| |
| |
|
Just Between Us - FREE Spiritual Information for anyone interested. |
|
|
|
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
That we must live with imperfections is a fact of life that cannot be denied. We must come to terms with the silent and perennial truth that the field of human life will always consist of the good, the bad and the ugly coexisting together. There is no perfect place, person, or thing. We know this do we not? I have visited many beautiful places in my life and discovered, sometimes to my own amazement, that there was also the not so pretty hidden behind the lovely scenery. In every metropolis there is, cleverly disguised perhaps, the garden of weeds. There is no perfect thing. Regardless of how lovely it may appear and like the diamond seem flawless; but under microscopic scrutiny flaws are detected nevertheless. And certainly, there is no perfect person. We all have some good to offer, but intermixed with the good is the bad and the ugly. In every situation we contribute wheat, but we know that we also contribute thistles. We know this and yet we seem bent on expecting perfection in ourselves and others. Finding the ugly and unpleasant mixed in with the wheat is an everyday experience and each of us has to deal with the inherent difficulties involved. In every area of life there is and always will be, the good, the bad and the ugly. In every church, synagogue, mosque, company, corporation, agency, organization, home, school and any other place where people gather, we will find the good, the bad and the ugly. One of the things that I always encouraged of new converts and new members that joined our church was to face the reality of what it meant to be a church member. Ideals of coming to a place where everything was nice and tidy and holy and everybody was sweet and kind and pious painfully gave way to the reality of the good, the bad and the ugly. There are people in church who behave ugly and do not reflect the virtues one would expect to encounter in God's house of prayer. Even within the sacred walls of divinity we encounter the same good, bad and ugly we meet in our everyday lives. Not only do we live with and intermingle with both the wheat and the thistles but they exist within each of us. Collectively and individually, we are capable of heart-touching kindness towards one another as well as heart wrenching evil. We are capable of building up and capable of tearing down, capable of great love and capable of seething hatred, capable of horrendous evil as well as remarkable good. Jesus reminds us that wheat and weeds will grow together until the harvest. Understand though, that God is not mocked; weeds do not go unnoticed. God knows where they all are. At harvest time, the wheat will be separated from the weeds. Until then, we trust in God, accept life on its own terms and wait for the harvest. Rev. Saundra L. Washington, D.D., is an ordained clergywoman, social worker, and Founder of AMEN Ministries. http://www.clergyservices4u.org. She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow: Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances: Homilies that Teach. Her new book, Out of Deep Waters: My Grief Management Workbook, will be available soon.
MORE RESOURCES:
Spirituality - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
The Key to a Clear Conscience I have discovered as I grow older in Christ Jesus and wiser in all things spiritual, that one of the best possessions any person can have is a clear conscience. You feel good. God's Presence When Troubles Come Life, no matter how we choose to look at it, is a constant battle. It is the beginning of a struggle that continues until we breathe our last breath. DREAMS, Does God Still Use Them Today? The bible has many accounts throughout time that He used dreams as a form of communication to His people. A few examples are Daniel, Joseph (old testament), Joseph (Mary's husband) and many others. CEROMANCY: The Fine Art of Candle Reading Lately, I have been asked a lot of questions in the Psychic Realm chatroom about "ceromancy". That is the fine art of reading a situation by studying the way a candle burns. God Versus the Gods Aristotle referred to happiness as the most we can achieve. Demons and gods were interchangeable in the time of Homer when people had far less institutionalized manipulation of their thoughts and soulful understandings. The Best Laid Plans We all know that the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go awry, so we shouldn't be surprised when the best laid lifeplans go awry, too.What "looks good on paper" doesn't always look as good when it comes up in your life, especially if - like so many of our learning experiences - the person or the situation that we're dealing with proves to be less than a positive experience. Starved Spirits, Sorrowful Souls Give us today our daily bread. Matthew 6:11 (NIV) We can be intelligent, healthy, rich, and religious and it would be meaningless without bread. It Seems We Have All Taken a POW Just for a moment think of what is stopping you from living your dream. Is it fear? Is it change? Most people in today's world have thought that at some point in their spirits evolution that money is the root of all evil. Vacation Pilgrimage I heard recently on a Christian radio station somebody talking about turning a vacation into a pilgrimage or a sabbath time, an opportunity to get closer to God. The speaker said that there is no word in ancient languages equivalent to the word "vacation". Existence of God: Facts and Figures Does God Exist? Existence of God: facts and figures Does God exist?If you are a theist.. How Big is God? WOW .. We Fall Down -- But We Get Up When I first heard Donnie McClurkin's song, "We Fall Down (But We Get Up), I got goosebumps. The second time I heard it I loved it even more. My Search for the Truth I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Maybe you've heard about the persecution of Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong) practitioners in China. One More Mile I want to share with you something that happened to me just a few weeks ago. There is a place that I go to write, read and to simply relax. The True Self as the Hidden Man of the Heart The Apocalypse, or unveilling, is the name given to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. The Book of Daniel is an apocalypse. Jesus: The Greatest Scapegoat It seems more people today are using the Christian god concept as a medication, a solution to all problems, and/or a drug that eases the most difficult of conflicts. The need for a god has never been more prominent than it is today. No Star-Studded Career What is success? It probably means different things to different people. One person said, "Success is the ability to fulfill your desires with effortless ease. Why Good Things Happen to Bad People One cannot ask why bad things happen to good people without also feeling the same tinge of injustice when we contemplate why good things happen to bad people. This is the question that anguished the Psalmist. Searchable by Jesus Some people go to physics and spiritual readers for advice for one thing or another. Who can search all things and give us the truth. Mind Walls Walls as a blockade seem to be an integral part of our society. Almost from the beginning of man's pilgrimage here on earth, there have been walls which have bound and imprisoned mankind.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
