Prayer… This is one thing that we as youth can not place too much importance upon. Prayer is the line of communication between our Father in Heaven and us that cannot be broken without forfeiting our eternal wellbeing. It is very important that we keep this line open between our Father and us. We must not only keep the line in working condition but also keep the cables sizzling. So hot that they cannot be touched by the enemy, Satan. This is what Paul meant when he said, “Pray without ceasing.” Now, speaking in a practical sense, how is this possible? Hardly giving us time to be confounded by him, he says, “Quench not the Spirit.” There is the answer to our question; when the spirit of Christ is dwelling within us, we are constantly in communication with Him – whether it is consciously or unconsciously. While the flag is flying high from the castle of our heart to show that the king is in residence there, nothing can cool the circuit.
“As children of our heavenly Father, we have been given the immeasurable privilege of coming into His holy presence with our praises and petitions. Sadly many Christians do not value or understand what an amazing opportunity they have…” – HW Magazine
Yes, sadly many do not. Many people look at prayer as a sort of religious exercise; they do not realize what an opportunity they are missing. Prayer is an undevoidable privilege given freely to all… but unaccepted by many.
As youth we need to spend time with God, we need to have a time of strengthening and sharpening of our character. While we are building our life is when we need to seek God in prayer. He has much in store for us in His heavenly warehouses, and what is holding us back from receiving them? We only need to ask and we shall receive. God wants us to spend time with Him, to spend time seeking His face.
Christ said, “Pray lest ye enter into temptation.” He knew the importance that prayer has for our wellbeing. For Christ, prayer was an actual communication with His Father in Heaven. It wasn’t one of those mechanically memorized prayers that we spit out thoughtlessly so many times. He wanted to gain audience with His Father. This is the same thing that God wants of us; He wants us to speak with Him, to tell Him our problems, to unload our burdens at His feet, to praise Him in all circumstances, to build faith in Him, to daily lay ourselves down at His feet. God wants to work with us as a father beside his son. He wants to have a relationship with us, yes, one like He had with Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David. We have an eternity of learning ahead of us. We are only preparing for it in this short breath of life, but God wants to give us a foretaste of His wonderful plan for eternity!
Prayer is an undevoidable privilege given freely to all… but unaccepted by many.
The question is asked, “How can we maintain the balance between ‘praying in faith’ and asking, ‘not my will, but Thine be done’?” But really, there ought not to be a separation. Saying, “not my will, but Thine be done” is the only way we can pray in faith. Any other way is not trusting God, which is what faith is all about. Simply because our prayers are not answered the way we would have liked them to be does not mean that our prayer was not or is not going to be answered at all. When Christ said, “Not my will, but Thine be done,” He displayed the greatest faith known to mankind. He trusted His body and soul into the hands of God.
Many people view faith through rather fatalistically tinted glasses. “If only I had faith… I could… move mountains, I could…” but lets stop here for a moment and take a second look. We can have faith and we can move mountains, but moving the Rocky Mountains to the east coast would hardly be helpful to God! Instead, the mountains which we have to move today are not physical ones, but rather they are mountains in our lives, trials and difficulties, that can be moved by faith. All we must do is trust God, to say, “Not my will but Thine be done.” Yes, we can start moving mountains right now; or rather we can start trusting God to move the mountains for us.
When we face physical situations that are testing our faith we need to trust God’s will. We don’t need to try moving the mountains, or healing the sick, for we cannot. There has never been anybody who has, no, not even Christ! Christ Himself said, “I can of mine own self do nothing!” which was a result of His life purpose, “I came… not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” Our Father is the one who can and does according to His selfless will. When we ask of the Lord, we must keep in mind that He knows what is best and even if He does not answer us in the way we think, He has something better for us in mind. When Job—spotless before the Lord—was going through the testing and trying of his faith, he trusted God, and was willing to place his entire life into the hands of God, thus completely defeating Satan’s wicked plan. Yes, faith has conquered the world and the prince thereof—Satan—at the cross. (Please Note: I do not mean to bring Christ down by saying this. I mean to magnify Faith. Christ lived and breathed His Father, we need to do the same.)
Satan knows that once he destroys our line of communication with God, we are helpless. This is the first thing that he tries to destroy—our relationship with God. This is his entire goal for mankind; he wants us to misunderstand God. He wants us to get an unclear picture; in fact he doesn’t want us to get one at all. If he can break our spiritual relationship with God, he has gotten a strong foothold on our heart. There he can then instill fear, fear that cannot be there when we have a trusting relationship with our Father in Heaven. Is it possible to have trust or faith without prayer?
