Faith’s Hall of Fame

A compilation

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One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is this: Who are you going to offend? You’ll offend somebody, I promise you that. But will you offend man or God? That single decision will set the tone of your life. Either you’ll become a people-pleaser,because you’re afraid of offending people. Or you’ll become a God-pleaser, because the last thing you want to do is offend the Almighty.

It’s hard not to draw tremendous inspiration from the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. King Nebuchadnezzar had shown them great favor and put them in positions of authority. It had to be difficult to refuse to bow to his ninety-foot statue. He was the second-to-last person that they wanted to offend. The first? God.

Daniel 3:16 says, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, Your Majesty can be sure that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”

It was their unwillingness to offend God that set the table for one of the most amazing miracles in Scripture. God delivers them from the fiery furnace.

Who are you going to offend? You need to settle it now.—Mark Batterson

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We are fools for Christ’s sake.—1 Corinthians 4:10

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By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.

And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.—Hebrews 11:7–34

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One of the best verses that you could claim is, “Be faithful until death, and I will give you a crown of life.”1

The Lord isn’t talking about salvation; He’s talking about your faithfulness in service—if you faithfully do your best to please God and obey His Word.

The secret of being “faithful until death” is to be faithful one day at a time. You can only live one day at a time; you can only be faithful one day at a time. So don’t worry whether you were faithful yesterday or whether you’re going to be faithful tomorrow. Just do your best to be faithful today. The Bible tells us to forget the past, and tomorrow will take care of itself—or the Lord will take care of it.2 Just be faithful today.

Just be faithful every day, one day at a time, and you’ll be faithful until death and receive an eternal crown of life.

Jesus said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”3 Don’t try to live the coming year in advance, and the year after that. “I wonder if I’m going to make it through tribulation, and I wonder if I’m going to be ready when the Lord comes, and I wonder if I’m going to get any reward or crown?” Quit worrying about that! Just keep busy today. Do what you’re supposed to do today. Be faithful today!

The Lord has kept you faithful today, and you ought to thank Him for that! Too many people think that being faithful is some kind of a good works trip that they have to work up on their own. But that’s not where faith comes from. Faith comes from the Lord. He’s “the author and finisher of our faith.”4 He gives us faith as we take in His Word.5—David Brandt Berg

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Many of God’s promises are conditional, requiring some initial action on our part. Once we begin to obey, He will begin to bless us. Great things were promised to Abraham, but not one of them could have been obtained had he waited in Chaldea. He had to leave his home, friends, and country, travel unfamiliar paths, and press on in unwavering obedience in order to receive the promises. The ten lepers Jesus healed were told to show themselves to the priest, and “as they went, they were cleansed.” If they had waited to see the cleansing come to their bodies before leaving, they would never have seen it. God was waiting to heal them, and the moment their faith began to work, the blessing came.

When the Israelites were entrapped by Pharaoh’s pursuing army at the Red Sea, they were commanded to “go forward.” No longer was it their duty to wait, but to rise up from bended knees and “go forward” with heroic faith. Years later the Israelites were commanded to show their faith again by beginning their march over the Jordan while the river was at its highest point. They held the key to unlock the gate into the Land of Promise in their own hands, and the gate would not begin to turn on its hinges until they had approached and unlocked it. The key was faith.

We are destined to fight certain battles, and we think we can never be victorious and conquer our enemies. Yet as we enter the conflict, One comes who fights by our side. Through Him we are “more than conquerors.” If we had waited in fear and trembling for our helper to come before we would enter the battle, we would have waited in vain. God is waiting to pour out His richest blessings on you. “Go forward” with bold confidence and take what is yours. “I have begun to deliver … Now begin to conquer and possess.”—J. R. Miller

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We must learn to take God at His word and walk straight ahead in obedience, even when we can see no way to go forward. The reason we are so often sidetracked by difficulties is that we expect to see barriers removed before we even try to pass through them. If we would only move ahead in faith, the path would be opened for us. But we stand still, waiting for the obstacle to be removed, when we ought to go forward as if there were no obstacles at all.—Evening Thoughts

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He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.—Jim Elliot

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Faith that goes forward triumphs.—Author unknown

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If you’re not daring to believe God for the impossible, you’re sleeping through some of the best parts of the Christian life.—Steven Furtick6

Published on Anchor November 2012. Read by Simon Gregg.


1 Revelation 2:10.

2 Philippians 3:13; Matthew 6:34.

3 Matthew 6:34 NKJV.

4 Hebrews 12:2.

5 Romans 10:17.

6 The Day the Sun Stood Still (Multnomah, 2010).

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The Entebbe Option

By Mark Perry, Foreign Policy, September 27, 2012
While no one in the Barack Obama administration knows whether Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear program, America’s war planners are preparing for a wide array of potential Israeli military options—while also trying to limit the chances of the United States being drawn into a potentially bloody conflict in the Persian Gulf.

“U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing on Iran has been extraordinary and unprecedented,” a senior Pentagon war planner told me. “But when it comes to actually attacking Iran, what Israel won’t tell us is what they plan to do, or how they plan to do it. It’s their most closely guarded secret.” Israel’s refusal to share its plans has persisted despite repeated requests from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a senior Pentagon civilian said.

The result is that, at a time of escalating public debate in both the United States and Israel around the possibility of an armed strike on Iran, high-level Pentagon war planners have had to “fly blind” in sketching out what Israel might do—and the challenges its actions will pose for the U.S. military. “What we do is a kind of reverse engineering,” the senior planner said. “We take a look at their [Israeli] assets and capabilities, put ourselves in their shoes and ask how we would act if we had what they have. So while we’re guessing, we have a pretty good idea of what they can and can’t do.”

According to several high-level U.S. military and civilian intelligence sources, U.S. Central Command and Pentagon war planners have concluded that there are at least three possible Israeli attack options, including a daring and extremely risky special operations raid on Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow—an “Iranian Entebbe” they call it, after Israel’s 1976 commando rescue of Israeli hostages held in Uganda. In that scenario, Israeli commandos would storm the complex, which houses many of Iran’s centrifuges; remove as much enriched uranium as they found or could carry; and plant explosives to destroy the facility on their way out.

Centcom, which oversees U.S. military assets in the Middle East, has been given the lead U.S. role in studying the possible Israeli strike. Over the past year its officers have met several times at Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Florida, and with Fifth Fleet naval officers in Bahrain to discuss their conclusions, the sources say.

The military analysis of Israeli war plans has been taking place separate from—but concurrent with—the controversy surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that the United States present Tehran with a “red line,” which, if crossed by Iran’s nuclear program, would trigger a U.S. military strike. “That’s a political question, not a war question,” the senior Pentagon war planner said. “It’s not in our lane. We’re assuming that an Israeli attack could come at any time.”

But it’s not clear that Israel, even with its vaunted military, can pull off a successful strike: Netanyahu may not simply want the United States on board politically; he may need the United States to join militarily. “All this stuff about ‘red lines’ and deadlines is just Israel’s way of trying to get us to say that when they start shooting, we’ll start shooting,” retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman told me. “Bottom line? We can do this and they can’t, because we have what the Israelis don’t have,” retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner said.

