Month: December 2011

Sacred Romance After Tragic Betrayal

On By MJIn Biblical Application1 Comment

 Love of newly weds cannot be expressed in just simple words. It’s something that is defined by passionate actions and the embracing of your beloved. The tender kiss says it all. But what happens when your beloved has the affection of another? What happens when that love is stolen from you? The one you gave your heart to gives their heart to another. Yet it is not only their heart that they give, but their body. In the bonds of marriage you became one, and yet only you remain faithful. Your beloved desired more affection, and more love. Prostituting them self, day after day they are found in the arms of someone else. And you do nothing except take them back.

This is the tragic love story of Hosea, the prophet who married a prostitute. Each night he sat waiting for Gomer, his wife, to return after just giving herself away to another man. And each night he fell in love with her more. With each moment he was separated from her, he desired her all the more. He desired to kiss her and hold her, even though she ran to the arms of other men. She reached a point of such betrayal against her covenant with Hosea, that she sold herself into sexual slavery . However, Hosea, so desperately in love with her, bought her back and took her again into his arms. With each act of prostitution, Hosea felt he could not resist his love for her. This is the tragic romance of Hosea.Though Hosea was in the middle of his own case of tragic love, there is a greater tragedy. The same concept remains: a great love betrayed. God, our creator, desires to be our beloved. He wants our whole heart. This love He has for us is intoxicating and beautiful, just like that of any newly weds. It has passion. Yet we betray this passion. We were created by God to be only His, but we prostitute ourselves to other passions. We may not physically prostitute our bodies like that of Gomer, Hosea’s wife, however, we withhold the entirety of ourselves from God. We ignore His love and passion. Negating His love, we deny it by going to other sources. We all want fulfillment, something to satisfy our desires of love and affection. In spite of this, we completely turn our backs on the one true source of happiness and joy. No passion is ever greater than the passion of God. God created us, therefore, we are His first love and He is ours. He realized long ago that we betrayed His love. But He has never betrayed His love for us. He yearns for us to return. He painfully watches us as we prostitute our lives with some other fulfillment like an addiction, a relationship, or a talent. What He offers to us is His sacred romance. Even night after night of us ignoring Him, He will take us back into His arms. Nothing can satisfy our desires like that of God’s love.

This acknowledgment of God’s passionate, sacred romance breaks my heart because I realize that each day and each night, I potentially betray the love of my beloved-God. I resort to some meaningless answers that continually leave me yearning for more. Nothing has ever satiated by longing for more. Each time I go to a supplemental fulfillment, I recognize that my God is waiting for me, broken by my tragic betrayal, yet He is ready to take me back. I can’t begin to comprehend why He would want me back after such acts of adulterous, disloyal betrayal. Yet No matter how much you have prostituted your life, your love, He yearns for you!!! His passion never fails. His love never fails. He offers to me-to everyone- His sacred romance even after tragic betrayal.

**this is a great song showing the heart of God and His love–He is ruined without our love…**
[“One Love” by Yvonne Parks]

How long I have waited for you,
for you have stolen my heart

Now I am ruined for anything less
I could live forever in your arms
My heart belongs to only one love
My beloved, My beloved, My beloved
I am yours and you are mine

{Break Every Chain}

On By MJIn AwarenessLeave a comment

My thoughts are not quite focused right now. I am all over the place. I am burdened. I am filled with discontent. Not for myself. For children and young girls that are trafficked into slavery. All over this world. Brokenness. Rape. Disease.

My heart aches tonight for these victims. There is a nameless, faceless generation of kids growing up to be adults way too fast, to lose their childhood and innocence brutally, and die before they hit their mid 20s. Girls are sold by their families. They might be kidnapped. Businessmen coerce them for their pleasures. Their homes are not homes at all, but brothels of hate, rape, and bondage.

Do not be deceived in thinking this does not affect you. Do not be naive or ignorant. If you view porn more than a few times, you are encouraging sex-slavery because many of the pornographic images and videos are that of sex slaves, boys and girls, men and women whose innocence was taken from them brutally. That is but one example of this world  disguising the filth and perversion with something that justified as harmless. IT IS NOT HARMLESS! These kids, these girls, these women, these men are people. They are someone’s child. They are human not a commodity!

To you Christians who read this, it is our duty and responsibility. We cannot sit idly by pretending as though sex-slavery is only foreign, and not that big of a deal. It is one of the largest industries in the world. It is growing. I am fully convinced that if the sex trade did not exist, our world would not be in any form of economic crisis. Our nations are driven by lust, greed, and selfishness and it is taken out on little girls. Instead of celebrating their sweet sixteen they are trying to cope with AIDS or HIV while having to service 10 men in a row. Something needs to be done.

 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.'”
Isaiah 58:6-9 [The Message]

I honestly believe that Jesus restores. His life and death stood for restoration, hope, and freedom. LIBERTY! So many studies done around the world by secular and Christian organizations show that there is almost no long-term change in a rescued girls’ life if they do not counsel the victims through spiritual and emotional healing. JESUS IS THAT HEALING! I believe His name is the name that brings healing. These victims can be restored to life. They can be free from bondage, physically and spiritually. It is our job, as believers in Christ, to stand firm in what he stood for- lived and died for- that His name is the hope victims like these need.

