who does barack obama answer to?

i came across this article about barack obama’s personal faith and the unsurprising statement that it is the call to look after ‘the least of these’ [matthew 25, sheep and goats parable] that keeps him focused… very cool…

excerpt from article below – link to full article and clip here

‘President Barack Obama gave an unusually personal speech about his religious faith on Thursday, saying that “it is the biblical injunction to serve the least of these that keeps me going and keeps me from being overwhelmed,” in address to a prayer breakfast in Washington.

The speech, delivered at the National Prayer Breakfast, comes on the heels of public opinion surveys that show only a minority of Americans know that Obama is a Christian and that a growing number believe he’s a Muslim.

“My Christian faith has been sustaining for me over the last couple of years and even more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time,” the president said Thursday, referring to his wife. “We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but that we are true to our conscience and true to our God.”

“When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and our people,” Obama said later. “And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord and I ask him to forgive me my sins and to look after my family and to make me an instrument of the Lord.”‘

if u want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and change your faith…

i found this story in some scripture union global strategy notes i was reading thru… i read it. i smiled.

‘The fields were parched and brown from lack of rain, and the crops lay wilting from thirst. People were anxious and irritable as they searched the sky for any sign of relief. Days turned into arid weeks. No rain came. The ministers of the local churches called for an hour of prayer on the town square the following Saturday. They requested that everyone bring an object of faith for inspiration.

At high noon on the appointed Saturday the townspeople turned out en masse, filling the square with anxious faces and hopeful hearts. The ministers were touched to see the variety of objects clutched in prayerful hands – holy books, crosses, rosaries. When the hour ended, as if on magical command, a soft rain began to fall. Cheers swept the crowd as they held their treasured object high in gratitude and praise.

From the middle of the crowd one faith symbol seemed to overshadow all the others. A small nine year old child had brought an umbrella.’

latest TFTW: when God is absent…

i send out a weekly email message called thort for the week aimed at challenging and encouraging Christ-followers to really live out what we say we believe – i thort i’d share this week’s with my blog [if you would like to receive the weekly messages simply email brettfish@hotmail.com with the email address you would like it sent to and a ‘please add me’ subject line] – trust you enjoy…

I was sent this psalm during this week of listening to God and it really encouraged me and trust it will do the same for you – take time to really read it though, don’t rush through:

Psalm 77

‘I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
At night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.

I remembered you, O God, and I groaned;
I mused, and my spirit grew faint.
You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.
I thought about the former days, the years of long ago;
I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart mused and my spirit inquired:

“Will the Lord reject forever?
Will He never show His favour again?
Has His unfailing love vanished forever?
Has His promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has He in anger withheld His compassion?”

Then I thought, “To this I will appeal: the years of the Most High.”
I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago.
I will meditate on all Your works and consider all Your mighty deeds.

Your ways, O God, are holy.
What God is so great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;
You display Your power among the peoples.
With Your mighty arm You redeemed Your people,
The descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw You, O God
The waters saw You and writhed; the very depths were convulsed.
The clouds poured down water,
The skies resounded with thunder;
Your arrows flashed back and forth.
Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world;
The earth trembled and quaked.
Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.

You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.’

Yeah, that Psalm spoke really strongly to me, but especially the verse that Doug and Janet who sent it to me highlighted – we probably all know that story of the footprints on the beach and the question of ‘why God, when it was hardest, was there only one set of footprints?’ and God responds with, ‘during the times of difficulty i was carrying you.’ And yet this seems to be almost the opposite. Or maybe the same in a different way, i don’t know.

Verse 19:

Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.

This is really just an encouragement to continue to trust in God and the faithfulness of Him, even in those moments when His footprints can’t be seen – when it looks like He has abandoned you, when there is no voice or answer coming to your questions or prayers. His path continues to be there. His way stands firm. Even when there is no visual evidence of His footprints.

God is here. He is involved. He does care. He does have a plan. Even when it is not as evident as we would like, all that stuff is still True.

So be encouraged
As i am.

God bless you as you bless others
Love brett anderson

“God of pylon, God of steam, God of girder and of beam”

i kid you not – on friday while we were waiting for our friends to get married, the beautiful Val and i were paging thru a hymnal and we found this gem from a guy called Richard G Jones and the song is called ‘The earth is the Lords’ – some classic lines here…

1. God of concrete, God of steel,
God of piston and of wheel,
God of pylon, God of steam,
God of girder and of beam,
God of atom, God of mine,
All the world of power is thine!

2. Lord of cable, Lord of rail,
Lord of motorway and mail,
Lord of rocket, Lord of flight,
Lord of soaring satellite,
Lord of lightning’s livid line,
All the world of speed is thine!

