Killing Usama and Christian Feelings

I graduated from high school in 1956. That is 55 years ago. Interestingly, I stay in touch with many of my classmates from Mt. Vernon, Illinois through an email forum called, "The Mousenet".

After Usama was killed by our Navy Seals at the order of our President, I had a mixture of feelings and thoughts. Some of my old friends also had a mixture of reactions. One of them wrote the following.

Yo

It appears that yours truly is, as usual, out of the mainstream of public thinking. I am not dancing in the streets over the death of Bin Laden. I get no joy out of the death, albeit possibly warranted, of another human being. Are those opposed to the death penalty dancing? Did we not execute an alleged criminal without a trial?
Jimmy D.

I responded by writing this:

Dear Jimmy D.

I am also mixed in my feelings and thoughts. War has so many casualties for so many generations. I understand the desire for justice/vengeance. I have similar feelings but perhaps forty years of counseling ministry have sanded down my angry rough edges. And, God said “Vengeance is mine; I shall repay.” so, I am left with a strange mixture of contrary feelings.

I watched the movie Doctor Zhivago again last week. It brings back so many memories of my teaching and Counseling in Russia. For over 20 years I have ministered in the former USSR.

Unfortunately, during all that time of listening to individuals and families I have never met a man or woman who has not lost a relative to Stalin, the Nazis, the /secret police or all of the above. The unresolved grief, pain, anger and addictions of these well educated, faith filled people is overwhelming. All of it going back to the times of Doctor Zhivago and the Revolution.

The Red revolutionaries were filled with idealism, good intentions and a desire to help the poor. Unfortunately, their hearts and minds were filled with an inhuman brutality that surpassed even that of Hitler. The most loyal and most dedicated were the first to die or go to the camps because Stalin could not stand having any possible competitors.

In the movie, the Communist husband of Julie Christie hated Zhivago because he wrote poetry and showed evidence of human compassion, love and kindness. He said that all those human feelings must die in order to have a new order. I have seen firsthand what happened to the 200 million Russians who have suffered from a lack of human kindness, compassion and concern.

Alcoholism rates for males are at least 75% and domestic violence rates are as high or higher. It will take generations of care, healing and treatment to bring any semblance of humanity and health to those people impacted by Socialism that insisted on “fairness”.

As I consider what happens in war I wonder about the people in Muslim countries where England, Russia and the USA have been bombing and killing for generations? Is there a better way? I do not know. Maybe war is necessary but it has long term medical, psychological and spiritual costs.

I have dedicated my adult life to “healing the broken hearted and setting the captives free” (IS 61). I have founded two large counseling centers in Cincinnati and established healing centers in 75 countries. Unfortunately, we have expanded our healing ministries greatly since I founded The Teleios Center in 1979 but the results of shock, trauma and abuse as well as wars and natural tragedies keep raising the level people with broken hearts.

It only takes one guy like Mugabe in Zimbabwe or Saddam in Iraq to damage thousands of families for generations. However,it takes years to heal those broken hearts and care for their scattered souls.

One final thought. Pope John Paul is receiving great honor by His Church and by all people of good will. What a hero he was to millions in bondage behind the Iron Curtain. He was a genius and a great man. After reading his articles I realized that I had a philosophy quite similar to his and thank him for his wisdom because he wrote so brilliantly and insight-fully about care and cure of souls. He was a Catholic, of course, and I am not. Yet he and I were on the same page on many things.

It is rarely known outside Poland and Europe that as a Priest and Cardinal he recruited young American Missionaries from Campus Crusade for Christ to train local evangelists to win them to Christ and change the balance of power in Poland. Campus Crusade gave him all their materials and taught the Catholics how to share and care for hurting people. They raised up an army of peace makers, many of whom followed him and brought change to Europe. My Campus Crusade friends told me how they worked together to plant the seeds of love, power and peace to bring down the Communists.

Blessed are the peacemakers…!

Gary (Gabe) Sweeten

How To Get Rich Quick

A great meditation for Easter.

By Eddie Ogan

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12,and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.

We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night.

We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed--I didn't even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.

Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

[forwarded by Willard Caddell, who was a very rich man]


David T. Smith, Ph.D.
Child Clinical Psychologist
Senior Director of Psychology
LifeWay Counseling Centers
513-769-4600

It is more blessed to give than receive. Jesus

The Answer to Church Conflict?

Just as I prepared to write some more about church conflicts I received a letter from Van Cochrane, Pastor of the Vineyard Church Northwest in Cincinnati. I think Van has covered some of the main reasons why we have so much conflict in many congregations; too much about our control and too little about the control of the Holy Spirit.

My Friend Thom makes some of the same points in his comment about the last post. Be sure to read his insights. Now take a look at Van's letter.

Hi everyone,

It's hard to believe it's been this long, but close to 30 years ago Laurie and I sang in a Christmas Cantata. It's hard to believe, but I sang one of the tenor parts. I was a little miffed that I didn't get a solo, but oh well. One part of the cantata has always stuck in my mind - "and when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son. Born of a virgin..." I can still hear the melody in my mind. That line was based on Galatians 4:4, not always seen as a Christmas passage - yet it is. And it's a powerful presentation of the of the Gospel message. Take a moment to read through it slowly. Ask God to speak to you. Listen.

