Why video games are bad for me and for you...

I have had many different conversations about video games with different people. As we all know, men love them, women tend to not like them, some women do, but I digress. I think that the big difference between the way men and women respond to video games is because of the way we were made to interact socially. Women are generally speaking, much more intuitive and social in the way which they interact with people. Women like to have deep conversation and talk about issues going on in each other's life. Men, however, have a tendency towards the opposite. Please understand that this is not a negative connotation towards men and the way they interact socially. I am merely stating the observations which I have made around my male friends when they play video games, and as a women I can assert how women react.
Men have a tendency to shy away from the deep interaction, socially being shallow in a way. I have observed that men would rather play games or do something to take their minds off the serious matters in life than talk about the issues going on in one another's lives. So, because of this wonderful invention called video games, it affords to opportunity for people to get away from reality and focus on the television or computer for hours upon hours of "down time". This is bad for the way we interact with other people in different social situations.
Children who spend all of their time playing video games spend more time honing their hand-eye coordination than developing a personality. As children we soak up knowledge through interaction and by this we learn who and what we are in this world. We learn about the world, not through video games, but through touching, sensing, feeling, hearing, etc. Video games dull these senses to the point that we lose our ability to absorb and process the social interactions that we have. Our minds become overloaded because of the lack of interaction that the child receives. So, to sum this up, I think that video games dull our senses and the senses of children who spend their lives interacting with a computer rather than real people.
I'm not completely opposed to video games, but I think that it's important for parents and college students, etc. alike to realize the negative effect that can and has begun happening to our society via these computer generated graphics. However, perhaps I'm wrong and men bond more during this opportunity than I have previously believed. Who knows...

Why I listen to Christian music...

 A lot of Christians, especially in my generation, think that Christian music is cheesy. I disagree. Perhaps this is because the Lord has given me a passion for music, perhaps it's in my genes, or maybe it's the simple fact that music speaks to me, body, mind and soul. I believe that living a life for the Lord requires that we permeate ourselves through every possible means with the Word, with His presence in our lives, in every moment of every day. I really wanted to share some lyrics with you, and to be honest, this was the main reason for this journal entry. It's from a song called "You'll Come" by Hillsong United. It goes like this:

I have decided, I have resolved

To wait upon you Lord

My rock and redeemer shall not be moved

I'll wait upon you Lord

As surely as the sun will rise 

you'll come to us

as certain as the dawn appears

You'll come let your glory fall

as You respond to us

Spirit reign flood our hearts

With holy fire again

We are not shaken we are not moved

We wait upon you Lord

Our mighty deliverer my triumph and truth

I'll wait upon you Lord

(and this is my favorite part)

chains be broken

lives be healed

eyes be opened

Christ is revealed.

This last part of the song is my prayer for our country in a time such as this, that we may find Christ amidst all other hopes for anything in our lives. 

Spirit of Timidity, Comfortability

"Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep His statutes and seek him with all their heart."  Psalm 119:1,2

Before the New Covenant, we were expected to live blamelessly, we had no reconciliation with the Lord except to obey the Law in all aspects and manners. But when Christ came, he reconciled us with the Father by becoming sin. But this wasn't so could sin freely, no, Paul wrote in Romans 6, 

"Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you know know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life."

     As a body of Christ whose transgressions have been buried with Christ, we have failed miserably at living how we're told to. Why is it that the church as a whole has so many issues with living up to the calling that we were given? Is it a Spirit of fear and timidity or perhaps comfortability in the way we already live. How are we called to live as a people? The two greatest commandments given in the Bible (by Jesus in the New Testament) were to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus' commandments were never, love yourself,  love money. What have Christians given up to live the "american dream"? Are we not sacrificing ourselves and our faith asking the government to give away our money for us, to makes decisions about one's children/grandchildren, to support the things we are certainly called not to support. 

     You may ask yourself where I'm going with this, and to be frank, I'm talking about the election. Christians have given up who they are and what they're called to be as followers of Christ. Some Christians vote on one or two issues such as abortion and gay rights while others vote on the side of socialism and world poverty. How should we vote? How should we represent ourselves? It is my belief that Christians are called to represent themselves on all levels, including politics and to be honest, I feel like we failed in this election. It is hard for me to believe that a faithful Christian (practicing Christian) can vote for a President who as his first act would like to pass a bill endorsing infanticide which also gives underage females the right to obtain an abortion without the consent of the parents. It is hard for me to understand how one could vote for the endorsement of gay rights, which is most definitely sin in the Bible. It is difficult as an American, to understand why my family should suffer for those who have chosen to remain comfortable on the welfare system. 

