Redescobrir o Propósito de Seu Trabalho

Diane Paddison

Eu encontro muitos cristãos que trabalham a tempo integral em um ministério ou em alguma boa obra sem fins lucrativos. Posso lhe contar um segredo? Eu costumava sentir inveja deles. Costumava pensar que eles desfrutavam de um senso especial de certeza moral com relação ao seu trabalho—achava que devia ser mais fácil fazer sacrifícios por amor ao trabalho se o seu trabalho fosse tão importante e cheio de propósito como o deles parecia ser.

Mas eu estava enganada.

Para começar, equilibrar as coisas é difícil não importa o tipo de trabalho. Em segundo lugar, Deus é Deus em qualquer situação. Ele não está limitado ao setor “ministério”, assim como o Seu importante trabalho e propósito. Eu acredito que Deus me colocou exatamente onde deseja que eu esteja, e acho que você deveria acreditar também!

O que significa fazer o trabalho de Deus no trabalho?

Vou começar falando o que não significa. Não significa que precisa falar da sua fé sempre que alguém entrar no escritório. Há maneiras de compartilhar com eficácia a sua fé no ambiente de trabalho sem orar em voz alta antes de tomar um cafezinho cada manhã.

Ou seja, se você não trabalha a tempo integral em uma organização sem fins lucrativos (e a maioria de nós não trabalha), então o seu empregador está ali para fazer dinheiro. Não soa tão bem como “alimentar órfãos na África”, mas a realidade é que o lugar onde você se encontra é onde Deus o levou. E a não ser que você tenha sido verdadeiramente chamado para servir os órfãos na África, então essa é a realidade na qual você estará operando para o resto de sua vida profissional.

E não tem problema.

Organizações com fins lucrativos fazem muitas coisas boas para o mundo, e inclusive suprem uma renda para as pessoas que doam para as organizações sem fins lucrativos (e muitas empresas também fazem grandes doações para trabalhos de caridade). Mas ainda assim você não tem que se identificar e amar a missão de sua empresa para encontrar (ou criar) propósito ali.

Acredite ou não, grande parte de fazer o trabalho de Deus é simplesmente comportar-se honradamente, inclusive trabalhar arduamente e ter um bom desempenho não importa a tarefa. “O quê??!” você pensa. “Eu estou fazendo cópias. Como é que Deus pode ser honrado nisto?” Você acredita que foi Deus quem o colocou onde se encontra? Muito bem! Então deve fazer esse trabalho para Ele e com excelência. Sua atitude e ética de trabalho serão notadas pelos seus colegas, e tal como discutimos algumas semanas atrás, isso o tornará um embaixador de Cristo muito mais eficaz.

Você não sabe os planos que Deus tem para você ou como Ele quer usar sua vida para tocar outros. Ele talvez queira que você se torne um executivo da Coca-Cola como Bonnie Wurzbacher, interagindo com líderes de negócios ao redor do mundo. Vou te contar, trabalho de meio coração não vai levá-lo a esta posição! Se levar o seu trabalho a sério, estará honrando o plano de Deus e a Sua providência.

Se ainda não assistiu a The High Calling [O Alto Chamado] entrevista recente com Bonnie Wurzbacher, tome uns minutinhos para assistir! [Editor: Tem apenas 1:17 minutos de duração, e vale a pena ver.]

De http://www.thehighcalling.org/work/rediscover-purpose-your-work,
© 2001 - 2011 H. E. Butt Foundation. Todos os direitos reservados. Reimpressão com permissão de Laity Lodge e TheHighCalling.org. Artigo de Diane Paddison.
Tradução Denise Oliveira. Revisão Hebe Rondon Flandoli.

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Waiting Patiently

Words from Jesus

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Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun. Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act.—Psalm 37:5–7 NLT



The purest form of simplicity is this: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding.1 If you would have simplicity, if you would have peace with no confusion, then trust Me explicitly. In this lies perfect peace.

When you trust Me with all of your heart and with every aspect of your life, you can rest assured that I will lead you to My will. So if you would have perfect peace, then trust. Trust Me. Trust Me with your life. Trust Me with your death. Trust Me for your health. Trust Me for your children.

Those who trust have faith that I have brought forth all that I wish to bring forth in their lives, and thus they have peace.

