SoulFood (2) Unintended Consequences

    This Saturday it'll be 100 years since Gavrilo Princip fired the shot that killed at least 8 million and left more than 11 million wounded. He wasn't even a good marksman. Archduke Ferdinand's driver took a wrong turn, then backed the car right up to the assassin's feet.  He fired his pistol as a staunch anti-colonialist and became a Bosnian hero, until the Bosnian Civil War of 1992 that is. Croatian troops even destroyed the Princip family home. History has odd ways of being rewritten as perspectives change.
       Gavrilo's trigger finger unwittingly launched one of the greatest evils ever to befall the empires of Europe. World War One opened the door to rampant Communism, collapsed many of Europe's empires, spawned National Socialism (the Nazis) in Germany, Italy felt cheated of land promises and so very many young people were gone. 
       Another of the unintended consequences was that the wide-spread European belief in the trustworthiness of church denominations was undermined. By the end of World war two, trust was gone altogether.
       George Bush (2) said that Iran, North Korea and Iraq were the biggest threats to the USA immediately after 9/11. He chose Iraq for invasion and unseated the tyrant Saddam Hussein. Mine was just one of many letters, April 20, 2004, sent to him requesting that an early termination of American occupation was desirable. Instead our Army was tasked with the impossible job of nation-building. 
        Peter Galbraith's book, Unintended Consequences, has some odd theories, but in his list of unexpected consequences of the war he didn't consider what it did to one of earth's oldest bastions of Christianity. Christ's disciples became targets for waves of persecution under the wrong perception that America is a "Christian Country." Many fled from Basra and Baghdad and those who couldn't resettle in Lebanon or Syria squatted in Mosul and the Ninevah Plain. As ISIS butchered their way towards the center of Iraq, its estimated that 150 000 have fled the country. The troubles in Iraq have ended a Christian presence that dated to the first century.
      You and I must also come to terms with the "Law of Unintended Consequences." It is, I am afraid, a direct offshoot of the God-given privilege of Free Will. Where is God in all this terrible suffering? Where He has always been: in self-imposed limitation to human decision making. For example, He has bound Himself with respect for your next decision to sin against His laws of love and justice. Not that He cannot stop you from sinning, but that He will not. Your very next self-centered act of carnality will happen against His will. He will respect you enough to allow it. The trouble is - there will be consequences. The even worse trouble is - there will also be unintended consequences. Only time, as with Princip's shot, will tell how grave those unintended consequences will be.
       Oh please, use that same will to study and love and live by God's directives for holy living. You may think that a "narrow" way to live, but four decades in this world tell me the consequences are good.
       Sometimes the consequences are neutral and yet work towards the greater good. If you have studied economics you will recall a name from the distant past: that of Adam Smith. His famous metaphor of the "invisible hand" described what happens when the butcher and the baker ply their trade with zeal for personal gain, yet with integrity required by business laws. Smith believed that a society filled with upright, yet hard-working people, though they each seek primarily their own best interests, nevertheless benefit the whole of that community. It worked well in small towns and even prospered whole nations until globalization introduced a whole new playing field.
       Charity may well "begin at home," but yours and mine must not be content to stay there. The twin New Testament laws of "sowing and reaping" as well as "casting bread upon the waters" will add to this life many unintended consequences of blessing. This is the highest form of paying it forward. To refuse to live beyond the circumference of your home and family is to make the mistake of seeing to find your life. The unintended consequence is that your well mannered and "prudent" self-centeredness will result in you failing in opportunities to add joy to many people unknown to you and, worse still, will end up in you loosing your life as well. 
       Give yourself away! Give yourself to Christ. It will be the best investment you ever make. Oh, and be sure, you have to renew that gift daily, because there are unintended consequences for trying to rest on past commitments.

Introductions SoulFood (1)

What to say when introducing yourself?  In some settings it is made easy, like "Hello, my name is Andrew and I'm an ....." Since I shall be using this blog to express moral, biblical, and or ethical comments once a week (or if work pressures bite) every other week, I'd better say: "Hello, my name is Andrew and I've been a disciple of Jesus Christ since the end of the 60s."  I wish I could introduce myself as the perfect roll model for discipleship or even to say that my following of Jesus has been consistent without a flaw, but the best I can tell you is that, in this journey down the decades with Jesus, I have been a recipient of much grace.
       What more to say by way of introductions? "My name is Andrew and I am married to a godly woman named Carol who has not hesitated over the years to challenge my opinions." In the early years she said of our relationship: "being married to you is like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object."  I should add that I am the father of two sons, about as different from each other as chalk and cheese except for their ardent Christianity. Rich with two good daughters in law and five grand-kids.
      I used to be able to introduce myself as a marathon athlete.  I gave up those events, after 62 of them, when the costs involved became too rich for me. Now at 60 I'm just a runner.  Come to think of it, I used to be a biker, until I made the painful decision to sell it this year. When the big six oh comes up there are quite a lot of things you used to be, but its time for me to accept the advice I have dolled out for 40 years: "gracefully surrender the things of youth."
       I should introduce myself as a preacher and a pastor. I am much more the former and a lot less the latter. I am convinced that the king of preaching styles is what used to be called "the Expository Sermon."  Now its just called old fashioned and dictatorial.  Be that as it may, I have committed a lifetime to speaking about 49 times a year directly from a Bible chapter and the next Sunday following that with the very next verses. I don't consider the primary objective of exposition the teaching of the Bible. No, I believe the person in the pew has the right to ask: "what did God tell you to tell us from those verses this week?"  No clear answer = no sermon at all. As for pastoring, I am very limited, but major in clear solutions to personal problems.
       Politics - conservative.  Finances - live for cash.  Music tastes - declarative worship.  Pets - a retriever named Leo.  Cars - a Jeep.   Hobbies - travel.   Favorite places on earth: Hunterdon County USA, London England and Jerusalem Israel.  Military Service - South African Army Tank Corps.  Abilities (sort of) brass instruments, drawing, home repairs and writing creative English.
      That's about as much as you need to know. Send prayer requests and requests for my credit card number and personal loans to ajjpaton@embarqmail.com