One thing is clear: the U.S. military, according to my sources, currently has no interest in a preventive strike. “The idea that we’ll attack with Israel is remote, so you can take that off your list of options,” former Centcom commander Joe Hoar told me. Nor will the United States join an Israeli attack once it starts, the senior U.S. planner said. “We know there are senior Iranians egging for a fight with us, particularly in their Navy,” a retired Centcom officer added. “And we’ll give them one if they want one, but we’re not going to go piling in simply because the Israelis want us to.”

That puts the military shoulder to shoulder with the president. Obama and the military may have clashed on other issues, like the Afghan surge, but when it comes to Iran, they are speaking with one voice: They don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon, they don’t want Israel to start a war over it, and they don’t believe an Israeli attack should automatically trigger U.S. intervention. But, if they are to avoid becoming part of Israel’s plans, they first need to know what those plans are.

Three high-level U.S. military and intelligence sources have told me that Centcom has identified three options for Israel should it decide to take preventive military action against Iran.

The first and most predictable option calls for a massed Israeli Air Force bombing campaign targeting key Iranian nuclear sites. Such an assault would be coupled with strikes from submarine-launched cruise missiles and Israeli-based medium-range Jericho II and long-range Jericho III missiles, according to a highly placed U.S. military officer. The attack may well be preceded by—or coupled with—a coordinated cyber and electronic warfare attack.

But planners for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Centcom have concluded that, because of limits to Israel’s military capabilities, such an aerial campaign could not be sustained. “They’ll have one shot, one time,” the U.S. military officer said. “That’s one time out and one time back. And that’s it.”

While Israel has 125 sophisticated F15I and F16I fighter-bombers, only the roughly 25 F15Is are capable of carrying the bunker-busting GBU-28 guided missile, which has the best chance of destroying Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear installations. And even then, each F15I can only carry a single munition.

This force, while lethal, is also modest. The Israeli Air Force would likely have to carefully pick and choose its targets, settling most probably on four: the heavy-water production plant at Arak, the uranium-enrichment centers at Fordow and Natanz, and the uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan, while leaving out the military site at Parchin and the nuclear reactor at Bushehr, which houses Russian technical experts.

The Israeli attack would also likely include the F16Is to knock down Iran’s air defense network, or perhaps drop other, less effective, bunker-busting munitions to reinforce the F15I sortie. Some of these F16Is, but not all of them, would be able to refuel from Israel’s seven to ten KC-707 tankers.

Even with that, and even with the best of luck (good weather, accurate targeting, sophisticated refueling, near total surprise, precise air-to-air interdiction, a minimum of accidents, and the successful destruction of Iran’s anti-aircraft capabilities), senior U.S. military officers say that Israel would only set back Iran’s nuclear capability by one to two years at best—not end it.

Which could be why Netanyahu is so anxious for the Obama administration to say when or if it would join an attack. As Hoar, the former Centcom commander, bluntly put it: “Compared to the United States, Israel doesn’t have a military.”

Included in the U.S. arsenal is the recently developed Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the GBU-57, which can punch through 200 feet of hardened concrete before detonating its 5,300-pound warhead. The United States, which recently developed the GBU-57, is rumored to have only about 20 in its inventory—but the Israelis have zero. “There’s a good reason for that,” Gardiner said. “Only a B-2 bomber can carry the 57.” He paused for effect: “You might know this, but it’s worth mentioning,” he said. “Israel doesn’t have any B-2s.”

Israel’s likely inability to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity in a single stroke, even in a best-case scenario, has led U.S. war planners to speculate about a second, out-of-the-box, and extremely dangerous military option: what they’re calling an “Iranian Entebbe.”

In this scenario, the Israelis would forego a massed air attack and instead mount a high-risk but high-payoff commando raid that would land an elite Sayeret Matkal (special forces) unit outside of Iran’s enrichment facility at Fordow, near Qom. The unit—or other elite units like it—consisting of perhaps as many as 400 soldiers, would seize Iran’s enriched uranium for transport to Israel.

The operation’s success would depend on speed, secrecy, simplicity, and the credibility of Israeli intelligence. According to the Pentagon war planner, Israel’s access to intelligence on Iranian military and policy planning is unprecedented, as is their willingness to share it with U.S. intelligence officials.

The Israeli unit would be transported on as few as three and perhaps as many as six C-130 aircraft (which can carry a maximum of 70 troops) that would be protected by a “swarm” of well-armed F16Is, according to the scenario being considered by U.S. military officers. The C-130s would land in the desert near Fordow. The Israeli commandos would then defeat the heavily armed security personnel at the complex, penetrate its barriers and interdict any enemy units nearby, and seize the complex’s uranium for transport back to Israel. Prior to its departure, the commando unit would destroy the complex, obviating the need for any high-level bombing attack. (Senior U.S. military officers say that there are reports that some of the uranium at Fordow is stored as uranium hexafluoride gas, a chemical form used during the enrichment process. In that case, the material may be left in place when the commandos destroy the complex.)

“It’s doable, and they have to be thinking along these lines,” the highly placed U.S. military officer said. “The IDF’s special forces are the best asset Israel has.” That said, “In some scenarios,” the U.S. military planner who told me of the potential operation said, “there would be very high Israeli casualties because of nearby Republican Guard divisions. This operation could be quite bloody.”

Bloody or not, the Israeli leadership may not be quick to dismiss such an operation, given Israel’s history of using such units. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are former Sayeret Matkal officers, and recently Israeli Defense Forces head Benny Gantz (himself a Sayeret Matkal veteran) said the IDF had formed an elite special operations “Deep Corps” to strike far inside hostile territory. And, of course, it bears remembering that Netanyahu’s brother Yonatan was the sole casualty in Israel’s Entebbe operation.

The difficulty with the Entebbe-style option is that Israel would be forced to mount “a robust CSAR [combat search and rescue] capability” to support it, a senior JCS planner noted. That would mean landing other C-130s carrying helicopters that could pick up endangered commandos or retrieve downed aircraft crews. Such CSAR units would have to be deployed to nearby countries, “or even land in the Iraqi desert,” this senior officer said. This CSAR component complicates what might otherwise be a straightforward operation, as it involves other vulnerabilities—an “escalatory ladder” that Israel may not want to climb.

Skeptics of this option include Admiral Inman. “The Israelis could get to Entebbe,” he said, “but they can’t get to Iran. My sense is that the fact that the Israelis are even thinking about this operation shows that they realize that their first, bombing option won’t work. They’re desperately grasping for a military solution, and they know they don’t have one.”

But Colonel Gardiner believes this Entebbe-style operation is possible. “It’s a non-escalatory option, it’s entirely doable, and it’s not as dangerous as it seems,” he said. “We have to understand what Israel’s goal is in any attack on Iran. The whole point for Israel is to show that they can project power anywhere in the region. So let’s take a look at this from their perspective. There aren’t three divisions near Fordow, there’s one, and it’s dug in. It wouldn’t take the Iranians three hours to respond, it would take them three days. This reminds me of Osirak [the Iraqi nuclear reactor that Israel destroyed in a 1981 airstrike]. The last ones who wanted to admit that the Israelis did that were the Iraqis. That’ll be the case here. The Iranians will be embarrassed. It has appeal. It makes sense. If it’s simple, if it’s done fast, if it’s in and out. It could work.”