*

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock. [F]or those who are righteous, the way is not steep and rough. You are a God who does what is right, and you smooth out the path ahead of them. Lord, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws; our heart’s desire is to glorify your name. All night long I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek for God.—Isaiah 26:3–4, 7–9 NLT



As you face this time of testing, you wonder, “Why, Lord? Why do I have to go through so many heavy battles? Am I not pleasing You? I love You. Why do I have to go through these things?”

Many Christians through the ages have asked such questions. In each case it was My Spirit seizing upon them, because unless they became weak, My strength could not be perfected in them. Unless they became broken, I could not teach them compassion; I could not give them the empathy, the outgoing concern they needed. I could not give them the many beautiful gifts of My Spirit that this brokenness and these battles bring.

Through these afflictions I am teaching you to fight—not in your own strength, but withMy strength in prayer, looking to Me for everything in your life. For I love you and I have called you to be one of My disciples. You have asked to be used in My kingdom, and I am answering your prayer. Trust and look to Me.




Every day of my life is filled with immense joy—more joy than anyone ever deserves. I know the joy that comes from knowing Christ died for me and longing to give my whole to serving Him. The joy that comes from standing in the center of His will and watching Him orchestrate everything perfectly. The joy that comes from being able to look into a little brown face that seems hopeless and tell her that Jesus loves her. … But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to be so far away from the ones I love so much—hurt deep in the pit of my stomach, where Paul’s words “I want to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in death” ring true. … But “the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold everything he had and bought that field.” Missing things hurts my heart sometimes, but always serves as a gentle reminder that giving up everything is really worth it.—Katie Davis2

*

Man sees not as God sees, and you do not see yourself as I see you. You see the weakness, the lack of talent, but I see a precious jewel that scintillates with My light. You have the gifts of loving, of listening, of understanding, of comforting—the humble gifts. So be not dismayed, My little one, but develop these gifts.

These are gifts which help to comfort others. These are gifts which require you to step out of yourself and to give to others, to listen to their heart cries and to comfort them. For you are able to comfort others with the comfort that you have been comforted with.

You are as a jewel that not only reflects light but warmth—warmth of spirit, warmth of understanding, warmth of comfort, warmth of love. But understand and remember that the true warmth of God, the true comfort of God and understanding of God and love of God, comes from abiding in Me, in My Word, and letting Me abide in you. For it is not possible to pour forth the love, understanding, and comfort of God without being full of Me.

Come and learn to rest in My arms, to fellowship with Me, to receive of Me, to drink in My Word and My Spirit and My love, so you will have this to pour forth to others in their time of need, to comfort the heavy laden, to understand the misunderstood, to love the unlovely, to help the needy.

You must draw nigh to Me so that you may become full to overflowing, and so that My Spirit will pour forth through you in great abundance. How can you do this? By loving Me, by seeking Me, by drinking in My words, and by believing, by yielding, by enacting and doing those things that I say that you should do. For it is in these little tokens of love, these little acts of obedience, that you will learn to draw close to Me, and you will become filled with Me and My love and My Spirit.

Come unto Me, and let Me hold you. Let Me cup My hands about you, so My warmth can be absorbed by you, so that you can reflect My light, and so My warmth will emanate upon others through you.

*

Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you; knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing—whole but broken; in pieces, but one.3

It is for a purpose. It is a test. For as the metal is heated and forged in the fire and put under the hammer and cast into the cold and thrown again into the heat and bashed again on the anvil with the hammer to strengthen it and to temper it, so it is with you. It is the furnace of My love, and the heat of the furnace burns out the dross and the wood and the hay and the stubble. The hammer and the anvil pound out the false strength and independence and pride and self. The cold waters drown the worldliness and the desire for the things of the world. And this process goes on over and over until the metal is forged and strong and fit for the Master’s use.

So if you must fight, fight to stay close to Me, fight to trust Me, fight to have faith in Me and in My Word and in My promises. I will honor you with humility. I will honor you with desperation. I will honor you with closeness to Me. For there is no greater honor that can be bestowed upon a man than that a man is so low that I can touch him, and that a man is so weak that I can keep him, and that a man is so desperate that I will hear him. For the honor of God is different than the honor of man, and I bestow upon you the honor of God.