Through prayer faith has its beginning, without prayer we cannot have faith, without prayer it is absolutely impossible to have faith! Without faith we cannot have a trusting relationship with God. Unless we take the time to get to know God personally we will have trouble believing His words. For after all, why would you believe somebody that you don’t even know? I read somewhere about a bumper sticker which said, “God isn’t dead; I just talked to Him this morning!” That is the kind of relationship we need to maintain with God. We need to know Him personally.
A couple days ago, Deborah a reader of Oneway Purpose asked me:
I was wondering what your thoughts were on the border issue in the USA, and if and what you think would be the best course of action.
Thanks for asking Deborah, I’m going to introduce my brother, Isaac Boskovic of Principle Thing and together we’ll take a shot at your answer. Isaac is actively involved in commerce and trade, and is adeptly aware of the deeper things behind border-security.
Isaac, tell us, how much does border security really mean to a country?
Well, after that introduction, I’d better have something good to say. I’m assuming that the question was asked more specifically about Canada – U.S. border issues, and probably entails trade issues as well, but I’ll start by dealing with border security.
There are two things which will forever be at odds with each other in terms of domestic policy—freedom and security. Security will always come at a cost to some freedom, somewhere. The important issue—in Canada and the United States—is that we bear in mind that we are defending freedom, not security.
If at any time we begin to promote security as the principal issue for society, then the only thing that has happened is that we have become that which we are fighting against. We start out trying to protect our freedom against terrorist threats and attacks, and end up sacrificing freedom for the sake of security. This may not necessarily be a planned agenda, but it is simply a pitfall to beware of when considering where to apply security in defending freedom.
The borders of a country are the property lines, and every country has the right to secure its borders. If we are truly defending the freedom of citizens within the country, then the place to apply security checkpoints is at the borders, not on your street. The simple freedom of being able to cross the border incognito is what is being sacrificed for security, and freedom within those borders is to be maintained, and I believe that is an indication that the security priorities are—at least in this case—in the right place.
Passports are now requested/required to cross the Canada—U.S. border, both for Canadian and American citizens. It is a visible, noticeable measure of security, and a visible, noticeable removal of the level of freedom our border-crossing once was. If it becomes necessary to escalate security for the preservation of freedom, that is the appropriate place. And notice that I said ‘necessary’, because it is important that we establish security only to the degree appropriate, and sacrifice freedom only to the absolute necessities.
However, as I said before, the nasty draw of degradation requires a warning that too often we become that which we fight against. What we need to be doing, and not just think we are doing, is to simply preserve freedom, and be discerning as to what really are the threats to our freedom, rather than fight against every foreign threat to our security.
Far more insidious, and far more sinister than requiring passports at the border, would be a plan to create borderless borders. (As has been done in the European Union) Such an arrangement would remove the place and possibility of establishing security without sacrificing freedom. Indeed, the only way to have security would then be to remove citizen freedom. There would need to be security in the towns, cities, buildings, streets, and country backwoods in order to have ‘freedom’ at the border. Therefore, it is obvious that in order to maintain freedom and security in the country, the established border can not be diminished, but rather strengthened.
Thanks Isaac, you’ve captured the issue and frisked it better than I could have done. Tell me, what spiritual parallels are there here to take notice of and apply to the Christian Life?
Did you ever hear people say that having standards of what we wear, what we do, where we go, etc. is ‘keeping you in bondage’? I mean, how can you be free when you have all those rules!?
The truth is that those rules and borders, those standards and principles, are there for the preservation of our Christian freedom. Without them, there are only two things that will happen: The world will come in until all allegiance to our Lord is displaced, or, great security and scrutiny will be required on every street corner of our life, so removing either our Christianity or our Christian freedom. The borders! Those standards are our security for the preservation of our freedom, and for the preservation of our faith!
That is so true, setting principles and sticking to them and guarding them well will save us a lot of trouble. It’s so much easier to nab a criminal when he’s going through the gate than when we have to call in the FBI to track him down inside the walls.
And another important fact I’d like to add: Our borders will not get rusty, in fact we need to have them well guarded at all times. Satan constantly tries to penetrate those walls with every possible means, sometimes through individual agents who aim to sneak past the guards, sometimes through open assault. We however can withstand every one of these attacks, because, after all…
We have Air Support.
