Words to Ponder …A Message
Worth Sharing … Morrow Mirror … January 26, 2014
A religious woman upon waking up
each morning would open her front door stand on the porch and scream,
"Praise the Lord."
This infuriated her atheist neighbor who would
always make sure to counter back, "there is no Lord."
One morning
the atheist neighbor overheard his neighbor praying for food. Thinking it would
be funny, he went and bought her all sorts of groceries and left them on her
porch.
The next morning the lady screamed,
"Praise the Lord, who gave me this food." The neighbor, laughing so
hard he could barely get the words out, screamed "it wasn't the Lord, it
was me."
The lady without missing a beat
screamed, "Praise the Lord for not only giving me food but making the
atheist pay for it!" (http://www.homileticsonline.com, January-February, 2014)
God is bigger then our faith or
lack of faith. God can and does use all people to bring about His goal for
creation, so we should not be surprised when God uses an atheist to help a
faithful servant to get something to eat.
Penn Jillette, the atheist
illusionist and comedian, has said: "I
don't respect people who don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you
believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not
getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it's not really worth
telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. ... How much do
you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not
tell them that?"
(Penn Jillette gets a gift of a Bible," YouTube, August 9, 2009, youtube.com)
Jillette’s words
remind me of the commencement speech the Dali Lama gave at Emory University May
1998. I do not remember his exact words, but the gist of what he said was, “regardless of your faith live it. If you
are a Buddhist live it, a Hindu live it, or a Christian live it.” Others
should not be surprised to hear we are Christian, they should know it by our
actions as well as by the words we speak.
If we do not share our faith we are not being faithful to the Gospel! I
am NOT saying, beat people up with the Gospel; the Dali Lama made a point to
say that sharing our faith is not about condemning others for not believing as
we do. It is about sharing with a passion what we believe and being open to
hear stories of faith from those who believe differently. We should not fret if the world refuses to jump
in the boat with us, but neither should we cast them out of the boat.
I believe Jesus died
so that we might have eternal life and this is a message not only worth sharing,
it is a message the world needs to hear. If those who live in darkness shun the
light, it is not our place to force it upon them. It is our calling to trust in
the One who carries the light as we pray for those in darkness.
May the Light of
Christ Shine on you today and always.
In Christian Love, Dr. Ed
Judy