A third operation is less exotic, but perhaps most dangerous of all: regime decapitation. “The Israelis could just take out the Iranian leadership,” the senior Pentagon war planner said. “But they would only do that as a part of an air strike or a commando raid.” The downside of a decapitation strike is that it would not end Iran’s nuclear program; the upside is that it would almost certainly trigger an Iranian response targeting U.S. military assets in the region, as it would leave the Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces in charge of the country. It would be the one sure way, U.S. officers with whom I spoke believe, for Israel to get the United States involved in its anti-Iran offensive, with the U.S. mounting operations in a conflict it didn’t start.

How would the U.S. military respond to an Iranian attack? “It depends,” the Pentagon planner said. “If the Iranians harass us, we can deal with it, but if they go after one of our capital ships, then all bets are off.” Even so, a U.S. response would not involve a full-scale, costly land war against the Tehran regime, but rather a long-term air interdiction campaign to erode Iranian military capabilities, including its nuclear program, the planner said.

But a decapitation campaign would deepen the rift between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. The war talk in Jerusalem has already eroded the views of many senior U.S. military officers who were once strongly committed to Israel, but who now quietly resent Netanyahu’s attempt to pressure the United States into a war that it doesn’t want. “Our commitment to Israel has been as solid as with any ally we’ve ever had, and a lot of officers are proud of that,” Lt. General Robert Gard, a retired Army officer, said. “But we’ve done it so that they can defend themselves. Not so they can start World War III.”

This U.S. distaste for involvement in an Israeli strike has been percolating for some time. In March, the New York Times detailed a Centcom war game dubbed “Internal Look,” in which the United States was “pulled into” a regional conflict in the wake of an Israeli attack. The results “were particularly troubling” to Gen. James Mattis, the Centcom commander. Among its other conclusions, “Internal Look” found that Iranian retaliation against U.S. military assets could result in “hundreds of U.S. deaths,” probably as the result of an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. naval vessel. The simulation, as well as Iranian threats to close the Straits of Hormuz, suggest why Mattis requested that the White House approve the deployment of a third aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

But while Mattis was worried about the Iranians, he was also worried about Israel, whose saber-rattling he views with discomfort, his closest colleagues say. “Internal Look” not only showed that the results of an Israeli attack were unpredictable, as the Times reported, but, according to a Pentagon official, it also showed that the less warning the United States has of an Israeli attack, the greater the number of casualties the United States will suffer. “The more warning we have, the fewer American lives we’ll lose,” a Pentagon civilian familiar with U.S. thinking on the issue told me. “The less warning, the more deaths.”

According to another senior Pentagon official, Obama and Gen. Martin Dempsey “have discussed in detail” the likelihood of an Israeli attack. As early as the autumn of 2011, when Dempsey became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Obama told him that the United States would “neither help nor hinder” an Israeli strike, this official said. While Obama’s closely guarded formulation hasn’t made it into the American press, his words are common knowledge among Israeli officials and had appeared just six months after Obama took office, in July 2009, in a prominent editorial in the pro-Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom.

Obama, the editorial stated, “will try to have a dialogue with Iran” while knowing that such an effort will probably not succeed. Obama “would prefer that there be no Israeli attack but is unprepared to accept responsibility for Israel’s security if he fails [in a diplomatic dialogue] and the U.S. prevents Israel from attacking,” the editorial added. “Thus it arises that while Israel has no green light to attack Iran, it does not have a red light either. The decision is Israel’s. The U.S. will neither help nor hinder.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. military fears that Iran will assume the United States has approved an Israeli strike, even if it hasn’t—and will target U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf. That may be why Dempsey told a roundtable of London reporters in August that he did not want to appear “complicit” in an Israeli attack. The remark touched off speculation that the United States was softening its stance toward Tehran or pressuring Israel to back away from using military force. In fact, nothing had changed: Dempsey was explicitly telling Iran that any Israeli attack would not have the approval or the help of the United States. So while Israel waited for Obama to explain or correct Dempsey’s statement, no clarification was forthcoming. “Dempsey knew exactly what he was saying,” the highly placed military officer said, “and he wouldn’t have said it without White House approval.” After a moment, he added: “Everything the military says has to be cleared, and I mean everything.”

Those outside the U.S. government who follow these issues closely agree. “The administration’s message has been remarkably consistent,” U.S.-Iran expert and author Trita Parsi said. “We always hear about how America believes war is ‘the last resort,’ but in this case, President Obama really means it.”

Gard, the retired Army officer, agreed: “It’s clear to me that President Obama will do everything he can to stop Iran from getting a bomb,” he said. “But no president will allow another country to decide when to shed American blood. Not even Israel.” Gard has a reputation as a military intellectual, has led several initiatives of retired military officers on defense issues, and is a useful barometer of serving officers’ views on sensitive political controversies. “There is a general disdain in our military for the idea of a preventive war,” he said, “which is what the Israelis call their proposed war on Iran.”

George Little, the Pentagon spokesperson, provided this statement: “The United States is prepared to address the full range of contingencies related to potential security threats in the Middle East. But it’s flatly untrue—and pure speculation—to suggest that we have definitively ruled anything in or out for scenarios that have not taken place. Meanwhile, the United States and Israel are in complete agreement about the necessity of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Still, according to a respected retired military officer who consults with the Pentagon—and who speaks regularly with senior Israeli military officers—Israel’s political elite is likely to be surprised by Obama and the U.S. military’s response should Israel launch a preventive attack on Iranian nuclear sites. “If Israel starts a war,” this retired officer said, “America’s first option will be to stop it. To call for a ceasefire. And, by the way, that’s also our second and third option. We’ll do everything we can to keep the war from escalating. We’ll have 72 hours to do that. After that, all bets are off.”

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Why the American Raj is Under Siege

By Eric Margolis, ICH, Sept. 28, 2012
The killing of the US ambassador to Libya and angry demonstrations across the Muslim world over a tacky anti-Islamic hate video have produced the usual flood of wrong-headed commentary from our media and politicians.

Across the land comes the familiar cry, “why do they hate us?” That any Americans can in this day and age still be surprised that their nation is hated by many people from Morocco to Indonesia to Nigeria is by far the biggest surprise. We have learned little from 9/11.

Those angry Muslims from Morocco to Bangladesh are not rioting and burning because they hate Christianity, fast food, America’s consumer society, democracy, or feminism, as we are endlessly misinformed by politicians and media.

The mass fury does not come because Muslims are somehow irrational, primitive, violent beings.

Nor is the hate video, which was actually seen by only a limited number of the world’s one billion Muslims, the real cause of the violence we have been witnessing: it is merely the spark that ignited the combustible haze of anti-Americanism that overlies over much of the Muslim world.

Many Americans believe they are innocent bystanders in the Muslim world, or involved there on an altruistic “mission” to uplift the benighted natives, to selflessly shoulder the heavy burden of policing the unruly globe, or abroad to wage an unending struggle against the dark forces of what we call “terrorism.”

What they do not at all understand is that the American imperium’s goal is to advance its own strategic, economic and political goals and keep much of the planet under its influence.

In the last century, such ambitions and behavior used to be called “imperialism,” a practice that became synonymous with the British Empire. At its apogee, the Britain Empire ruled one quarter of the globe and most of the world’s seas and oceans. At the heart of this vast empire lay its “jewel,” India. Britain’s rule over India was known as the British Raj (raj meaning rule in Hindi).

In 2008, I published my second book, “American Raj.” I sought to distill my fifty years of experience in the Muslim world to explain to Americans what was really going on in the troubled region, why it was so violent and unstable, and our own errors in fostering this problem. I tried to show what a positive role America could play for the entire Muslim world.