Isaac, thanks so much for joining me today on this critical issue. It’s been a pleasure to have you as a guest and I believe the readers of Oneway Purpose will be greatly benefited by your insight.
Thanks David, you’re welcome of course. Having touched upon border security issues this morning, I’ll have to leave the next part until later, which will be ‘cross-border trade’. See you then.
After hearing the story of Shackleton and his crew afresh recently, and realizing but yet unable to understand the hardships they endured, the trust the crew had in Shackelton, the months of waiting, the pain of watching their ship get crushed into the ice, the winter spent in the bitter Antarctic weather, the herioc effort of escape, the failure, the penguin diet, the months of waiting in suspense while Shackleton and a few of his men sailed 800 miles over open seas to South Georgia Island, the hurricane experienced at sea, the final beaching—on the wrong side of the island, Shackelton and one of his men hiking around 35 miles over mountains and ice and deep snow in 36 hours, reaching the whaling station, the final rescue of those waiting on the other side of the Island and the 20 men on Elephant Island 22 months since they had seen any outside life, the loss of not one man… a story of courage… and patience.
It’s the refusal to give up, the courage and the will to live that we need to focus on. Even though the era of heroic exploration has concluded, there is something that we can draw and learn from this thrilling story. Something that can reflect into our lives and mean something to us personally. It is courage. Courage is needed as much when the sea is calm and the sails are slack and we are ashore on some deserted island as in the height of a storm. Courage and patience go hand in hand—if there is no patience then courage is weak. We must be willing to wait… willing to stand still… willing to have courage even when things all seem to go wrong. We have a captain to trust, we have a commander we can rely upon. Does it seem like the wind has stopped? Are the sails slack? Keep your ship waterworthy, friends. Keep the sails in repair.
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What flattering. Every time I see a comment like that, I know what’s coming next. You got it right, a string of links to sites participating in advertising through Socially Proactive AntiMatter.
But the fact is, there’s nothing to it. But is it just spammers that do it?
On June 7, 1996 the following headline appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, “What a tangled web we weave; we ALL practice to deceive.” The article beneath said that 91% of Americans confess that they regularly don’t tell the truth. And a full 20% admitted that they can’t get through the day without telling conscious, premeditated white lies. The report suggests that, “...as a society, we have moved very far away from the age when a man’s word was his bond….to a society in which people are more accepting than ever before of exaggerations, falsifications, fabrications, misstatements, misrepresentations, gloss-overs, quibbles, concoctions, equivocations, shuffles, prevarications, trims and truth colored and varnished.”
You know, there was a time when each man was held to his word. Your word was as good as your signature. Now, even a signature may not mean anything. Where has “My Word of Honor” gone?
Be on your guard, you’re likely to get lied to many times today, the media, the corporations, the advertising companies, you can’t escape it. Face it with a critical eye. Let’s not become part of the society that is “more accepting than ever before of exaggerations, falsifications, fabrications, misstatements, misrepresentations, gloss-overs, quibbles, concoctions, equivocations, shuffles, prevarications, trims and truth colored and varnished.”
What is God’s will for my life? This is a question we should all ask, a question we should all want an answer to. What… who… when… where… the unknowns. And it’s that aspect of the indefinite that provides our lives with another special and exciting dimension. It’s an opening for trust. It’s the explanation of faith. It unfastens an opportunity for reveling in God’s revealed will, and anticipating the road… beyond the bend.
What does it really mean to desire God’s will above all else in our lives? In answer to this question I go back to what desiring God’s will really means in its essence. Before we can truly desire to know God’s will, we must abandon our own selves in faith. The essence of ‘desiring God’s will’ is ‘trusting Him’, regardless of what he reveals. For what would His will mean to us if he were one that we would doubt? Without trust, God’s will would mean absolutely nothing, because… the evidence of it is not seen. Sometimes I start imagining to myself how it would be if there were some cut and dried way of discovering God’s will. Some way that could be mapped out and given to everybody to follow. Some way where there would not be any questions, some way where we knew God’s will for our lives from the start. Something… that would make us all just as the Israelites again.
And that very facet was something I was observing the other evening. “The Israelites had everything they could ask for. They lived under the physical shadow of God. God dwelt with them physically. They had every evidence; they had every proof they needed, and yet they doubted God.” Until now it was something I simply couldn’t comprehend. They were given the privilege of witnessing God in tangible reality. They heard him, they felt him, and they took him for granted. “How could they?!” But the answer lies in one single statement. They had no faith. For faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb 11:1) Regardless of whether we can see God or not, regardless of whether we know… how could we ever believe Him without placing our trust in Him? Why would we even be here today, desiring to know His will?
