On Abortion

Abortion is murder, plain and simple. I know that is not a popular view, nor a politically correct one, but the truth is rarely popular, nor politically correct. The arguments I have heard is "My body, my life" and "This is about women's rights." These arguments are not valid, because they ignore the right of the defenseless baby. Though the baby has had no chance to harm anyone, he or she is not allowed to live for the sake of what? Comfort? The other argument I have heard is, "The baby is not a person yet." Therefore, they claim it does not deserve the same rights, and is somehow less human. There is a double standard however, if someone were to murder a pregnant woman, he would be charged with two counts: The killing of the mother, and of the child. So, our government does recognize the baby still has a right to life, however, they turn a blind eye, or in some cases, outright support the killing of innocent life if it is convenient for the mother. This brings us to the next point: Governments roll.

The roll of Government is to represent Jesus' authority on earth. Our government obviously has not done this, and refuses to do so. I understand that is not a valid argument in most groups, so I shall use one that is, not because I am ashamed of my savior, but because the goal of this is to bring about change in peoples thinking. The roll of the government should be to not let the rights of the citizens be encroached upon. This means, they are not to encroach on the rights of the citizens, and are to keep order in such a way as to protect and defend the citizens. At this too, they have failed. It is a slippery slope we find ourselves on, and our government isn't even trying to run back up, but instead, has turned and is leading the charge down. It is the duty of the government to intervene when the rights of the people are being infringed upon, and this means babies also. It boggles the mind that we have such a high value of children, but only the children that are convenient apparently.

Men, we have great responsibilities to bear, responsibilities that should have us on our knees every morning praying that Jesus would not allow us to fail, because the consequences are so great. One of those responsibilities is to "Speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor and the needy." (Proverbs 31:8-9) Society, and even many churches sadly, has turned men into cowards. Putting great emphasis on peace, and tolerance, so much so that we forget there are things worth fighting for. More and more, I see young Christian men, who grew up in the church, thinking just because they didn't do anything wrong, that they are in the right. You see, there are sins of omission, and commission. Take for example, original sin. Where was Adam when Eve first ate of the fruit? Genesis 3:6 "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate." So, he was there, with her, and did nothing to defend her and her conscience, nor did he defend God and His commands. This is a sin of omission, not living up to his duty as a man to protect and defend. 

You are no longer an innocent sheep, you have now been given knowledge about the subject. You have three options, be a wolf and fight for abortion, be a guilty sheep and ignore what you have learned today, or be a sheepdog and take a stand. 

Sanctity of life

From AP:

Often, overtreating fatal illnesses happens because patients don't want to give up.

Saideh Browne said her mother, Khadija Akmal-Lamb, wanted to fight her advanced ovarian cancer even after learning it had spread to her liver. The 55-year-old Kansas City, Mo., woman had chemo until two weeks before she died last August.

"She kept throwing up, she couldn't go to the bathroom," and her body ached, Browne said. The doctors urged hospice care and said, "your mom was stubborn," Browne recalled. "She wanted her chemo and she wanted to live."

Browne, who lives in New York, formed a women's cancer foundation in her mother's honor. She said she would encourage dying cancer patients to choose comfort care over needless medicine that prolongs suffering.

You see, this is what happens when you try and create a perfect world without God. This is what happens when you start looking at people as society, and not image bearers of God. Step one is making it easier to cope with loss of life, either by saying there was never any real life, or their life is torture, and therefore not true life. They say, "Oh, it's not a baby, just some tissue," or, "They're just going to be in a vegetated state, no feeling or emotion." or even, "They're going to be in agony, it's better to end it now." This is evil.

God created us, and He has set a time for us to die. He has determined the number of our days, if we are still alive, it is only because He has let us keep breathing. He also created us, therefore, how can someone say it is their choice and right to determine if the unborn are allowed to live? No matter what the circumstances, God still allowed him or her to be created, and meticulously made them that way.

What is happening now, has happened before. History repeats itself, there is nothing new under the sun. Nazi Germany started off with their slaughter of the old by telling society that they were unneeded and not useful. That it was merciful to kill the sick and dying. This made it easier to allow the murder and slaughter of those without voice. 

Now, the problem I have right now is not with people giving up on life. That is their choice, and while sad, is still their choice. What I do have a problem with is that our country is headed towards a society where life is not highly valued. Where the government will control healthcare, and will decide weather or not you are worth letting live. Where it is "merciful" to let you die, or just outright kill you. Where before, you might have been able to afford the operation, it will now be to costly to the government. It should not be someone else's choice to determine if God is right in letting you live. A mere man cannot possibly see what God sees, and cannot possibly determine if it is time to go home. 

This has not come suddenly, it has been happening for sometime. The problem is, good people have not done enough to fight it. Darkness can never over come light. If the darkness is moving, it is because the light is not there. When have you ever opened up a door to a dark room and had the darkness put out the light? It doesn't happen. Darkness is not a force, it is the absence of a force. Evil is a bit different, in that it is a force, but still, it cannot stand up against God. If God is with us, who can stand against us? If we, the people of God, stand up for what is right, can evil stand against us?

Search your heart. Ask God what in your life is holding you back from following Him. If you feel called, then make a stand.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men nothing" -Edmund Burke

It's not like EMTs are people or anything..