     I'd like to tell you a little about my family history. We're immigrants. Granted some of my family has been here since the Revolutionary War, we are still immigrants. My Mom's side of the family comes from a LONG line of farmers, not from money, or a fortunate bundle of wealth. My father's side of the family has been working class ever since they arrived in the Americas. My parents paid their way through college, took care of their siblings, and when they got married, lived in a trailer because they couldn't afford a home. But the big difference in the story of my parent's story is that they were smart about investments, savings, and they worked hard to provide for their family and for themselves. I am lucky enough to have been provided for and to have my college paid for, more than my parents had. I am spoiled with money, and I know it. But coming out of college, I also know that this is the time that I also am supposed to work towards more, and if you work hard, you can attain anything. 

For every Christian who voted for Obama based on his tax plan, I have something to say to you and I hope you understand me. The money that my Father makes now doesn't go to fancy cars or a fancy house, it goes to support my grandparents, my mother (who contracted lupus and diabetes when I was at a young age), and to support our church. So, for whatever reason you chose to vote for his tax plan, whether it was the greediness out of what will go into your own pocket, or the ideal of ending poverty, you are part of the reason that my family now has to worry about their well-being. I'm not going to hate you, I'm not going to yell at you, but I want you to know why I feel how I do about your vote and the election. 

     It is not the government's job to take care of world poverty, that is OUR JOB. That is the church's job. We are called to stand up as a church and care for the poor and widows. In James we are told that, "Religions that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world". But that is not what we have done. In this election we have seen an easy out, a way for us to have the government do that job for us. I want to rebuke each and every one of you who would try and use this as an excuse not to do your job as Christians in this world reaching out to the weak and poor. You have no excuse and nor do I for falling down on this job. Jesus never said that He would help those who helped themselves, He said that those who would give up the riches of this world would find themselves rich in the next. We have not done that and I challenge you to find out whether it's true of either of those men who were candidates for each party. 

     I'd also like to address the issue of racial reconciliation in this election, as I haven't seen much of it. I'm happy to see that our country appears to have moved forward so much in this past century, but seeing "black power" posted by Christians isn't reconciliation. If you call yourself a Christian, please, do your best to love your neighbors as Christ would have. He wouldn't have said, BLACK POWER, in regards to this president, and in fact, race or skin color wouldn't have mattered to him. Jesus wanted reconciliation between all people and both sexes. In case you didn't know, racism is and never was a one-way street. It wasn't just the Jews who hated, it was the Gentiles and Samaritans too and it's an endless cycle of everyone calling the other racist whenever something about skin color comes up. It's not that we are supposed to avoid the issue, but that we are called to address it head on. Instead of copping out and calling someone racist, why don't we all take the time to explore why that person feels that way. The Lord didn't just come to reconcile us to God, He came to reconcile us to one another as well, Jew to Gentile, brother to brother, and a white woman to a black congregation. The latter reconciliation is what I am struggling with right now. I'm struggling with the fact that 97% of black americans voted for a man who they perceived as "one of them". I'm struggling with the fact that never before have I felt a divide based on skin color so clearly in the church and in America. To be honest, it scares me and makes me wonder if the people of my congregation truly see me as a sister or just as a white women who attends their church. This is the type of thought that we have to reconcile through, that we are ONE body, with many parts, with many different characteristics on the inside and out and many different passions that the Lord has given us in order to bless one another. 

We are so broken. And now is the chance to put our hope and faith in Jesus Christ, not a President, not a man (because as Nina said, that's all he is), but in a Savior who wants to know us intimately and who wants to love us passionately. He is worthy of all honor and praise, and all that we have is due to Him first. It is our job to give Him all that we have, inside and out, riches and poverty, love and hate. He knows the plans that He has for us, to prosper us and NEVER to harm us. I want us to walk in this knowledge as ONE body of Christ, standing up for a change in and through Christ, and I believe that now is the time.