To truly desire God’s will, culminates in one word: trust. And then there are the two aspects of it… trusting to ask, and trusting the answer. And this is what the topic is, ‘knowing God’s will’. We all know how to ask questions. But when we ask them of God, we really desire an answer—or we should. But one thing that I have too often found myself doing, is putting my own stipulations and expectations on the answer. Most of us wouldn’t do that consciously, but are we asking God the question in total trust, willing to accept the answer, whatever it is? Asking God can only be done when we truly are ready to trust any answer He may give us. But this is where we all have questions. How can we be sure it is God speaking? I’ll be totally honest with you. I really am looking forwards to hearing what those who have more experience listening to His answers have to say. I have never experienced God’s voice more than once in the same way. Therefore I could not say, do this, do that, and get the answer. But an interesting excerpt from an article by Winkie Pratney fits here very well. Let me share it with you.
God has three answers in guidance – (1)”Yes” (2) “No” and (3) “Wait”. We cannot have a demanding attitude towards God. Sometimes there must be delays. Our lives are bound up with others, and many times God has to wait until they are ready (or until we are), before giving us the go-ahead. “Wait” is the most difficult of all answers, but sometimes it’s the most necessary. Here is the test of a love-slave. (Psalm 62:1,5, 33:20, 25:5, 27:14, 40:1, 130:5, 37:7; Isaiah 40:31, 49:23; Hosea 12:6; 1 Chron.28:9)
Reading this excerpt reminded me immediately of my parent’s testimony of God leading them together. The story… well, whoever decides to embark on listening to it is in for a late night—if you get what I mean. In other words, it really won’t fit on this page. But the Yes, No, and Wait were very real answers in that story. I know a lot of you will probably want to hear it now that I mentioned it, since this is a subject that we all face at one time or another, but for now I’ll just say this. “Wait can be the most difficult of all answers. But yet it can also be one of the most rewarding! Amen!”
But wait is only that if we are asked to wait. When we are delivered the command to move ahead, to step forwards, to do, to act, we cannot stand idle. This excerpt from a sermon by Charles Spurgeon strikes the question in a way that can only be done by such a man.
His will is done in heaven instantly, and without hesitation. We, I fear, are given to delays. We plead that we must look the thing round about. “Second thoughts are best,” we say, whereas the first thoughts of eager love are the prime production of our being. I would that we were obedient at all hazard, for therein lies the truest safety. Oh, to do what God bids us, as God bids us, on the spot, and at the moment! It is not ours to debate, but to perform. Let us dedicate ourselves as perfectly as Esther consecrated herself when she espoused the cause of her people, and said, “If I perish, I perish.” We must not consult with flesh and blood, or make a reserve for our own selfishness, but at once most vigorously follow the divine command.
Trust, obedience, action… this sums up the core of the topic. May we stand on our path, ready for instruction, ready to obey, ready to wait, ready to be, and ready to act. May we stand before our Lord without baggage, without terms, fully open to his guidance. Above all, may His will be done in our life… as it is in heaven.
Let us pray the Lord that we may do His will on earth as it is done in heaven; that is, joyfully, without the slightest weariness. When our hearts are right, it is a glad thing to serve God, though it be only to unloose the latchets of our Master’s shoes. To be employed by Jesus in service which will bring us no repute, but much reproach, should be our delight. If we were altogether as we should be, sorrow for Christ’s sake would be joy: ay, we should have joy right along, in dark nights as well as in bright days. Even as they are glad in heaven, with a felicity born of the presence of the Lord, so should we be glad, and find our strength in the joy of the Lord.—C. H. Spurgeon
The other day I stepped into the washroom where my younger sister had been occupied with cleaning out the cupboard. On the counter was a pile of old medicine bottles, toothbrushes, coins, lids, containers, and floss that looked like as old as I am. One dropper bottle caught my attention.
On it was my name. I haven’t had a prescription since I can remember, let alone been to the doctor on my account. I turned it around. Yes, there was the name of the doctor who had delivered me. It was a bottle of eye drops—17 years old.
It was pretty full, so I obviously hadn’t needed much. But I stood there for a little while… thinking. A comparison slowly curled itself into my mind, and then settled into a back corner to stay.
