to bring a more meaningful life and love to those closest to him. That’s Christ’s way and Bob walked in that way silently and sometimes stoically. We all find our way. 

I will remember my brother and learn from him about living and dying. Joys and sorrows. Faults and forgiveness and then one day we won’t have to search for our ancestors. We will see them.

I hope. Cause I miss my ancestry partner. I miss my brother.

THE NARROW WAY

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Matthew 7 reads (in the NIV) ‘13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’

This is not a doctrinal statement by Jesus about who gets into heaven. That’s what I learned growing up. If you don’t accept Jesus (the narrow way) then you are destined for the fires of hell (destruction).

No, what Jesus is saying is better expressed in the MESSAGE version. ‘13-14 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.’

Jesus is inviting his disciples into the God life, the best life possible here on earth. That’s the life Jesus is talking about. And yes it requires discipline. Anything worthwhile requires putting our all into it, whether sports, music, business, marriage, or peace.

Try forgiving someone without holding on for dear life to the grace of God. And yes that grace requires our fullest attention. I think that’s why Paul at one point wrote that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because God is already at work in us. God life is the life God in Christ invites us to. It’s why God reconciled us through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Those in Jesus’ time who took life into their own hands found out about destruction at the hands of the Romans. They brought it on to themselves when they refused to follow the Messiah. We bring destruction onto ourselves, our work, our life, and even our churches when we do it our way. Jesus invites us to walk in the vigorous way of faith. And it takes a whole lot of practice along with God’s grace.

FEELING DOWN???

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On the Sunday after a parishioner had seen me taking a walk earlier in the week down one of the country roads in our village she commented, “I saw you walking with your head down and you didn’t look very cheery.” “Huh,” I thought, “so now I have to be careful where I walk lest someone see me on a bad day.”

Even pastors have down days, depressing and sad days, and even hopeless days. I believe my wife thinks I might have too many of them at this point in my life. To be ‘down’ doesn’t have to mean you’ve lost your faith. It means that sometimes our mindsets and emotions negatively impact our lives. Even the Christian life isn’t all ‘hallelujah’ and ‘victory chants’. I think of the Apostle Peter walking on water, when his common sense took over and he saw the waves and began to sink. He was feeling down about that time and his only prayer was, ‘Help me.’

Last night a friend said to me that maybe Christians need to show their weakness more so that others can see we are frail humans who still trust in the goodness of God. If Christians are so upbeat all the time maybe others will judge themselves for being less ‘victorious’ in life.

Paul the Apostle had his own weaknesses, and life sometimes got him ‘down’ but not ‘out’, as the saying goes. We can be emotionally and even psychologically ‘down’ but our will can take us forward. The grace of God can empower our ‘will’ to move when our emotions aren’t enough. Faith is knowing that it’s going to get better because Jesus went there first, before us, to suffer and identify with us.

Unlike the parishioner who looked down on me, Jesus would say, ‘Hey, George, do you mind if I walk with you a while?’ That’s what Jesus did for the guys on the road to Emmaus and over the supper they shared, Jesus reminded them that it was going to be ok.

Paul once said, ‘When I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2Cor. 12) Maybe his admission of weakness was his cry from underwater for the help he was to receive. Read the Psalms. These were honest to God people who knew how to be ‘down’ and express it,  sometimes relentlessly, on their way to hopefulness and a better day.

We need to walk with one another and encourage one another. Sometimes we even need to have faith on behalf of others whose faith is faltering, standing in for them in their weakness.

I wrote this today because I was out walking with my head down, hoping someone who knows me and that I am a Christian wouldn’t judge me. So far so good. So consider this note as me standing in for some of you today. God bless.

SADNESS FOR HAITI ….AND AMERICA

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I have been involved with Haiti for over 35 years and have become good friends with many people there, most of them brothers and sisters in Christ. Others and myself have witnessed love, faith, great works and ministry in the country and through the churches there. And now once more we have seen devastation, not from an earthquake but at our border.