The more I examined the historical parallels between the British Empire and today’s American dominion over most of the Arab and greater Muslim world, the more it became evident that the United States had inherited the British Empire in 1945 and was copying its highly successful managerial techniques.

Chief among these was divide and rule, using petty princes and potentates as surrogates, building armies of native troops known as “sepoys,” forcing the subcontinent into economic subservience and captive markets.

Britain’s genius lay in managing a huge empire with tiny numbers of its own soldiers and officials. That’s why I entitled my book, “American Raj.” In it, I examined the way Washington controlled most of the Arab world’s regimes, how it promoted dictatorship and its handmaiden, corruption, and how the US used native armies to maintain its control.

I warned that the Mideast was seething with anti-Americanism, fury over the plight of Palestinians, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and rage against the corrupt, brutal rulers imposed by the United States, Britain and France. In “Raj,” I urged the United States to practice the values it preaches and help build real democracy in the Arab world before it was too late. The first and major step, I asserted, was imposed a just settlement for Palestine—which I termed “sand in the eye of the Muslim world.”

Not a single American publisher would touch “American Raj.” It was simply too heretical in challenging the myths of benign American foreign policy or predicting a coming explosion. My book was published in Canada and Europe, but not in my own country.

In December, 2010, two years after “Raj” came out, the Arab world began to erupt against dictatorship, corruption, and oppression. The revolt began in little Tunisia but soon spread to the bulwark of America’s Mideast Raj, Egypt, where the exceptionally brutal, corrupt US-backed dictatorship of Husni Mubarak was toppled. For 40 years, Washington had sustained military dictatorships in Egypt whose principal raison d’etre was making Israel comfortable and keeping the lid on a restive population.

The angry demonstrations still flaring across the Muslim world are a volcanic eruption of anger at America. They are not terrorism or religious fanaticism, though numbers of religious fanatics are indeed involved.

As I tried to explain in “American Raj,” what we call “terrorism” is in many cases virulent anti-Americanism aroused by our domination of the Muslim world—which has been battling first European, then American domination for the past two centuries. And the near universal belief among its citizens that the western powers are stealing their oil and gas resources, abetted by corrupt, Quisling regimes.

The natives are fighting back, just as they did under the British Raj. As America wrings its hands over attacks by our ingrate Afghan “sepoys” on their American and British advisors (read “white officers”), those who know India’s history will recall the great 1857 Indian Mutiny in which “loyal” native sepoy regiments turned on their British officers and their families.

Is it any wonder the Muslim world is so angry? The agony of Palestine continues, with America’s politicians, led by Mitt Romney, adopting an openly anti-Palestinian policy. His cynical words about kicking the Palestinian question down the road echoed across the Muslim world, as had virulently anti-Muslim statements by Republican presidential challengers like Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Or the constant Muslim-bashing of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the rest of the Murdoch empire.

America’s armed forces and CIA are now waging military operations and assassinations in five Muslim nations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and, most recently, Libya. US troops are heading into East and North Africa, with Mali next on the list. Iraq has been destroyed as a functioning state. Sudan, Africa’s largest state, has just been sundered into two inimical states, the US-backed one that coincidentally has oil.

There are nine million Palestinian refugees, two million Afghan refugees, two million Iraqi refugees, and now Syria is being torn apart by a US and Saudi-backed insurgency. Mubarak is gone, but Washington supports some of the world’s most reactionary and odious regimes, notably medieval monarchies in Arabia and the sinister military regime that rules Algeria.

In short, there are a multitude of reasons for people in the Muslim world to be angry at America. And, of course, at themselves: youth unemployment and the economic, social and political backwardness of much of the Muslim world, endemic corruption and near total lack of real justice, powerlessness and hopelessness.

America can’t be blamed for many of the Muslim world’s wrenching social and political problems, but it is not doing enough to alleviate them. Instead, Washington clings to its overseas empire with the same tenacity as Britain’s imperialists at a time when the United Kingdom’s postwar economy lay shattered and drowning in debt. Britain could no longer afford its globe-girding empire then, and America can no longer afford its global imperium today. Both Rajs had feet of clay.

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Darwin’s Magic Potion

By Bruce Malone:

When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, he brought scientific credibility to the concept that man developed slowly from previous life forms. Most people do not realize that the concept of evolution did not actually originate with Darwin, but predates him by thousands of years. As far back in history as the ancient Greeks there were ideas about life coming from previous forms of life. Even the mechanisms proposed by Darwin can be attributed, in a large part, to others.1 What sets Darwin apart is the timing of his work. The intellectual community of Northern Europe was ripe for a naturalistic explanation of life. The distortion of Biblical Christianity was bringing faith in the supernatural under increasing ridicule, and humanism (man making himself the center of all things) was rapidly replacing the Christian belief in absolute truth.

Thus, when an alternative to creation seemed to have been found, it was rapidly accepted as fact. The easiest way to reject the authority of a creator is to remove the existence of that creator. In actuality, Darwin proved neither where life came from nor how it developed. He merely proposed a method whereby this transformation from beast to man seemed possible. With the exception of mutations as the source of new genetic information, the belief in evolution as the explanation for our origin has progressed little in the last 150 years. The concepts popularized by Darwin continue to be taught with the fervor of religious dogma.

Darwin proposed several things concerning the origin of the enormous variety of life on our planet. The first was that “the species are not immutable” (i.e. we came from a previous simpler form of life). Darwin’s second proposal was that this trans-formation of one life form into another was driven by a process called natural selection (popularized as “survival of the fittest”). His third assumption was the rejection of a Biblical time frame and a world wide flood as an explanation for the geology of the planet. This allowed him to accept the increasingly popular huge time periods needed for this transformation to take place. Believers in evolution still assume that given enough time, there is essentially no limit to biological variation. But can this seemingly magical force transform amoebas into man?

Almost every biology textbook has the following example of natural selection in action. In England, before the industrial revolution, it was common to find the peppered moth in proportions of 95 percent light-colored to 5 percent dark-colored. This was believed to be caused by the majority of the trees in a certain area being light so the light-colored moths were better camouflaged. Thus fewer light-colored moths were eaten by predators. After the industrial revolution, the trees became primarily dark-colored (due to pollution) and the light-colored moths were now at a disadvantage to the predators. Thus, the peppered moth population shifted from light colored to 95 percent dark. This is a classic example of the powerful ability of natural selection to adapt an organism to its environment. But how far does this go to explain the development of completely different types of animals? We started with light and dark moths and we ended up with...light and dark moths. Nothing new developed. The population merely shifted.

There does not exist even one example of natural selection producing a new type of animal, a new organ, or even a major permanent change in an existing organism. This is because “natural selection” is just that - selection. It can create nothing new. It can only select the most advantageous information which is already present in the molecular blueprint of the organism. Natural selection cannot cause new useful information to be added to the DNA of an animal. Darwin was simply wrong when presenting this mechanism as the explanation for life’s development.