Would that prescription mean anything to me now? If I had an eye problem, could I pick that bottle up and use it, and would it work? Not likely.
What about in my spiritual life? Would the prescriptions the Lord gave me 5 years ago still work today? How about 1 year ago? Three days ago? Or should I be looking for old prescriptions at all?
When we experience God, we know that what he gave us works. But when we are in need again, do we go looking for the old bottle? Do we shake it upside down for another drop? Or do we set our eyes straight ahead of us, on our Savior, and ask Him, “Lord, I need YOU.”
I’ve seen it happen in other’s lives. I’ve felt the temptation myself. To look behind us for an answer is all too easy. It’s almost reasonable. It worked last time, why not now?
What we forget is that in our lives, it was not the prescription that healed us.
It was the Physician.
May we keep our focus ahead. May we not step back. Let us devote our heart, mind, soul, and body to our Creator. Let us find our life in Him.
There’s something particularly fulfilling in pulling up a weed by the roots. Standing there—or in some cases, after a quick depose to our seats, we may be found sitting—with the weed in hand, the root system dangling disappointedly at the bottom, there is a certain exhilaration that fills us. Even though it’s only nothing more than a simple weed, it pleases us to have at last removed it in a way we can be sure it will not appear again.
Then after many hours of work—depending on the size of our plot—we can stand back with an air of achievement and look at the garden, now free from unwanted plants, and they which remain stand free and strong, uninhibited by any others which needlessly drain the soil of its nutrients. With a flush of thankfulness our crops express their gratitude, and turn to the task of growing and bearing fruit.
For the most part, the task can be enjoyable. For the most part, the task can be appreciated. But there is a part that none of us appreciate. It is when somebody else comes along and stands there, pointing out weeds that we have missed, spots we have left, or plants we have broken, that we begin to feel inclined to respond slightly conceitedly. “I’ve been gardening for over ** years, do you think I didn’t see those weeds?!” “Get out of my hair and go look at your own garden! Your strawberry patch is full of weeds.” “I left that spot there on purpose, the weeds are too hard to get out, and there’s really nothing growing there anyways.” “So! That plant was spindly anyways; I’m allowed to pull out a couple in a garden this big.” So we reason on, missing the opportunity to make our garden even better yet. But do we respond any differently when the Lord reaches down his hand and taps us on the shoulder. “Do you see that weed there? It needs to come out, child.” “But God! I’ve already tried to do that half a dozen times and it just won’t come out.” “Would you like some help?” Ah… would we like some help? We at times feel dependant enough on our own few abilities to want be able to manage our own garden. We feel like responding and asking God if we can’t try it later after we’ve done the rest of the garden. Later, when we can try it again on our own.
Oh, how we tend to feel capable. All humanity has the bent to resist the offers of God, to resist his offers to wrap his hand around ours. “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Who, oh man, are you, that you should reject the offers of greater strength? Nay, but that we may reach up and clasp his hands. That we may say, “Father, thy grace is sufficient for me. Your strength, not mine, will conquer.” Our strength will fail; our resolves will not stand. Only in the strength of Him who has born us again, of Him who hath made us heirs in His kingdom, can we expect to find strength, to find victory, to find safety.
The same atmosphere that nourishes our garden, the same rain that encourages the plants, the same wind the cools the earth, also brings with it more seeds, also nourishes more weeds. As long as our garden is on this earth, new seeds will fly in and take root. It takes work to keep our garden weed-free, it takes daily attention. And not only to the weeds, but also to our plants. Crops cannot survive without water, and in time of drought begin to shrivel, wilt, and die. But the weeds seem to stand up to any condition. They seem to thrive as well in the dry as in the wet. They are so much harder to uproot. In this condition, our garden suffers the greatest. But why do we find it necessary to leave them to dry? Why do we resign ourselves to despair? The river of life flows nearby. What must we do but go and dip in our pails and irrigate our suffering fruit.
Daily, continually, incessantly, we must water our garden. We must walk to the cool shade of the river, and draw from the flowing water. Draw for our garden, drink for ourselves. Daily we must meet with God, in tryst, to strengthen our souls, to obtain water for our thirsty plants—Existing off His word, hydrating from the living waters. Or as John Piper said, “Inhaling word, exhaling prayer.—This is the Christian life”
There’s a sacred and hallowed retreat,
Where my soul finds a fellowship sweet,
Where the Lord of my life I may meet,
In the garden of my heart.