3. Lord of science, Lord of art,
God of map and graph and chart,
Lord of physics and research,
Word of Bible, Faith of Church,
Lord of sequence and design,
All the world of truth is thine!

4. God whose glory fills the earth,
Gave the universe its birth,
Loosed the Christ with Easter’s might,
Saves the world from evil’s blight,
Claims mankind by grace divine,
ALL THE WORLD OF LOVE IS THINE!

i really really do enjoy the line ‘Lord of sequence and design’ though… it is so true.
i like it – new favourite hymn…

a theist walks into an atheist… (big)bang – it’s a steel atheist

‘a theist believes in at least one god, but denies the existence of many gods’ [the skeptic’s dictionary]

whereas an atheist denies the existence of god completely

and ‘at heist’ is just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that’s not important now…

a theist and an atheist – so vastly different and yet the difference between them is nothing… or ‘a space’ to be more precise…

[disclaimer: oh and by the way, this is one of those blogs that is more for me than for you – i am writing to think my thorts out loud, to process them, to do it publically in case anyone else is thinking/wrestling/engaging about the same kind of stuff, but i am not looking for answers, so please keep those to yourself – i am not asking you to solve anything – i am merely trying to process what is going on in my head, and maybe cause you to think a little]

i have worked as a pastory type guy at the stellenbosch vineyard church for almost 6 years now – in that time i have seen two christian guys become atheists – it’s kinda weird that to go from a theist to an atheist you have to lose the gap as opposed to creating one – it feels like it should be the other way around…

so if you were to be an outside evaluator of my work you would see that i started out with two christians and finished up with two atheists – i don’t think i’d score that well in pastoring school… and i know that i didn’t change them (i hope i didn’t change them) but it happened under my watch so to speak [which is ridiculous cos i don’t have a watch, except on my cellphone but to say it happened under my cellphone gets very confusing because it’s not that big a phone] and i didn’t have the answers or the proof or the experience to stop it from happening and so a part of me feels like it may as well have been my doing

[there are others who have been a part of our community in these last years who have moved away from God or christianity or both and that disturbs me as well, but to become an atheist is a step towards something, rather than just a step away from something, which is a lot easier to do]

so it does bother me in an i-failed kind of way to some kind of extent – i have something, my faith, my relationship with God, the purpose that gives me life – that is most-of-the-time so incredibly absolutely whole-heartedly real to me and even tho i don’t always understand it or have a complete explanational grasp of it, it is the very core of my being – and i have been unable to communicate or demonstrate or pass that on to these two guys in an adequate enuff way that had them going ‘this-is-real-this-is-for-me’ and that has to bug me, to frustrate me, to dishearten me. it has to. because i obviously believe that what i believe is truth and within that also lies the believed consequence for someone who doesn’t believe that (both when they die but even hugely now) and that should cause me great concern, and does…

but it’s not going to cripple me. it’s not going to knock me off my horse (and not just cos unlike mr terblanche i don’t actually have a horse, i have a rocking horse, but it’s a metaphorical one, and purely for aesthetics). i think i’ll be okay.

really? and why is that you may ask? [or i may go ahead and ask for you] – Because Jesus was okay with it!

there is a passage in luke i think it is (maybe john) where Jesus preaches a bit of a tough message and a whole bunch of His followers find it too strong a message and so they leave… and He lets them. and then turns to His disciples and asks them, “What about you? Are you also going to leave?” to which Peter replies, “Where shall we go? Only You have the words of Truth.” [And for me, that is a lot of the bottom line – i have struggles with some aspects of christianity, i don’t understand a lot of the Bible and how God works or doesn’t seem to work sometimes, but i have identified Jesus as having the words of Truth, it is in my gut and i cannot shake it and have not come close to hearing any other kind of more believable truth anywhere else]

then there is the story of the rich young ruler and one of the most powerful phrases in the Bible to me because when you read the story of Jesus you get the idea that in His interaction with the man, He knows from the beginning that it’s not going to be successful in terms of gaining another follower – and yet there is this phrase – ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him.’ And the rich young ruler walks away from Jesus disappointed and empty-handed, because the cost of following Jesus (all your stuff, I want you, and everything else you have made more important than Me in your life) is too much for him. And Jesus lets him go.

i don’t doubt for a second that the moment any one of those original followers or the rich young ruler had a change of heart and recognised Who Jesus really was and returned to Him and asked once again to be allowed to follow, that He would have instantly and with much joy received them back.