1. Ian Taylor, In the Minds of Men, TFE Publishing, 1987

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Prayer Takes in the Whole Man

E. M. Bounds

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“Some years ago, on a ferryboat, I met a gentleman who knew [Henry Clay Trumbull]. ‘Oh, yes,’ said my friend, ‘he was a great Christian, so real, so intense. He was at my home years ago and we were talking about prayer.’ ‘Why, Trumbull,’ I said, ‘you don’t mean to say if you lost a pencil you would pray about it, and ask God to help you find it.’ ‘Of course I would; of course I would,’ was his instant and excited reply. Of course he would. Was not his faith a real thing? He did trust God in everything. And the Father honoured the trust of His child.”1

Prayer has to do with the entire man. It takes the whole man to pray, and prayer affects the entire man in its gracious results. As the whole nature of man enters into prayer, so also all that belongs to man is the beneficiary of prayer. All of man receives benefits in prayer. The largest results in praying come to him who gives himself, all of himself, all that belongs to himself, to God. This is the secret of full consecration, and this is a condition of successful praying, and the sort of praying which brings the largest fruits.

The men of olden times who wrought well in prayer, who brought the largest things to pass, who moved God to do great things, were those who were entirely given over to God in their praying. God wants, and must have, all that there is in man in answering his prayers. He must have wholehearted men through whom to work out His purposes and plans concerning men. God must have men in their entirety. No double-minded man need apply. No man with a divided allegiance to God, and the world and self, can do the praying that is needed.

Holiness is wholeness, and so God wants holy men, men wholehearted and true, for His service and for the work of praying. “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”2 These are the sort of men God wants for leaders … and these are the kind out of which the praying class is formed.

Daniel kneeled upon his knees three times a day in prayer. Solomon kneeled in prayer at the dedication of the temple. Our Lord in Gethsemane prostrated Himself in that memorable season of praying just before His betrayal.

The entire man must pray. The whole man, life, heart, temper, mind, are in it. Each and all join in the prayer exercise. A loyal intellect must conspire and add the energy and fire of its undoubting and undivided faith to … the hour of prayer. Necessarily the mind enters into the praying. First of all, it takes thought to pray. The intellect teaches us we ought to pray. As praying is asking for something definite of God, so, beforehand, the thought arises: “What shall I ask for at this hour?” All vain and evil and frivolous thoughts are eliminated, and the mind is given over entirely to God, thinking of Him, of what is needed, and what has been received in the past. The very first step in prayer is a mental one. The disciples took that first step when they said unto Jesus at one time, “Lord, teach us to pray.”3

It takes the whole man to pray till all the storms which agitate his soul are calmed to a great calm, till the stormy winds and waves cease as by a Godlike spell. It takes the whole man to pray till cruel tyrants and unjust rulers are changed in their natures and lives, as well as in their governing qualities, or till they cease to rule. It requires the entire man in praying till high and proud and unspiritual ecclesiastics become gentle, lowly, and religious, till godliness and gravity bear rule in Church and in State, in home and in business, in public as well as in private life.

It is man’s business to pray; and it takes manly men to do it. It is godly business to pray and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer. Prayer is far-reaching in its influence and in its gracious effects. It is intense and profound business which deals with God and His plans and purposes, and it takes wholehearted men to do it. No half-hearted, half-brained, half-spirited effort will do for this serious, all-important, heavenly business. The whole heart, the whole brain, the whole spirit, must be in the matter of praying, which is so mightily to affect the characters and destinies of men.

The answer of Jesus to the scribe as to what was the first and greatest commandment was as follows:

“The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.”4

In one word, the entire man without reservation must love God. So it takes the same entire man to do the praying which God requires of men. All the powers of man must be engaged in it. God cannot tolerate a divided heart in the love He requires of men, neither can He bear with a divided man in praying.

In the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm the psalmist teaches this very truth in these words:

“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.”5

It takes wholehearted men to keep God’s commandments and it demands the same sort of men to seek God. These are they who are counted “blessed.” Upon these wholehearted ones God’s approval rests.

Bringing the case closer home to himself, the psalmist makes this declaration as to his practice: “With my whole heart have I sought thee; O let me not wander from thy commandments.”6

And further on, giving us his prayer for a wise and understanding heart, he tells us his purposes concerning the keeping of God’s law:

“Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.”7

Just as it requires a whole heart given to God to gladly and fully obey God’s commandments, so it takes a whole heart to do effectual praying.

Because it requires the whole man to pray, praying is no easy task. Praying is far more than simply bending the knee and saying a few words by rote.

“’Tis not enough to bend the knee,
And words of prayer to say;
The heart must with the lips agree,
Or else we do not pray.”8

Praying is no light and trifling exercise. Prayer draws upon the whole nature of man. Prayer engages all the powers of man’s moral and spiritual nature. It is this which explains somewhat the praying of our Lord described in Hebrews 5:7:

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.”

It takes only a moment’s thought to see how such praying of our Lord drew mightily upon all the powers of His being, and called into exercise every part of His nature. This is the praying which brings the soul close to God and which brings God down to earth.

Body, soul and spirit are taxed and brought under tribute to prayer.

David Brainerd makes this record of his praying:

“God enabled me to agonise in prayer till I was wet with perspiration, though in the shade and in a cool place.”

The Son of God in Gethsemane was in an agony of prayer, which engaged His whole being:

“And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray ye that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him, from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”9

Here was praying which laid its hands on every part of our Lord’s nature, which called forth all the powers of His soul, His mind and His body. This was praying which took in the entire man.

Paul was acquainted with this kind of praying. In writing to the Roman Christians, he urges them to pray with him after this fashion:

“Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.”10

The words “strive together with me” tell of Paul’s praying, and how much he put into it. It is not a docile request, not a little thing, this sort of praying, this “striving with me.” It is of the nature of a great battle, a conflict to win, a great battle to be fought. The praying Christian, as the soldier, fights a life-and-death struggle. His honour, his immortality, and eternal life are all in it. This is praying as the athlete struggles for the mastery, and for the crown, and as he wrestles or runs a race. Everything depends on the strength he puts in it. Energy, ardour, swiftness, every power of his nature is in it. Every power is quickened and strained to its very utmost. Littleness, half-heartedness, weakness and laziness are all absent.

Just as it takes the whole man to pray successfully, so in turn the whole man receives the benefits of such praying. As every part of man’s complex being enters into true praying, so every part of that same nature receives blessings from God in answer to such praying. This kind of praying engages our undivided hearts, our full consent to be the Lord’s, our whole desires.

God sees to it that when the whole man prays, in turn the whole man shall be blessed. His body takes in the good of praying, for much praying is done specifically for the body. Food and raiment, health and bodily vigour, come in answer to praying. Clear mental action, right thinking, an enlightened understanding, and safe reasoning powers, come from praying. Divine guidance means God so moving and impressing the mind that we shall make wise and safe decisions. “The meek will he guide in judgment.”11

From The Essentials of Prayer, Bounds, Edward M. (1835–1913)
Rights: Public Domain.

Published on Anchor November 2012. Read by Simon Peterson.


1 Robert E. Speer.

2 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

3 Luke 11:1.

4 Mark 12:29–30.

5 Psalm 119:2.

6 Psalm 119:10.

7 Psalm 119:34.

8 Author unknown.

9 Luke 22:40–44.

10 Romans 15:30.

11 Psalm 25:9.

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Mutations Always Result in a Loss

By Bruce Malone:

Darwin’s original theory of evolution included the idea that environmental changes could cause structural changes to occur in plants and animals. He also postulated that these acquired characteristics could be transmitted to offspring. In other words, a horse-like animal, by stretching its neck to reach the leaves in a tree, would be at an advantage if it had a longer neck. So after a life time of using its body in this way, it might develop a longer neck and would pass on this characteristic (which was acquired during its lifetime) to its offspring. This original belief, known as Lamarckism, has been shown false and has been replaced by the belief that mutations are the driving force behind evolution.