Grace, truth, and time working together can develop the kind of endurance James talks about: “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be full and complete, lacking in nothing.4 … Jesus, who transcends time, could see the present state of Peter, how he would fail in the future, and how, after his failure, he would mature to help others like himself. And in all of it, he totally accepted Peter.5 The Lord accepts us fully, knowing that we will need time and experience to work out our imperfections. Our failures do not surprise him.—Dr. Henry Cloud6

*

Consider the trees. I have made many different kinds of trees, but each tree is useful. Each tree has a specific purpose. Some trees are used for shade. Some trees are used for protection from the wind. Kids use some trees to build forts in and climb on or hang a rope swing on or swing from. Trees bear many different kinds of fruit—apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons. Although they are so different and are created for different purposes, each tree is very important to Me.

As a tree grows and its roots grow deeper and the branches spread out and the tree grows taller, it becomes stronger. Although it takes time, it is becoming a strong tree that will be useful for Me. You can’t see it grow, but it is growing. It is accomplishing My purpose in soaking up the water and absorbing the sun.

You are like trees—each designed for a specific purpose in My kingdom, but each different, with different gifts and different talents. The kingdom cannot be made up of just apple trees or orange trees or pine trees or oak trees. There are many trees needed in My kingdom, for there are many ministries, so I have made you all different.

Sometimes you wonder, “Why have You made me thus?” I have made you with specific strengths and weaknesses—strengths to be used for My glory; weaknesses to bring you closer to Me. But do know that I have made you just the way you are, and the way I want you to be.

You’re a special tree in My kingdom, designed for My purpose. Every tree is important in My kingdom, and is designed for a specific purpose. So be a happy tree for Me!



Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.

His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.—Jeremiah 17:7–8 NLT; Psalm 1:2–3 NIV



Originally published 1997. Updated and republished July 2013.
Read by Jon Marc. Music by Daniel Sozzi.


1 Proverbs 3:5.

2 Kisses from Katie, by Katie Davis, 24-year-old founder of Amazima Ministries in Uganda.

3 1 Peter 4:12; James 1:3–4.

4 James 1:2–4 NRSV.

5 See Luke 22:31–34.

6 Changes That Heal (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 41.

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Egypt's next leader faces a world of challenges

By Abigail Hauslohner, Washington Post, July 4, 2013

CAIRO—Tahrir Square was largely empty on Thursday. The smell of rotting garbage hung in the air. The crumpled banners, empty soda cans and old corncobs of the Egyptians who had celebrated the ousting of their president lay smashed and strewn across the pavement.

Those Egyptians who remained spoke of hopes for an “honest" president to replace the deposed Mohamed Morsi. They said they were optimistic that the military, bolstered by an uprising of millions, had given Egypt a new beginning—a chance to finally get the country’s revolution right after 21 / 2 years of misfires.

But even as the dust settled in Tahrir, a complex battery of challenges remained—first for the military that has once again assumed responsibility for the nation’s direction, and then for whoever is bold enough to take on the job that proved so disastrous for Morsi.

Egypt’s economy is in tatters. Nearly a quarter of the work force is unemployed, and roughly half the population lives on less than $2 a day. The country owes billions of dollars in debt, its foreign currency reserves nearly exhausted. Prices are spiking, and shortages loom.

"Gasoline. Traffic. Bread," said Ahmed Fadel Abuzeid, an electrician who camped in Tahrir to bring down Morsi. “We never had the power cuts before. And we never used to have these prices."

There are no easy fixes. Many Egyptians turned against the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi because of his poor stewardship of the economy, and experts say much of that blame was well-deserved. But Morsi also inherited the legacy of an authoritarian regime that over decades had rotted from within: a bloated bureaucracy, a costly and inefficient subsidy system and layer upon layer of corruption.

"Whether it was going to be the Muslim Brotherhood or not the Muslim Brotherhood, whoever was going to govern Egypt was really going to have their hands full," said Joshua Stacher, an Egypt expert and political scientist at Kent State University in Ohio.

Any solution, economists say, will require considerable pain.

"In order to move from this stage to a stage in which we achieve economic growth will require measures that will not be popular," said Amirah El-Haddad, a professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.

Egypt’s next leader could well be beset by many of the same problems that doomed the last. A day after Morsi’s fall, a virtually unknown judge took over the presidency on an interim basis. But few seemed eager to make a run for a post that will be contested in elections the military has promised but has not yet scheduled.

"I don’t know anyone in his right mind," said Egypt’s foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr, provoking laughter from his aides. “Wait, wait—I’m joking with you," he added. “Don’t put that."

The economy won’t be the only problem confronting whoever next rules Egypt. The constitution that was ratified under Morsi has now been nullified, meaning this highly polarized nation must start from scratch in developing a set of common laws and principles.