In the cool of the day He walks with me,
In the rose bordered way He talks with me;
In love’s holy union,
And sacred communion,
In the garden of my heart.
There is naught can disturb or molest,
There my spirit finds comfort and rest,
And my soul is no longer distressed
In the garden of my heart.
Shut away from earth’s strife and its din,
And protected from soul staining sin,
For my Savior is dwelling within,
In the garden of my heart.
There the dove of sweet peace always sings,
And my faith ever trustingly clings;
And the chime of sweet happiness rings
In the garden of my heart.
I wrote this a few months ago for a magazine, and came across it in my archives today. Hope you enjoy it.
Lately the question has been incessantly nagging me, “What can I do to have a fulfilling teenage life?” I think it’s something that we all desire and seek after, something that stems from our heart and the yearning to do, to act, to accomplish something for God. Time seems to slip away from our hands in a manic effort to escape us. But yet the sun still rises and sets as it has since creation, day follows day, week follows week, month follows month, and naught of my aspirations have become transpirations; this results in a review of what fulfillment really means to me, of where true satisfaction lies, and of which aspect of life does the task of “completing”. Does fulfillment lie in the achieving of goals? Does accomplishment reside in the doing of things? Is triumph born from an act of valor? Do any of the things I wanted to do, to do for God, when accomplished fulfill? Or when they transpire do they all of a sudden lose the dreamed of luster and become just ordinary, real things?
The quest remains… what is it? What? Oh, I know full well what it is. Did I ever really lose touch of what makes life meaningful? Life only consists of the now. It’s the very moment; it’s today that makes life mean something. Dreams of the future fizzle away and disappear, plans can be thwarted, and goals can be interrupted. The past is gone by, the future is not promised, but the day is ours. – a poem that somebody shared in another magazine applied to my struggle so well and encouraged me so much that I’ll quote it here.
Here hath been dawning another blue day:
Think wilt thou let it slip useless away?
Out of eternity this new day was born.
Into eternity, at night will return.
Behold it aforetime no eye ever did;
So soon it forever from all eyes has hid.
Here hath been dawning another blue day:
Think: wilt thou let it slip useless away?—Unknown
My natural tendency to make dreams and goals that I’d like to happen in the future the things that I look to for fulfillment sometimes leaves me with the temptation to let today slip by. And then, then the fulfillment is lost, the day is lost. I jotted the word, “Think…” up on my whiteboard and in my mind I finished the sentence.
Today is where fulfillment lies. Tomorrow is where trust is enriched. This is where I find the answer to my quest, but now, to put it into practice. Sometimes we wish we could plan our future, sometimes we wish everything would go just as we wanted it to. But where is faith? The future, our plans, our goals, cannot be held as what life consists of. Life consists of today, only today. This is where the Christian life is lived, this is where our questions are answered, this is where we face life’s battles, this is where the world turns, this is where the grind exists, and this is where dreams disappear. Today is where the rubber meets the road, and today is where time becomes real. What can I do to make today not only real but an experience?
Oh Lord, the future holds naught that I know; the past is set, but today is mine. Fill me; help me to live it as thou wouldst have me live it. Help me to live in such a way that thy love will flow out, spill out, uncontained, unrestrained. Don’t let me let this day slip through my hands unused. Help me not to spurn so great a gift. But rather live it, use it, complete it. Make it full and complete. The future and the plans you have for me only you know; help me trust my life and my goals into your hands and accept this thine gift – a new day.
David Boskovic -- eighteen, Canadian, Conservative, and sibling to 5 -- writes a practical
mix of journalism, commentary, theology, and inspiration from the perspective of a
Biblical worldview and a homeschooled education. Here at Oneway Purpose he tackles life,
culture, and purpose, taking to task many of the problems that this generation is facing
on the front lines in the battles of the Christian life.
The borders of a country are the property lines, and every country has the right to secure its borders. If we are truly defending the freedom of citizens within the country, then the place to apply security checkpoints is at the borders, not on your street. The simple freedom of being able to cross the border incognito is what is being sacrificed for security, and freedom within those borders is to be maintained, and I believe that is an indication that the security priorities are—at least in this case—in the right place.
But the Yes, No, and Wait were very real answers in that story. I know a lot of you will probably want to hear it now that I mentioned it, since this is a subject that we all face at one time or another, but for now I’ll just say this. “Wait can be the most difficult of all answers. But yet it can also be one of the most rewarding! Amen!”