Mutations are mistakes made during the transfer of information from the genes of one generation to the next (birth defects are examples of these.) Believers in evolution postulate that if these mistakes are beneficial to the animal it will give the mutated animal an advantage, and natural selection will then preferentially select these animals for survival. Although this belief seems logical, it does not fit reality.

Mutations are mistakes which have never produced a long term benefit. Even examples of “beneficial” mutations, such as sickle cell anemia (a fatal disease which imparts a resistance to malaria) do not create new features or improve overall survivability. One hundred years of experimentation has shown that mutations can not develop new organisms or even cause useful changes to existing organisms. This is because mutations never add useful information. They are exactly analogous to random misspellings in a book. Therefore this mechanism for evolution, even in combination with natural selection, fails to explain how new functional structures could arise.

During the last century millions of fruit flies have been irradiated in laboratory experiments to observe the effect of mutations. The mutation rate has been increased by as much as 15,000 times1. The results of this experiment simulate millions of years of evolutionary progress. What has resulted are big-winged, small-winged, wrinkled-winged, and no-winged fruit flies; large-bodied, small bodied, and no-bodied fruit flies; red-eyed, speckled-eyed, leg-in-place of eye fruit flies; many bristled or no bristled fruit flies; but mainly dead or sterile fruit flies. In conclusion, researchers began with fruit flies and end up with...well...fruit flies - defective ones.

Furthermore, after several generations, even changes in the number of bristles on the irradiated fruit flies reverted back to the original number.2 No new organ or useful functioning feature has ever developed.

The belief that mutations could slowly change an animal into some other animal is analogous to believing that an old vacuum tube black and white television could be changed into an color liquid crystal monitor by throwing random parts at it. The impacts will definitely produce changes (given the quality of current TV shows it could even be argued that these changes would be beneficial), but they certainly will not change the unit into a color TV.

In the same way, mutations may produce changes, and it is remotely possible that some may be beneficial, but they will not change an organism into some other type of organism. For that to happen, useful information would have to be added to the DNA of the creature. This simply is not going to happen as a result of random mutations.

It would seem that this commonly accepted evolutionary mechanism (mutations) has serious flaws which are seldom reported to students or to the general public.

1. E.J. Gardner, Principles of Genetics, (N.Y.: Wily, 1964) p. 180.

2. N. MacBeth, “The Question: Darwinism Revisited”, Yale Review, June, 1967, p. 622.

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13 Lessons From A Great Social Entrepreneur: Pamela Atkinson

Devin Thorpe, Forbes, Sept. 23, 2012:

Pamela Atkinson, an adviser to the last three governors in Utah, an Elder in the First Presbyterian Church and a tireless advocate for the homeless and refugees in Utah, still volunteers her time actively and personally among Utah’s poorest people and counts them as her friends. She sat down with me recently to share her insights from her more than twenty years of humanitarian service. The following are the lessons I drew from her:

1. Ego has no role in service: Pamela describes herself as “an ordinary person” despite the fact that almost no one who knows her would describe her that way. Years ago, she helped rally the town of Logan, Utah to create a health clinic for the uninsured poor there. Although she was the driving force for the project, she focused on getting the community to own the project, which meant that she had to move quietly to the background as the community rallied to build their own clinic.

2. Collaboration: There are three important “Cs” in relation to service: coordinate, cooperate, and collaborate. Of these, “collaborate” is the greatest, she says. After she launched her homeless outreach program in 1991, visiting homeless in their camps each week, she welcomed the Utah Chapter of the Volunteers of America who wanted to run and expand the program. She continues to participate in the expanded program more than twenty years later.

3. Don’t “be afraid to speak out”: Serving as an advisor to three governors, she has learned not to be afraid to speak out. “If I feel strongly about an injustice, an issue that is not being addressed in a collaborative and focused way, then I need to speak out,” she says. She’s learned that even when everyone in the room openly opposes her, she’ll often get private indications of support from people who are grateful for her leadership.

4. Never let issues interfere with relationships: While lobbying Utah’s legislators for support for her programs over the years, she’s learned never to let disagreements interfere with relationships. She notes, “By not destroying relationships, I can go back again on other issues.” She does this by truly listening to opposing points of you, often with the invitation, “I never thought of it that way—tell me more.”

5. Transparency is the key to success: For social entrepreneurs, transparency is critical. “The more transparent [the organization] the more people will want to get involved,” she explains. People want to see and understand the impact that an organization is having.

6. Treat Volunteers with Respect: “Ask the volunteers, how are things going? Are you enjoying this? Ask volunteers for ideas to improve service,” she says, emphasizing that too many organizations fail to appreciate the value of their volunteers.

7. Don’t give up on someone when fundraising: When she hears “no,” she asks, “What can I do to help change your mind?” She offers to provide tours, introductions, whatever it will take to change a mind. Her approach has made her one of the most successful fundraisers in Utah.

8. Small Things Make A Difference: Over the years, Pamela has learned that “it doesn’t always have to be huge.” As an Elder in the First Presbyterian Church, she asks members to contribute small things to her effort to provide for the homeless. She collects socks, underwear and hygiene items, the latter often collected by members who travel and collect hotel amenities (soaps and shampoos) for her hygiene kits. She recounts a story of arriving at the home of a low income family, finding that the family had no hot water, no soap and no shampoo. She had a hygiene kit in the car and provided that immediately, to the joy of the family and later helped them to get their gas restored for hot water.

9. Everyone Can Do Something: Pamela often speaks to groups and always makes the point that everyone can do something. She notes that she was once challenged by a woman who said, “I’m 80 years old, I rarely get out of the house and I have a limited income, how can I make a difference?” Pamela challenged her to donate a can of soup to the food bank each week. She took the challenge and for several years thereafter, she did just that, ultimately providing hundreds of meals for people who otherwise might have gone hungry.

10. Power of Touch and a Smile: While volunteering with the Salvation Army years ago, she was assigned by the Major to greet each homeless person attending dinner that evening with a warm smile and a hearty handshake, noting that some of the homeless won’t have been touched in the last week. She’s never forgotten that lesson and makes a point to always greet people, especially the poor with a smile and handshake or other appropriate touch.

11. “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” Pamela notes that she sometimes feels guided and directed by a divine influence in her work, crediting her faith in Jesus Christ for her strength. She notes, however, that many of her non-churchgoing friends are among the kindest and most generous people she knows. Sometimes, she acknowledges that she says to herself, “I did make a difference. Thanks, Lord.”

12. If she can do it, so can I: It was many years ago that she was driving in Seattle where she lived at the time and heard an invitation on the radio to volunteer with the Salvation Army to serve dinner on Christmas Day. She asked her family and they agreed to help. It was her first experience as a volunteer. She says she was “taken aback by how grateful the homeless were.” She now describes herself as an addict, “I’m addicted to volunteering.” She hopes that people see that if she can do it, so can they.

13. Avoid Emotional Bankruptcy: It is important to take care of yourself. You can’t take care of others unless you do. “Your family and friends” support you and help you to carry on.