Today a very good friend wrote me and I will let his words speak for themselves. There is nothing I can add that would do justice to the words that come from the heart, and the pain of this man I love like a brother. He is broken and his people are broken.

“My brother,

I gat tear when I saw what  happen to the Haitian people, I was really disappointed 

That situation remind me slavery period

Haitian are very angry, I know two Haitians who destroy their passport with American visas.

we all know ,Haitians helped America to fight  in order  to get his freedom , so we are part of America.

it’s inhuman when you hear testimony from people they send back to Haiti. 

We know that, American people are not happy with what’s happening at the border.

But , why Haitians ? 

Haitians love Haiti, they run away from Haiti because of kidnaping , killing, insecurity , violence and misery , we are not safe. ( nobody)

Haiti is one hour from America,  why America does not come to help with the gangs , insecurity and so one .

Today , I hear   Daniel Foot the  special ambassador for Haiti is resigned  because of what’ happening at the border and Haiti,

Past George, when you hear and see what is Happening in Haiti right  now is two different things. Haiti looks like hell, no body wants to stay.

Last week only at least 4 ships leave La Gonave Island.

George, 50 American  soldiers are good enough to help us with the gangs , we are at 1hre 30 minutes  from America.

Let ‘ us pray for Haiti.

God bless.”

The question for us is ‘What can and will we do?’ That is the question asked by our Lord, I believe.

I will write more but for today, let us pray for Haiti and ask wisdom for the leaders of our nation and world.

george

THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG

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I’m reading “Open and Relational Theology” by Thomas Oord in which he asks the age-old question which is the title for today. But he asks it with regard to faith and love. Which comes first? I began to think that I am no longer attracted to the Evangelical notion about faith. It’s like a formula or a barcode stamped on our hands to secure our entrance into the eternal Kingdom of God.

Oord directs our attention to Paul writing to the Galatians,

“For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love”. (Amplified Bible)5:6

When I was a young pastor an older teen told me that he had ‘backslidden’ in his faith (a term meaning that he was probably into something bad) but then he said it didn’t matter because he was ‘saved’ and once you are saved you are always saved. Now, there’s a testimony that I will preach. NOT.

The church at Corinth always had problems of pride and greed. Paul wrote to them that without love even a faith that moves mountains is of no use. (See I Cor. 13.) Isn’t that something? Who would guess that such a faith without love is useless? Anybody with an intuitive mind would. Faith is trusting God in Christ. Love is God. Some see faith as simply an assent to doctrines. Love is the expressing of God’s life in ours and in others. And yes, sometimes non-believers live love better than those of us who have the ‘correct’ belief.

In Jesus’ day, people had their lives changed because they were touched by God’s love in Christ, through healing and hearing the Good News that God’s Kingdom had arrived for them. He invites them into God’s love before they can trust him. Think how often Jesus says, ‘Go, your faith has made you well.’ His love and their acceptance gave them new life.

When Jesus met with his disciples to wash their feet he said he was giving them a new commandment: “Love one another.” (John 13:34) He said it was the same kind of love with which he loved them.

So, the chicken or the egg? In my mind they are an organic whole. They are a unity in Christ. They are like the two wings on an airplane. We can’t trust or live without both of them together. But I will say this: The virtue of love expresses a whole lot more in this creation than believing. Sometimes I have to believe and trust in order to have love. But love is the thing.

When I go to a doctor my first concern is not if they are a Christian. Rather I want to know that this person is skilled in the art of medicine and care. All their hard work finds it’s greatest expression in love (deeds of love). Thankfully I have a doctor who has connected both. Or consider marriage. I believe in the covenant. I believe in my wife. But if I don’t love her with more than words, then I’m ‘toast’.

Finally, it’s rather easy to declare faith or belief. Love is the thing. We can’t counterfeit it. It’s relational and it changes the world.

If anyone is interested in reading the book I mentioned, it’s “Open and Relational Theology” subtitled ‘an introduction to life-changing ideas’ by Dr. Thomas Jay Oord published in 2021