After the military’s dramatic move on Wednesday, Egypt’s new leaders will need to restore a semblance of constitutional authority, said Tom Ginsburg, a professor of comparative and international law at the University of Chicago.

But to do that, “it must be accepted by a vast majority of the population," he said.

That means getting the support of the Muslim Brotherhood and others who backed Morsi in elections just last year—a tall order at a time when many feel their democratic rights have been trampled.

Muslim Brotherhood officials who spoke at a news conference of Morsi supporters on Thursday said that participating in any process set up by the military is out of the question.

Rights groups and political analysts warned Thursday that without a process of reconciliation, stability in Egypt will be elusive.

"The only gain we made after Mubarak, and through Morsi, was freedom," said Hossam Mikawy, a judge in Egypt’s Nile Delta. “We did not make any progress in anything else. So if we lose our established freedom by not allowing the Islamists to participate, then we will have gained nothing."

Military leaders, who have now ousted two governments in three years, insist they have no desire to govern Egypt directly. Amr, the country’s foreign minister, said he assured his counterparts around the world of that commitment in telephone conversations Thursday.

But the military also seeks to maintain its immense power and privilege, including control of a vast economic empire that it runs free of civilian government oversight. Morsi largely avoided trying to tamper with that empire, and analysts said Egypt’s next leaders would be wise to do the same.

"The military in principle wants a civilian political leadership, but it wants a leadership that respects its powers and privileges," said Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

In his final televised address to the nation as president on Tuesday night, Morsi delivered a message of defiance that also included a last-ditch plea for support and understanding.

Moving the country toward an era of growth, stability and productivity “requires a great deal of effort, solidarity, and it also requires time," Morsi said.

But if the next leader takes too much time, protesters said, there’s always one sure-fire solution.

"We’ll go down to Tahrir again," Hoda Fadallah Abuzeid said.

Surely if the last two didn’t know the power of the people, she said, the next president will.

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A Night of Violence as Morsi Supporters Fight for His Return

By Ben Hubbard, NY Times, July 6, 2013

CAIRO—Egyptian officials were assessing the damage Saturday from a night of deadly street fighting as a bitter split over who should be ruling the country led to overnight battles between demonstrators celebrating the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi and crowds of Islamists who wanted him reinstated.

Combatants used rocks, sticks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails in a battle lasting hours that raged Friday night near Tahrir Square and across a bridge spanning the Nile, part of the most widespread street violence in Egypt since the early days of the 2011 revolution.

The mayhem capped a day full of massive and defiant protests by Islamists demanding that Mr. Morsi be returned to power. At least four people were killed and many were wounded when security forces fired into a protest near the officers’ club of the powerful Republican Guard, where many believed Mr. Morsi was detained.

With clashes breaking out late into the night, it was impossible to estimate the full extent of casualties and damage. But early Saturday, security officials said at least 30 people had been killed nationwide and hundreds wounded, many of them in Cairo.

Islamists in other cities across the country also demanded Mr. Morsi’s reinstatement, breaking into government offices in several provinces and temporarily evicting military officials. Fifteen people died in Alexandria, and a curfew was declared in the Sinai Peninsula, where six soldiers and police officers were killed in at least four attacks on security posts.

The new violence suggested that the military’s removal of Mr. Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, after protests by millions of Egyptians angry with his rule, had worsened the deep polarization between Islamists who call his ouster a military coup and their opponents who say his removal was the result of an urgent need to fix Egypt’s myriad problems.

By turning out in the tens of thousands, the pro-Morsi crowds underlined the organizational might of the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the major political force and dominated rounds of elections after the country’s revolution two years ago. At that time, it gained power that many in the group had dreamed of for decades. The military’s intervention in politics this week entirely removed it from the government.

In a further affront to the Islamists, the Egyptian news media have marginalized their message in the two days since Mr. Morsi was deposed. Despite the interim government’s pledge of inclusiveness, Islamist television broadcasters were shuttered, and the state television barely covered the breadth of the pro-Morsi demonstrations on Friday.

The Obama administration, which provides $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt and has watched the crisis unfold with increased concern, called for calm. “We condemn the violence that has taken place today in Egypt," Jennifer R. Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We call on all Egyptian leaders to condemn the use of force and to prevent further violence among their supporters."

