#148C: Things That Annoy Me

Here we are at Memorial Day and WXTU is honoring American heroes with songs that talk about bravery, honor, love of country, and dying for your Band of Brothers. (I'm listening to the soundtrack of "Gettysburg" right now.) Well, last night Audio Visualman and I finished watching "Band of Brothers" for the second time and I got all weepy again when they came across the guys in the concentration camp and at the end of the movie when Major Richard Winters recounted the words in a letter from Sgt "Mike" Ranney. Ranney's grandson asked, "Were you a hero, Grandpa?" Grandpa said, "No, but I was in a company of heroes." The remark choked up Winters...and me.
Well, this morning on Squirrel Patrol to Up The Creek Presbyterian Church I heard a line in a CW song that said, "...America will always stand." Now, while the patriotic side of me likes that thought, the historian in me knows it aint gonna happen, given the degenerate nature of our land because Christians are NOT being salt and light as we should. I would LOVE to see a revival in the Church and an awakening among all the people groups of our land in an Acts 2:42,47 sort of way..."And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer....praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved"...but I'm realistic enough to know that it took 70 years of atheistic communism's persecution of the Church and everybody else in the lands of Russia and China to produce the amazing awakenings that have been occurring there for the last 10-20 years. I guess what annoys me is that we define "hero" along the lines Dictionary.com lays out:

1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3.Classical Mythology
a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.
b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability.
c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.
What about the person, male or female, who is born crippled, goes through life on crutches or in a wheel chair without complaint and usually not feeling sorry for himself?!! What about the one who has chronic health problems like Multiple Schlerosis, Lupus, Eppstein Barr virus (maybe ALL THREE) and doesn't whine about circumstances but encourages others in a variety of ways?!! Particularly significant is the "godlike prowess and beneficence" issue...we in The Body would call it Christ-likeness as a result of being conformed to the Suffering Servant image of Isaiah 53. I guess I'm just lobbying for Christians to redefine "hero" along more Biblical lines, that's all.

Now, Annoyance #2. Yesterday I prayed through a bunch of Arab World Ministry requests, one of which asked us to "pray for softened hearts" for parents of a contact who were opposed to the Gospel. I was motivated to look in my Strong's Concordance under "soften"...there are only two references to that word in the entire Bible and NEITHER has to do with hearts of stone. The two verses that give God's view, I think, of praying for folks to get saved are Jeremiah 23:29, "'Is not My word like fire?' declares the LORD, 'and like a hammer which shatters a rock?'" and Ezekiel 36:26, 27, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances." Smashing rock and removing hearts of stone don't exactly point to "softening" of attitude towards Christ. Over the course of 28 years of receiving similar prayer requests from lots of different individuals and organizations, I've come to the conclusion that folks don't get their prayers answered because they "ask amiss" as James 4:3 says. They're not taking an aggressive enough stance against Satan and his minions using the spiritual weapon of "all prayer" described in Ephesians 6. I guess my exhortation here would be to chuck your old way of doing things if you fall under this category and to take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God against that Slimy Serpent and his buddies!!

Annoyance #3 is an outgrowth of #1 & 2: Christians don't see themselves as warriors in an army where WE WIN THE WAR!! We're called to FIGHT, not sit around talking about defeating Satan and waiting for someone else to do the work! Check out John 15:16, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you." [my emphasis]

Thus endeth the lesson for the day.
Got Battle Hymn of the Republic and Amazing Grace on the bagpipes?