Truth Will Win Out

I have been more and more confirmed in my suspicions with my views of parenting. I dont' ascribe to know much about parenting at all, since I am not one yet. However, working with today's youth, it seems like there are a lot of issues surrounding their well-being. I think that people from all different backgrounds would agree that today's youth deal with more things than generations in the past. More and more teenage pregnancies are occurring, and the scary thing is that many of them are intentional. The divorce rate is going up. Pornography is at the fingertips of any kid at school, home, and friends' houses. Not to mention all of the influences that are tugging at them from all directions. There are those old cartoons where you see Donald Duck with an Angel Donald on one shoulder and a Devilish Donald on the other. Today, there aren't just two choices...there are tons of fictitious characters that represent choices.

Many parents subscribe to the method of hide and seek. This is quite ironic because as children, we play peek-a-boo and hide and seek, and learn to seek after what is hidden from us. And yet, I've seen many, many parents attempt to resurface this strategy and hide the world from their children. And yet, if they are ever to find the truth, they will continue to "seek" until they do. In the Christian community, so many people see questions as such a negative thing. I believe that Jesus came as THE way and THE truth. Their is no subjectivity to it. But the only way to find truth is to ask questions. To question. To seek. Stubborn people are always the ones that claim to be open-minded and accepting, but the fact is, you're stubborn if you aren't willing to find the truth. And the only way to do that is to question. Is the fear that we don't know the answer, and perhaps won't know it? Or that we will find the answer and see that we have or will go down the "wrong" path? But one important thing to remember is, without a question there is not faith.

It's all very simple. Seeking God is seeking truth. And seeking truth is done by asking questions. Don't be afraid. Truth will win out.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Did God create guilt? I know that some people have theologically deduced that many things such as guilt came into existence during the fall of man. Hence the phrase "their eyes were opened." So one can then reason that guilt is all a matter of perspective. Is this so? I've often wondered what, if any, reason God had to create the possibility of failing. Why did God allow Satan to take on the persona of the serpant? Why did God create a rule in which He knew could/would be broken? Why have the Tree of Good and Evil? And what do all of these questions ratify and influence us today?

I know that it can seem incredibly frivolitious to conclude that guilt is nothing more than perspective. But is it that insane to think we can't disappoint God? If you ascribe to the belief that God knows all; He is ominiscent...then isn't it plausible to think that every time we make a mistake, in God's eyes, we're just one step closer to over-coming. He knows the end result. He knows how many times we'll fall before we are free. I think this reasoning could lead you to say that God is excited when we mess up because He sees we're that much closer. It likes when a parent sees their kid wobble on their bike, and fall. And this happens time and time again. But if as a parent, you knew without a shadow of a doubt how many times it would take for your child to conquer bike-riding, wouldn't at least a little part of you be excited that they are one step closer to getting it? You'd tell them to get back on that bike...to not be discouraged. What does God tell us? Feel guilty for stumbling?

I'm not ready to say that this is actually what I believe, because if you hold true to the concept that God really does know how many times it takes before you succeed, you can run into some sticky places. This reasoning also can't be used as an excuse to make yourself feel good. God is still a "no excuses" god. But can we conclude that God didn't create guilt?