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3 Things I Wish I Knew Before We Got Married

By Tyler Ward, Relevant, January 23, 2013

I used to think I had my stuff together. Then I got married.

Marriage is great—but it rocked everything I knew. I quickly realized my basic goal in life, prior to getting married, was to simply remain undisturbed.

This “disruption" came suddenly and was disguised as a 5-foot-nothing Swedish-Filipino woman. When I decided I’d rather not live without her, I proceeded to ask her to marry me—that is, to officially invite someone who wasn’t me to be in my personal space for the rest of my life.

This decision introduced my most significant experiences and most challenging experiences—none of which I would trade for the world.

However, I wish I’d had a bit more insight on the front end of our marriage to help me navigate it all.

According to most research, more than 50 percent of people who say “I do" will not be sleeping in the same bed eight years from now. And though Scripture alludes to the fact that adultery and abuse may be reasons individuals might end a marriage, I’d be willing to bet that most challenges experienced in marriage are the result of unawareness. Most people—myself included—jump into marriage with suitcases full of misconceptions and bad theology, entirely unaware of the unique beauty and paradoxical intentions of marriage.

The following are three thoughts on marriage that friends and mentors have shared with me. I remind myself of them often in hopes of keeping this anomaly called marriage both enjoyable and healthy.

1. Marriage is not about living happily ever after. Here’s the truth: I get annoyed at my wife. But this is more a reflection of me than her.

I’m intensely certain that nothing in life has ever made me more angry, frustrated or annoyed than my wife. Inevitably, just when I think I’ve given all I can possibly give, she somehow finds a way to ask for more.

The worst part of it all is that her demands aren’t unreasonable. One day she expects me to stay emotionally engaged. The next, she’s looking for me to validate the way that she feels. The list goes on—but never ventures far from things she perfectly well deserves as a wife.

Unfortunately for her, deserving or not, her needs often compete with my self-focus. I know it shouldn’t be this way, but I am selfish and stubborn and, overall, human.

I once read a book that alluded to the idea that marriage is the fire of life—that somehow it’s designed to refine all our dysfunction and spur us into progressive wholeness. In this light, contrary to popular opinion, the goal of marriage is not happiness. And although happiness is often a very real byproduct of a healthy relationship, marriage has a far more significant purpose in sight. It is designed to pull dysfunction to the surface of our lives, set it on fire and help us grow.

When we’re willing to see it this way, then the points of friction in our marriages quickly become gifts that consistently invite us into a more whole and fulfilling experience of life.

2. The more you give to marriage, the more it gives back. Over the past year, a few friends and I have had an open conversation about the highs and lows of marriage—specifically how to make the most of the high times and avoid the low ones. Along the way, we happened upon a derailing hypothesis that goes something like this: If one makes their husband or wife priority number one, all other areas of life benefit.

When we return marriage to its rightful place in our priorities, it can quickly turn into the greatest asset to every other layer of our lives.

It’s a disorienting claim. Disorienting, because it protests my deeper persuasion that success as an entrepreneur, or any professional, requires that career takes the throne of my priorities and remain there for, at the very least, a couple of years.

However, seeing that my recent pattern of caring about work over marriage had produced little more than paying bills and a miserable wife, I figured giving the philosophy a test drive couldn’t hurt.

For 31 days, I intentionally put my wife first over everything else, and then I tracked how it worked. I created a metric for these purposes, to mark our relationship as priority, and then my effectiveness in all other areas of my life on the same scale, including career productivity and general quality of life.

To my surprise, a month later, I had a chart of data and a handful of ironic experiences to prove that the more you give to marriage, the more it gives back.

Notably, on the days my wife genuinely felt valued, I observed her advocating for me to invest deeply in to my work. She no longer saw our relationship and my career pursuits as competitors for my attention, and as she partnered with me in my career, I have experienced the benefits of having the closest person in my life champion me.

Of course, marriage requires sacrifice. And sometimes it will feel as if it takes and takes. However, when we return marriage to its rightful place in our priorities, it can quickly turn from something we have to maintain and sacrifice for into the greatest asset to every other layer of our lives.

3. Marriage can change the world. John Medina, the author of Brain Rules and a Christian biologist, is often approached by men looking for the silver bullet of fathering. In one way or another, they all come around to asking, “What’s the most important thing I can do as a father?"

Medina’s answer alludes to a surprising truth.

In my previously mentioned experiment, I measured the effect that making my marriage priority number one had on different areas of my life. One of those areas was my 16-month-old son’s behavior.

