Up to this point the things I have been suggesting for followers of Christ have been, in my mind, elementary. I'm not saying that to discourage anyone. Again, that is part of the perspective I have as a prophet. I am looking for the best of the best, even though I don't always achieve that myself.
Obeying traffic laws and being courteous to others just scratch the surface of what I believe as followers of Christ we are to be doing on a daily basis. If we are to be salt and light in the world we have to be making a larger impact that even that.
Years ago I heard a sermon (during kid's time!) at a church in Glasgow, Scotland. The pastor was talking about the use of salt as a preservative. We are to preserve the culture we are a part of from rotting. If we are not doing our job as salt, the culture will rot and we as the salt will be thrown aside as worthless. We bring light when we push back the darkness. Light the smallest light in a very dark room and it will begin immediately to reveal things in the dark.
If we are going to preserve our culture and bring it to obedience to God we need to address the deterioration of our families. A lot has been made of the $100M donation of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook to the Newark, NJ schools. The school system there is spending $22K per year per student to educate them...with dismal results. The problem is not just the education system but the families the kids come out of. How is throwing $100M to the schools going to change the homelife of the kids? It isn't.
Someone asked me recently what was the one piece of advice I would give to them as they are raising their children in this world. I said rather quickly, "You and your husband need to focus on your own emotional healing so that you can raise your children." No one else is going to do that for you as I learned after spending thousands of dollars to send my kids to Christian schools.
The need for emotional healing is the result of sins committed against us by even well-meaning people. Emotional healing also includes the need to admit our own sin in perpetuating the behaviors that result from our emotional brokenness. At some point after working through the pain we need to step up to the plate and change our behavior, taking responsibility for our continuing agreement with the evil that was foisted upon us.
Only then will we be able to impact other families in our communities. As a pastor I never found anyone who didn't want help in my travels around the neighborhood. They all recognized their needs and were looking for someone to show them how to move out of the cycle. At that time I wasn't a very good example of how to do that.
But as we get healed and come more in line to agreement with the Father we are going to be able to have the capacity to give to others, to impact those around us and to be the salt in the community we were meant to be. I have met thousands of people who have at one time or another been active in their churches who have failed to see healing in their own families. And, therefore, have had nothing to offer those around them in the same fix.
We have to be living proof that the Gospel of Christ can impact and change lives before others are going to look to us for help in getting their own house in order. That doesn't mean we have to have perfected our family life but we can't give answers to people that we haven't seen work in our own homes. Authority and believablilty come when we can demonstrate with our lives that what we say is true.
Are we hopeless? Not at all. All we have to do to receive what the Father has for us in the way of healing from our brokeness is to open ourselves to his work. I KNOW God can heal families because I have seen him do it in MY family. I KNOW he can change lives because I have seen him do it in my life...and hundreds of others. I KNOW he can change our world...one person at a time.
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