The Battle of Najaf
(05-14) 13:59 PDT NAJAF, Iraq (AP) --
American tanks firing shells and heavy machine guns made their deepest incursion yet Friday into this stronghold of a radical cleric. Apparent gunfire slightly damaged one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines, prompting calls for revenge and even suicide attacks.
What a horrible mistake! Of course there is no doubt that the Empire can crush the resistance fighters in the various "rebel" areas of Iraq, that is not really the point. The reason this is a mistake is that it will probably incite even more virulent hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, if that is even possible at this point. Once you get to a certain level of loathing and disgust and desire for bloody vengeance anything else added on is really hard to detect.
Pray for peace, only God can save us now.
Making a choice (Acts 1)
How does the Lord guide us in making choices in life? For the most part we know what is right and what is wrong, I'm not speaking of that sort of choice. For choices of right and wrong we have the Word of God to teach us, and our own conscience that is given to us by God will guide us. For us to know what the Word of God teaches on issues of moral choice requires that we are so steeped in the Word that it permeates our every thought. We reach this point by constant reading, hearing and studying of the Word of God.
I realize that there are some places where honest people may disagree on the meaning of the scriptures, but for the most part they are quite clear. In fact if we simply follow
the commandment of Jesus in John 15 to love one another, we will be certain to follow the right moral path always.
But that is not the sort of choice I'm speaking of right now. What of those choices that are not moral choices but ones of direction only? Well, naturally the thing to do is to pray isn't it?
Yes, we do pray for guidance. But sometimes we seem unable to discern a clear signal from the Holy Spirit among all of our chattering thoughts and concerns. So what do we do then?
What I do is to stop everything and sit quietly in prayer, followed by a period of silent meditation, perhaps simply following my breath for a time and listening for the still small voice that the Holy Spirit so frequently uses. Most of the time when I do this that voice becomes audible to my inner spirit and the choice becomes clear. Sometimes there is an element of the law of love that enters into the decision that I had not discerned before prayer and meditation. The Lord always reveals that if we ask Him to.
But what if we have done everything we can think of already? What if the Word says nothing about our choice, the law of love says nothing about it and we don't get a clear message from the Holy Spirit when we pray?
That is where
Acts 1:12-26 comes in! When the apostles were choosing a replacement for Judas after the ascension of our Lord Jesus, they selected two men who had been with them for the entire time of Jesus' ministry on earth. Clearly both were qualified and both were equally suited for the ministry as far as the apostles could determine. So they prayed. But God didn't speak to them and say "Choose Matthias." Instead they "cast lots" and God guided that cast and chose Matthias.
Now using a game of chance to make an important decision might seem pretty silly, but it is there in many places in the bible, so I suppose it's legitimate. I don't imagine the opportunity to use such a method would arise very often. Most of the time God will speak to us in one of the more traditional ways. Yet if there is some choice we want to make and can't come up with any other way of making the choice, then I know that God would be willing to guide the lots if done in a prayerful manner.
So, I guess I'll flip a coin to decide if I'll have chicken or beef for dinner tonight. Actually no. Using such a method for a trivial choice of preference would not be appropriate. Only for something of some real import would this sort of thing be proper. Using it that way would be to trivialize a method of last resort and so lessen our faith in it. This is how I see it anyway, but I could be wrong, it has happened before. :-)