What I found in simply charting my observations was that the majority of the time, my child’s behavior was directly affected by the level of intention I invested in my marriage.

Re-enter John Medina, the Christian biologist. After years of biological research and several books on parenting conclusions, what is his answer to the question, “What’s the most important thing I can do as a father"?

"Go home and love your wife."

Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, the authors of Babywise, say it this way: “A healthy marriage creates an infused stability within the family and a haven of security for a child in their development process." They go on to sum up their years of research by saying, “In the end, great marriages produce great parents."

The point is that marriage has a higher goal than to make two people happy or even whole. Yes, the investment we make into our marriage pays dividends for us. But, concluded by Medina and his colleagues, the same investment also has significant implications for our family, our community and eventually our culture.

So men, women, the next time you find yourself dreaming about living significantly or succeeding in your career or being a better parent than yours were to you, do the world a favor: Go home and love your wife. Go home and love your husband.

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Should Christians oppose the "surveillance state"?

Jonathan Merritt, Religion News Service, Jul 4, 2013

Apparently anything goes in the “war on terror"—even spying on your own citizens.

That’s the message Americans have gotten from their government over the last decade, and it has only been reinforced by the brewing National Security Administration (NSA) surveillance scandal. Thanks to information leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, we now know details of massive telephone and Internet surveillance programs enacted by America against its own citizens. According to this information, your recent Google searches, cell phone conversations, and even personal emails may have been viewed or recorded by government intelligence agencies.

No wonder the Obama Administration is getting fileted and served up with a side of tartar sauce.

But the President is not solely to blame for the Orwellian reality we’re now facing. It is, in part, the Bush Administration’s policies come to roost. Legal cover for these actions has been provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which President Bush expanded with an “Authorization" to allow NSA to intercept Americans’ communications, and the Patriot Act of 2001. The super-secret $1.7 billion NSA data collection center in Utah, where much of this intelligence gathering has occurred, is the “realization of the ‘total information awareness’ program created during the first term of the Bush administration."

Of course, few people argue that surveillance should never be allowed in a world as dangerous as ours. But what we’re seeing now is a government with carte blanche power to infringe on individual freedoms with almost no restraint. Out of some 8,600 invasive search requests submitted to the FISA court, only two have been denied.

Americans are justified to be outraged as such power run amok. And the Christians among them, even more so.

Growing up, Americans are taught that we live in the cradle of liberty and democracy. But according to NSA documents, it turns out that America may be one of the most surveilled countries in the world. This rightfully offends our American sensibilities because the impulse of our republic is to provide the most freedom possible for those who call our country home. It is difficult to engage in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" when you’re always looking over your shoulder to see if Big Brother is spying on you.

American Christians have even more reasons to oppose the surveillance state. At the core of Christian theology is an affirmation of human dignity. Every human—regardless of race, gender, country of origin, religion, or anything other marker—is made in the image of God and is the object of that God’s love. Human dignity is a permanent and ineradicable endowment of God to every person.

As Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity, argues, “Persons of faith should be deeply concerned about the current surveillance flap not because privacy is an absolute end in itself but rather because it points to and safeguards something else even more basic and fundamental, namely, human dignity."

His view is echoed by the Roman Catholic Declaration on Religious Freedom, which rightly states that human dignity requires that people “should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by sense of duty."

Infringing on someone’s privacy without just cause robs them of divinely-bestowed dignity.

Additionally, the surveillance state trusts government too much. Christians believe that humans are utterly depraved and especially dangerous when in possession of unchecked power. Therefore, justice can increase only when power is held in check. As Gary Haugen, President of International Justice Mission writes, "[governmental] power must be limited by clear boundaries, and individuals exercising such power must be transparently accountable."

Christians know that nothing can ultimately be hidden. In one sense, there is no ultimate privacy if an all-knowing God exists. As Paul Tillich says, “We are always held and comprehended by something that is greater than we are, that has a claim upon us." But for Christians, only one entity should have and can be trusted with unlimited surveillance: God, not government.

"Only God is omniscient. To God alone are we to be a completely open book," George writes, “To God, and only to God, should we say—or need to say—‘You know when I leave and when I get back; I am never out of your sight. I look behind me and you are there, then up ahead and you are there, too…is there any place I can go to be out of your sight?’"

Christians should desire and help create a society where the tendency of citizens is to look up, not over their shoulders.

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