but He wasn’t going to chase them down to have them ‘follow’ Him for the sake of having extra followers… He wanted those who followed Him to be genuine. to believe (and even in the way of the father of the demon-possessed kid who, when Jesus challenged him, responded with, ‘I do believe – help me overcome my unbelief!” – that’s often my cry in certain areas of my faith at least). not to not have doubts, but to overcome their doubts (which is faith! – it doesn’t mean you don’t doubt, it just means the doubt doesn’t knock you down and leave you there)

and so i haven’t given up on these guys. i hope we will remain friends. i will pray for them. i will chat to them anytime they want to chat, and listen to them on their journey and hope that they will listen to me on mine. i won’t try and convert them (or unconvert them? reconvert?) but i hope we’ll still get to hang and play Settlers and whatever else comes along.

i do hope they will continue to challenge their beliefs now that they have walked away from one set. and not just settle for another because it is convenient. continue to wrestle guys, continue to question, hopefully continue to seek because God does say if you seek Me you will find Me and seeking meaning in the world always leads you to God at some stage. always. because He is the way and the Truth and the Life – it doesn’t take you believing it to make it true.

an atheist denies the existence of god completely

a theist believes in at least one god, but denies the existence of many gods

brainless christianity

‎one of my weekly thort for the week reader friends wrote me an email containing this line:

‘It doesn’t matter how much doctrine I know, if I don’t reflect the God I serve in my daily life, it’s pointless.’

which in essence is a paraphrase of James 2 – faith without works is dead – and James 1.22 don’t just read it, do it.

and it was part of an email from a guy who was part of a local church, struggling with a bunch of questions and being told not to question or leave – don’t ask why we do this, just do this

brainless christianity must be one of the most dangerous things there is and i think is one of the huge things a lot of atheists – or maybe non-believers in general – hold against christianity – because so many people are told to “just believe” or “have faith” in such a way that it sounds very much like switching your brain off and just coasting on this fluffy pillow of ‘faith’

i think this is the issue both anne rice and john ellis are wrestling with – and i am there completely – so sick and tired of religion and rules and posturings – do you reflect God?

hating gay people is not a reflection of the God i serve (who desires that all will be saved) and neither is distancing ourself from a young teenage girl who falls pregnant, especially if she has an abortion; responding in anger or hatred or dismissal to those who speak against us or have different opinions or just want to understand the opinions we hold does not sound like Jesus who said love your enemies and bless those who persecute you; hiding ourselves in the bubble of christian gatherings and literature and bad movies does not seem to fall in line with the command of go and make disciples of all nations, be salt, be light, be my ambassadors, live such good lives among the pagans that…

risk it, come on, dare, be prepared to be kicked out or asked to keep quiet or go somewhere else… reach up and switch your brain back on… i think that is quite possibly what the Jesus i follow and the God i serve designed it for, to be used or something

‘It doesn’t matter how much doctrine I know, if I don’t reflect the God I serve in my daily life, it’s pointless.’

all i am asking is are you reflecting God? if not, go back to begin, do not pass go, do not collect 200 pharisee points, right back to the beginning, to the love God with all your heart, love people square, and roll the dice again…

new pome: Oh

Oh.

Oh? As in really? You… you’re sure? Certain?

All-powerful. Oh?

Faithful. Oh?

All-loving. Unconditionally so.

Even me?

Even my stuff?

Me? Oh?

Oh really? As in ‘really really?’

Like real miracles? Actual miraculous occurances?

Blind seeing, deaf hearing, lame walking?

Dead being raised?

Oh. I get it. It’s a metaphoric death.

An inner blindness.

Deaf to the words of the Holy Scriptures speaking to my disobedient ears.

Able to walk tall in the knowledge that i’m ok.

That i’m going to make it.

Is that all?

Because if it is, then “oh!”

Oh.

Oh?

O

As in zero

As in no more response to that do i have.

IS that really all you’ve got?

If it’s only metaphorical

Some kind of greeting card sentiment

A cartooned caricature

Then “oh” is all i have.

Awe has turned to oh.

Owe.

As in You owe me.

All the time i put in

All the energy

All of that, believing…

Owe

For a life given

Lived

Dedicated

Surrendered? Well, where i could.

Oh.

O.

Owe.

Unless. One less. Own-less. Oh’ness.

Unless… there really was more.

Is more.

of You. to You. about… You?

Because if there was more, is more

Then it would be different

It would have to be different

I would have to be different

Oh so completely different

If you were shown to be so much more

Or maybe even just all i was told you were, are.

Not metaphoric, but real.

Not imaginary or fabled or wishfully thought up

But real. Alive. Involved.

Interested.

In me.

In us. In all this. In all that is and has been going on.

Oh?

Oh.

Oh!

And once more, the awe consumes the “oh?”