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A Jornada Rumo à Simplicidade

Amanda White

A caminho da academia eu ouvia a um programa de rádio cristão onde cada dia fazem uma pergunta para os ouvintes responderem por telefone ou Facebook. Hoje era um assunto simples: “Qual a sua expectativa de futuro?”

As pessoas enviaram respostas simples, mas estimulantes. Por exemplo, uma moça disse que fica na expectativa de tomar uma xícara de chá à noite depois dos filhos irem para a cama.

Isso desencadeou pensamentos sobre as coisas simples na vida. Em essência é isso o que desejamos, as coisinhas simples. – Um abraço do marido ou da esposa ao fim de um dia conturbado; uma xícara de chá ou café de manhãzinha; o sol depois de uma semana de chuva quando poderemos finalmente pendurar a roupa para secar. Uma cama confortável onde nos deitarmos à noite; um banho revigorador; a grama em casa bem aparada.

Gosto de pensar nessas coisinhas como manifestações do amor de Deus por Mim tanto quanto as coisas maiores ou aparentemente mais importantes com as quais Ele me presenteia de vez em quando.

Robert Louis Stevenson definiu bem a questão: “As melhores coisas na vida estão bem ao nosso alcance: o fôlego, podermos respirar; a luz nos olhos; as aos nossos pés; os deveres a serem cumpridos; o caminho diante de nós. Para que ficar desejando agarrar as estrelas distantes! Faça o trabalho simples e corriqueiro quando for preciso, na certeza de que as tarefas cotidianas e o pão de cada dia são as coisas mais doces na vida”.

Sem dúvida, às vezes ficamos animados na expectativa de grandes coisas, de coisas emocionantes, como, por exemplo, as férias ou uma viagem para visitar amigos ou parentes. Estou me lembrando que preciso pensar mais e valorizar mais essas coisas, pois é muito fácil perdê-las de vista no meio da correria do dia a dia.

Nessa mesma semana fui com a minha família a um lindo parque à beira de um lago. Ficamos sentados à sombra de uma árvore observando a paisagem, a água reluzente, desfrutando do clima maravilhoso, e absorvendo a paz e a tranquilidade do lugar. A minha filha logo arranjou uma amiguinha com quem brincar toda feliz; meu filho e meu esposo foram fazer uma caminhada, e eu fiquei deitada diretamente na grama relaxando. Não precisava fazer nada, ouvir, ler, comer ou beber coisa alguma! Não estava a fim de pegar o iPhone. Era tudo tão simples que foi uma terapia! Se pudesse eu teria passado o dia inteiro ali.

Eu tenho mania de estar sempre atarefada e apreciar pouco as coisas. Não é novidade, apenas algo do qual preciso me recordar constantemente, pois é um daqueles princípios de vida e felicidade que muitas vezes passa batido quando estou preocupada com coisas maiores e mais estressantes que obstruem a minha visão.

Decidi começar aos poucos e colocar em prática o conselho da ouvinte no programa de rádio. Determinei alguns minutos para relaxar tomando uma xícara de chá à noite depois que as crianças estavam na cama – e desfrutei de cada gole!

Estou em uma jornada rumo à simplicidade também no meu relacionamento com o Senhor. Acredito que o mesmo Deus que deseja que eu desfrute das pequenas margaridas em flor e dos lindos pores do sol que duram alguns minutos também quer que eu redescubra a alegria e a simplicidade que Ele me oferece.

As coisinhas simples na vida me deixam feliz. E talvez as coisinhas simples que eufaço também deixem Jesus feliz! Quem sabe?!

Ele me disse algo sobre isso o outro dia quando estava muito estressada por não fazer o suficiente para Ele, nem ser tão espiritualizada quanto deveria.

Orei mais ou menos assim:

“Senhor, tenho impressão que Você está chateado com a minha negligência. Sei que se comparar com o meu comportamento de antes eu tenho sido negligente na minha vida espiritual. Na verdade, fico um pouco confusa, eu não sei mais o que é o melhor em termos de relacionamento com Você e vida espiritual. Antes eu sabia, ou achava que sabia, ou pelo menos seguia uma trilha que me fazia sentir bem e eu via que tinha uma conexão com Você. Mas desde que as coisas mudaram, às vezes nem sei se estou Lhe agradando e nem sei o que Você gostaria que eu fizesse. Você quer que eu separe um tempo para ficar junto com Você todos os dias para anotar e organizar as coisas? Ou prefere que eu Lhe entregue os meus pensamentos, sentimentos, tempo e energia, mesmo que de uma maneira diferente da que usei por anos – e também em doses diferentes?”

Ele falou ao meu coração:

“Sei que se sente um pouco desestabilizada, mas isso faz parte do Meu plano para a sua vida. Quero que volte ao básico do básico. Nos nossos próximos momentos juntos você deve refletir na essência da sua relação Comigo deixando de lado opiniões e interpretações de outros. Vai ser bem simples e descomplicado.

“O perigo com as pessoas como você, que se dedicaram tanto e por tanto tempo, e que desejariam continuar entregando-se a Mim e aos outros (apesar das circunstâncias terem mudado), é que tem uma expectativa muito alta em relação a todos os aspectos da sua vida, inclusive na comunhão Comigo. É uma luta voltar à ‘simplicidade que há em Cristo’, mas é na simplicidade que vai Me encontrar.

“Pense no que Eu represento. Não sou uma lista de afazeres sem fim. Não sou uma relação de emoções complicadas ou difíceis, porque disso a sua vida já está cheia, e é normal. Mas Eu sou amor, paz, verdade, luz, o caminho, o pão da vida. sou todas essas coisas boas, positivas e saudáveis. Já lhe disse que a Minha sabedoria é pura, pacífica, cheia de justiça e bom fruto. Por que complicar as coisas ou se condenar porque hoje a sua relação Comigo é mais simples?

“Eu sei que está levando um tempinho para deixar de lado a pesada carga de expectativas que carrega há anos, tanto as impingidas por outros como as que você mesmo decidiu carregar. É natural se sentir vazia depois de pôr tudo isso de lado. Está com os braços desimpedidos e não sabe o que fazer consigo mesma, então fica irrequieta achando que tem algum problema. Olha, só relaxe, desfrute o resto dos seus músculos espirituais e aproveite a jornada de volta à terra onde reina a Minha simplicidade.”

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Godly Confidence

A compilation

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Exodus 4:10–14 [says,]

Moses said to the Lord, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses.1

There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Well, apparently if you want to make God mad, tell Him your limitations.

God had approached Moses with an assignment that was over his head. The Lord was going to take on the leader of the most powerful nation in the world at that time in order to free His people from slavery … and Moses was going to be His representative.

Moses’ initial response seemed to indicate a genuine humility: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”2

God simply responds with, “I will be with you.” No hint of anger whatsoever.

Moses continues to ask questions, all of them pretty legitimate. And every time God responds by giving him a game plan and telling him He’s got it covered. Once again, no anger.

But then Moses oversteps his bounds. He implies that his poor communication skills will undercut God’s intention to use him to speak on His behalf. We might be tempted to think that Moses is once again displaying humility.

In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s pride.

Moses’ problem isn’t that he’s too humble and doesn’t believe in himself. It’s that he’s prideful and thinks God’s capability rises and falls with his own inability.

We often think pride means overconfidence in our own abilities. Or possibly attributing the source of those abilities to ourselves rather than God. But there is another side to pride that is often overlooked. It can also mean that you believe your limitations are an unstoppable obstacle to God’s power and purposes in your life.