{Check out this book about the sex trade in India}

A POW’s forgiveness towards Japan

On By MJIn ThoughtsLeave a comment

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan…”

President Roosevelt continued with, what I would imagine, great pain and sadness in his heart as he addressed the nation about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our nation in a single day lost thousands of men and women- service and civilians. Our nation was hurt. Wounded at our heart. Shortly after the attacks our nation retaliated in explosive force [literally] by something called the Doolittle Raids. The retaliation involved a mere 16 B-25 “Mitchell” bombers with 80 airmen total. Not much of a fight in comparison to the 300 that Japan attacked Pearl with. But our men of the Raiders bombed military establishments in Japan. However, unlike any other mission, the Raiders could not return to the aircraft carriers but to land…they had no choice but to crash land in China in hopes of avoiding the Japanese that had infiltrated the Chinese border. We lost some of the Raiders that day. Most returned home. Eight men became POWs, held captive by a merciless enemy.

This is one of their stories. I cannot help but be moved by this man, one of the POWs. He experienced Pearl and the tragedy along with the rest of our nation. He experienced the bombing over Japan. Such vengeance and hatred overwhelmed his heart. He wanted the Japanese to die painfully and without mercy. When his bomber was crashing over occupied China, he and his crew had to parachute out. For 40 months, Staff Sergeant  Jacob Daniel DeShazer was held prisoner by the Japanese, tortured and facing death every single day. For 40 months he had no idea when his death would happen, although he thought it was certain. For 34 of his 40 months, he awaited death in solitary confinement.  Most of the other POWs had already died. Only 3 made it home when the American armies invaded and freed the camp.

He was not the same man.

Physically DeShazer was malnourished, sick, and nearly dead. Mentally the isolation could have made him crazy. Mentally he could have given up a long time before he did. But Spiritually…something had changed. During his imprisonment, he needed a glimpse of hope- to which he finally received a Bible from his prison guards. They figured it would not matter. They figured it was only a book requested by a prisoner awaiting death. Though he only physically had the Bible for 3 weeks, God began to work on DeShazer’s heart. He saw the messages and stories of the Bible as reason enough to survive, and reason enough to not give up, and as reason enough to believe in a God that was greater than his imprisonment. In August 1945, DeShazer was freed and made his voyage home to America. He married and attended school…to be a missionary.

How can someone who had once be filled with such hatred toward the Japanese, been a prisoner of the Japanese, tortured and nearly killed at the hands of the Japanese decide to be a missionary to the Japanese? For DeShazer, it was the simple fact that God loves and he had to be that love to to his previous captors.

I find his story so incredible. How can I not be moved by the legacy of a man that lived out the forgiveness of Christ? In his forgiveness toward Japan, one of the leading Japanese officers of the Attack on Pearl Harbor came to know Jesus Christ. I have to believe that because of men and women like DeShazer, that my purpose is beyond myself and my situation, good or bad, can be used to glorify God, bringing hope to many. So on this day of December 7, remember this history. Remember those who died and fought valiantly. Remember the soldiers who defended our nation in one of the greatest wars in world history. But also remember the stories of men and women like Jacob Daniel DeShazer who chose to forgive the enemy that hurt him the greatest, because just as Christ died for him, he also died for them.

Worth it for the sunrise.

On By MJIn Thoughts2 Comments

Lately, I have been struggling with the idea of dreaming. Not the imagination that occurs within the subconscious paired with memories that happens during slumber. Instead, I refer to dreaming awake- having hopes, desires, vision, passion. Ultimately it comes to me knowing that there are things I want (or have always wanted) yet I remain doing nothing of the sort. I am in my mid 20’s and at an age that I always thought my dreams would already be in motion. However, what I have discovered is that my life, thus far, is not what I expected. It is not that I am unhappy but I am discontented with the idea of giving up hope on my dreams and passions. I think that deep within me, my heart burns for certain things, and those things, I believe, are God-given. They are not by accident nor are they without purpose.

Recently I have had other ideas and thoughts on my life- somewhat different than I always imagined. My point, is that I think God uses the gifts and talents that he created in each of us for his glory. He does not change, but we do. We mature. We focus them. We choose to honor him with our lives (or not). We can dream dreams all we want but our dreams should include God. With that, I believe our dreams should not only include God, but be driven by him. To be honest, some of my dreams- the pinnacles of my [future] life- scare the heck out of me. They are terrifying, yet beautiful. I believe my God birthed these dreams and ideas inside of me, to challenge me to achieve them. He wants to be a part of them. So as my life is slowly moving forward, I cannot see my dreams coming to fruition, yet I know God is doing something.

I remember a moment when I was hiking Mount Masada in Israel. It is not that intense of a hike, distance that is, but it is very steep.  My friends and I hiked Masada for the sunrise. It was exhausting, steep, and cold. Yet arriving to the top was worth the effort. It was worth watching the sunrise. I remember that moment: I sat down away from everyone, for just a brief moment, yet I was overwhelmed by God’s beauty. I was staring at the desert, the Dead Sea, and the sun. There was just something beautiful about seeing the rays of the sun spread over the barren desert. In reminiscing on that special moment, I know that right now, I am hiking that mountain. I am working my way toward the goal. The little steps in between check points on a hike matter just as much as anything else. Its about moving forward, step by step, even if it seems worthless or mundane. For me, I feel reminded to be obedient to God and see his love for me- his beauty. Maybe this will not make sense to you. I know my thoughts are kind of random. And I know for many who have hiked anywhere, places like Masada, may not seem things the way I did. Yet, I have to remain confident in the pursuit of something that is worth it. The little things in my life right now that I may think do not matter actually do matter.