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4:4-7 NIV

He came to free us from the power of the law.
He came to make us full sons and daughters of God.
He came to release the Holy Spirit to indwell us.
He came so we could know our heavenly Father.
He came to share His inheritance with us.

Take another moment to read the passage. Which of these blessings is God speaking to you about right now? Thank God for it right now!


The past few weeks I've been listing some of our foundational values for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our church today. In addition to 1-4, here are numbers 5 and 6 this week.

1. First and foremost we are a church that believes in the present day power of God released to and through all those who embrace the Gospel of Christ, because this is what the Bible teaches.
2. We believe that people need to experience God the Holy Spirit in a felt way in order to move into the fullness of all God calls us to be, because that is what we see in the Bible.
3. We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit when properly exercised release the power of God to reveal the Kingdom of God, including the gift of tongues as a prayer language for many believers according to the Bible.
4. We believe that God is speaking today to His people, that learning to discern God's voice is a critical part of Christian maturity to be pursued by all believers, and that pursuing God's voice is part of full maturity in Christ, because the Bible teaches this.

5. We believe that all mature Christians should, first among other things, be prepared and equipped to engage in prayer ministry and under the leading of the Holy Spirit to welcome in the KOG (God's presence, power, and rule) because that is what the Bible teaches - Luke 9:1-2; 24:46-49; Acts 1:8; 2:4 & 17.

6. We believe that prophetic gifting is alive in the church today; that it is to be pursued above all other gifts, and that all believers are able to operate in some level of prophetic gifting through the Holy Spirit, because the Bible teaches this.
Acts 2:17-21; I Corinthians 14:1-5; 24-25.


Van

Bible Reading President of USA

Would you like to hear our President read the Bible during a radio and TV broadcast from the Oval Office? I would but in these days of extreme Political Correctness I am not holding my breath. Yet, not too long ago it was a regular event. Read this statement.

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

In this year of liberation, which has seen so many millions freed from tyrannical rule, it is fitting that we give thanks with special fervor to our Heavenly Father for the mercies we have received individually and as a nation and for the blessings He has restored, through the victories of our arms and those of our allies, to His children in other lands.

For the preservation of our way of life from the threat of destruction; for the unity of spirit which has kept our Nation strong; for our abiding faith in freedom; and for the promise of an enduring peace, we should lift up our hearts in thanksgiving.

For the harvest that has sustained us and, in its fullness, brought succor to other peoples; for the bounty of our soil, which has produced the sinews of war for the protection of our liberties; and for a multitude of private blessings, known only in our hearts, we should give united thanks to God.

To the end that we may bear more earnest witness to our gratitude to Almighty God, I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas. Let every man of every creed go to his own version of the Scriptures for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.

Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December 26, 1941, do hereby proclaim Thursday the twenty-third day of November 1944 a day of national thanksgiving; and I call upon the people of the United States to observe it by bending every effort to hasten the day of final victory and by offering to God our devout gratitude for His goodness to us and to our fellow men.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this first day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-ninth.


FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

The Puritan Gift

I discovered a book last year that I really liked and that inspired me to learn more about the people from whom we inherited so much as Americans. We inherited Thanksgiving along with many other ideas, principles and operating processes. The name of the book is The Puritan Gift by the Hopper brothers from Scotland. It is their conviction that one of the main reasons America has been so successful as a nation of innovators, manufacturers and leaders is due to the radical ways the Puritans conducted themselves in the New World.

For example, the Hopper Brothers came from Europe as educated, higher class men and were thrust into the world of Capitalism as practiced by Americans. They discovered that it was vastly different from Capitalism in England and the Continent. The main difference was the practice of top management and middle management to be on the floor and in the fields with the laborers. The knew what was going on and why things worked or did not work.

The opposite was true in England and Europe where “gentlemen” were too good to get their hands dirty or to stoop so low as to work on a machine or in the fields. The gents prospered but the workers did not. Thus America as a whole prospered and they lagged behind us.

This also led Americans to be resilient and see the world from a practical way. They could, therefore, rejoice even in the midst of difficulty and pain because they had no pie in the sky expectations of work, sickness or death. This was one reason the Puritans celebrated with a feast to thank God for His Providence even though half of them had died in the New World and they had so very little in worldly goods. They were able to maintain a positive, hopeful perspective because they bounced back from challenge and sought to overcome it.

So, despite our losses and difficult times I hope we who came from a background where our parents and grandparents labored in the fields, worked in the shops and saved enough to feed their kids and offer them a chicken leg for Thanksgiving I am sure we will come together with family and friends with a positive spirit of gratitude and drink a toast to our past while looking expectantly to the future for our children.

At this Thanksgiving I am filled with an attitude of gratitude because those hard working and faithful Puritans put their hope and faith in God to provide for their future despite the incredible hardships they faced on a daily basis. So, may you be blessed with the blessing of Aaron.

Numbers 6:23-27

23 Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying,
On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
24 The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: 25 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.