There’s nothing quite so prideful as thinking that you have the ability to single-handedly thwart what God wants to do in and through you.

This time God isn’t patient or nice to Moses. He doesn’t respond with a “you just need to believe in yourself, you’re better than you think you know,” motivational talk. He actually turns angry, because Moses’ perspective is monumentally insulting to God. A God with limitless power and ability has no desire or time to hear about the limitations of the people He wants to use.

True humility doesn’t start with having an accurate view of ourselves. It starts with having an accurate view of God. And an accurate view of God will both shrink us down to size but also make us realize that God is big enough to use anybody of any size.

This includes you.

Maybe you think you’re doomed to be a miserable parent because you had miserable parents. Maybe you think your lack of an education will keep you from making a significant impact for God’s kingdom. Maybe you believe your friend’s response to Jesus is based solely on the excellence of your gospel presentation. Maybe …

You’re not that big. God knew your limitations long before you were ever even aware of them. Don’t stop selling yourself short. Stop selling God short. He used a stuttering, murdering shepherd to set a whole nation free.

Imagine what He could do with you.—Steven Furtick

*

One of the fruits of the Spirit that’s closely related to humility is meekness.

I like the definition of meekness that was in the Bible dictionary I was looking at. It says meekness is “an attitude of humility toward God and gentleness toward men, springing from a recognition that God is in control.” Isn’t that good? I’ll read it again. “An attitude of humility toward God and gentleness toward men, springing from a recognition that God is in control.” It is strength and courage under control, coupled with kindness.

This kind of meekness is having faith and peace, because you know God’s in control. You can be mild and quiet of nature, because you’re full of faith. You’ve got the Lord’s presence right there with you, and you’ve gotten your instructions from Him, and you have the assurance that He’s going to work things out, and that He’ll do the miracles that are needed, no matter how incredibly overwhelming or desperate the situation might be.

You have faith, and therefore you have trust. You’re quiet in spirit. You’re mild, because you’re not frantically trying to work up a miracle or a solution in your own strength. You’re depending on the Lord and not on yourself. You’re not depending on your own talent, your own wisdom, your own charisma. You’re just trusting, because you have confidence in the Lord, you have that calmness, that meekness, which translates to others as the Lord’s presence right there with you. They know everything’s okay, because you have that meekness, that quietness of spirit about you.—Peter Amsterdam3

*

The meek man will attain a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.—A. W. Tozer

*

Everybody can be great ... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

*

Those who are following My Spirit closely and are trying to emulate My ways don’t have to fear losing their image, because they’re trying to make My image their image, so they have nothing to fear. Those who are used to turning to Me and drawing their power and strength from Me have faith and trust. They’re not afraid, because they know that I’m the one who has to lead and guide them, and they pin their faith and trust in My answer and My leading, and in all they do they obey what I show them.

The humble are not afraid, because they've already accepted that they are nothing, that they know nothing, and can do nothing without Me. They know they need Me and they readily acknowledge this to Me and to others. So they’re not afraid, because they know that I will have to help them, and they’ve learned that I don’t fail when they cry out to Me.

They’ve learned through experience that I am always ready to answer their needs and their cries for help, so they rest in Me and depend upon Me to carry them through and to work through them. They’ve learned the power of prayer and the power of My Spirit. So they pray and trust, they pray and listen, they pray and obey, and thus they are not afraid, for they let Me lead the way. They’ve learned that I truly am in control, so there’s nothing to fear.

Those who have not learned to depend on Me are always afraid of their own weaknesses. They’re afraid of the mistakes they will make. They’re afraid of the things they don’t know. They’re afraid of the future. But all of this can be washed away as they learn to give their whole heart to Me, and as they humble themselves completely as little children before Me and let Me be their Lord and Master.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy4

*

Archimedes of Syracuse is famous for his quip: “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.” He was referencing the lever, of course. A lever amplifies the input force to provide a greater output force. The longer the lever, the greater the leverage!

Can I borrow that simple statement but substitute one word?

Give me a place to KNEEL and I will move the earth. Humility is our lever! The lower you go in humility—input force—the greater the output, because God intervenes on your behalf. Bow the knee and God will extend His mighty right hand.

In the spiritual realm, humility is the longest lever. If you completely humble yourself before God, then there is nothing God cannot do in you and through you.—Mark Batterson5

Published on Anchor September 2012. Read by David Salas.


1 NIV.

2 Exodus 3:11 NIV.

3 Originally published February 2009.

4 Originally published April 1998.

5 www.markbatterson.com

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What Good is Part of an Animal?

The late Dr. Werher von Braun, a renowned space scientist and former director of NASA, made the following statement concerning our origin, “One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all...To be forced to believe only one conclusion - that everything in the universe happened by chance - would violate the very objectivity of science itself. What random process could produce the brains of a man or the system of a human eye? It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories of the origin of the universe, life, and man in the classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happened by chance.”1 This is not the statement of an unintelligent, uninformed, non-scientist. Furthermore, there are now dozens of creation organizations engaged in research to explain our world based on creation.

A powerful example of the evidence for creation is the interdependence of the parts within an organism. Could completely different yet fully functioning parts of an organism have all arisen in a step-by-step fashion? If not, their origin must have been simultaneous creation. The butterfly is a perfect example. How could some worm-like creature have mutated with both the ability and desire to seal itself inside a cocoon? For either to happen would require thousands of simultaneous and useful changes to the chemical structure of this mysterious “pre-butterfly” type creature. What would have happened to some worm-like creature that sealed itself inside of a cocoon but did not yet have the ability to rearrange its biomatter into an adult butterfly? There has never been a logical explanation of how an insect other than a caterpillar (which already possesses the necessary information to become a butterfly) could transform itself into a butterfly by a series of small genetic changes.

Another example is the woodpecker. Evolution teaches that some kind of bird turned into a woodpecker at some time in the distant past. But what would happen to the first bird born with its feet modified with a backwards claw... yet without the instinct to search for insects while holding onto a vertical tree trunk? Or to the first bird born with backwards talons and the desire to beat its head against a tree... but the incorrect bill? Or the correct feet, desire, and bill...but no instinct to blink its eyes at the moment of impact to keep its eyeballs from popping out? Or the correct feet, desire, bill, and blinking ability... but with a tongue too short to reach the insects inside the hole which it had just beaten into the tree? Or the correct feet, desire, bill, blinking ability, shock-absorbing membranes in the back of the skull, and tongue...but now the tongue too long to fit into its mouth because its skull was not yet redesigned to hold the tongue? In each case, the bird would be at an incredible disadvantage and natural selection would have brought its evolutionary development to an end.

There are thousands of other examples in nature. It is easy to look at a perfectly designed organism and say, “Look at how well this creature is adapted to its environment!” The critical question is ignored by evolutionists and not presented to students - “Is it logical that this animal could have developed by one small change at a time?”



1. Excerpts from an original interview in “Applied Christianity”, from the Bible-Science Newsletter,

May 1974, p.8.

NOTE:

Throughout this book ‘evolution’ will refer to its original meaning: the transformation of one type of animal into a completely different type. No one disputes that there can be minor variations within a given class of organism (micro-evolution). However, this has never been shown to lead to completely new features or types of creatures. No example of macro-evolution has ever been demonstrated.

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