I was looking for Christian EMT courses and found this:

http://atheism.about.com/b/2008/06/28/christian-emt-workers-allowed-to-let-pregnant-women-die.htm

So basically, the author takes a story of an EMT who refused to take a pregnant woman to get an abortion, and through a very round about way, comes to the conclusion that Christians are a threat to the public health. Considering the late date of this post, I can only find articles about the lawsuit that followed (BTW, if you have articles stating otherwise, please send them to me as I would like the truth behind anything), but the story that I've gathered is that this was a woman who wanted the ambulance to take her to have an abortion, and an EMT said no on the grounds that it went against her moral beliefs. She was fired on the spot and another EMT took her place.

The author makes a case concerning a law that should have protected her from being fired which says something along the lines of, if you have a moral or religious objection concerning aiding a person, you do not have to aid them. He then has this to say:

According to Manion's reading of Illinois' "conscience clause," it really wouldn’t matter if the abortion were an emergency, would it? If Stephanie Adamson had a moral objection to transporting someone for an abortion, it wouldn't matter if the abortion were purely elective or absolutely necessary to save the woman's life — a moral objection is sufficient to allow her to refuse to lift a finger to save the woman's life. Questioning whether the abortion was an "emergency" strikes me as little more than an attempt to cast aspersions on the motives of the woman who was, he acknowledges, in pain and thus in need of medical treatment.

Even if we ignore this, though, the question is pretty easy to answer: not all hospitals offer abortion services and, even if they do, there might be someone else better qualified to either perform an abortion or to perform an abortion on women in particular medical circumstances. There are plenty of good medical reasons for why it might be necessary to transport a woman in pain from a hospital to a clinic where she can get an abortion. There are few, if any, good medical reasons for an EMT to refuse to transport a woman in such a situation. There are no good reasons — medical or moral — to give EMTs the right to let a woman die rather than drive her to where her life can be saved.

What I am gathering from this, is that he would like EMTs to be good little sheep following the herd, and doing whatever, without question. While 99% of the time, this is ok, you still have to watch out for that 1% of the time when there's something wrong and stopping it means going against the grain. Never mind my views on abortion, never mind my morals, making EMTs prosecutable by law for not giving a treatment ties their hands, makes them second guess themselves, and in general, turns people away from getting into this field to help others.

The EMT did not wish to assist in the murder of an innocent child. The author takes this, and turns it into, "Christian EMT workers allowed to let pregnant women die?" as he titled his post.

As for the abortion, is it denial of a womans right over her body to not let her abort? Well, if you are with the world, then yes. A world without God sees this and says, it is the woman's body, and it is the woman's life. She should be allowed to make the decisions about them both. From a biblical stand point, abortion is evil, no matter the circumstances. God doesn't make mistakes. Since before time, He planned what we would do, from birth to the grave. That means, even in cases of incest or rape, though they are pure evil, it is not right to abort. God can take an evil situation, like rape, and turn it into something beautiful, like a child. If someone decides to take the life of their unborn child, they are, without a doubt, committing murder.

Even our own society realizes that unborn children have value! If a person punches a pregnant woman in the stomach, and she miscarries, the person will (and should) be convicted of murder. However, there is a double standard. If a woman decides that she is not ready to have a child, she can go to a clinic, and have the baby burned alive with acid, and essentially suffocate to kill it. No matter what grounds they say, it is still evil. "It was the humane thing to do, I couldn't support it." "The baby was going to be missing a limb, I couldn't give it a life like that." God still created that child, why is it up to you, to decide whether or not the baby should live? The Lord has a plan for everyone, even those that society views as worthless. It is not up to us to make the decision of who lives, and who dies; especially when they cannot defend themselves.

Life's tough, being a parent's tougher, but with the Lord's help, you can do it. God will not give you a challenge you cannot face. Now, He will almost certainly give you challenges that you cannot face alone. That's what is so great about our God, He is always good, but He is not safe. He wants what is best for us, and He is willing to give us difficult, painful times to make us love Him more, and to make us grow. Nothing worth while will ever be easy. Following God is a constant battle. Battles are not easy, but I can tell you this, the battle is worth it. Looking back on my short life so far, I have seen times where I wanted something, and God didn't let me have it. Looking back, His plan was perfect. He brought me through, and was with me every step the way, with my best interest at heart.

With a God that good, how can we try and say that it would be better to not bring a child into the world who God has a plan for? No matter what the circumstances, God still has a plan, and though you may not see it (and normally you wont), it is heading towards something beautiful and great.

Remember

Today is Memorial Day. Today, the men and women who have served and are serving are remembered for their service. In the words of R.A. Heinlein, "The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness." Freedom is not free. 


Lest we forget the sacrifices of those who have served, and what they served for:

If you have served, thank-you. 

The knife

This is a story of hunting in winter, of cold, of living off the land. This is called The Knife.

Up north in the arctic circle, there is a group of people who have been living there many years. We know them as Eskimos. Now these Eskimos have been there so long, and have adapted to their environment so well, that 20 degrees Fahrenheit feels hot enough to wear a T-Shirt. Their eyes can see 32 different shades of white. When I look at fresh snow, I see pure snow. They, on the other hand, can look at a snow bank and say "That snow over there has fresh water below it, that over there has salt water flowing beneath it. Over there is snow hard enough to be ice, whereas over there is a death trap of soft snow and long drops." In other words, they are masters of the environment.

Our story takes place in a small village, the days are becoming longer, the air is getting warmer, and many of the young boys are getting restless with anticipation for what is to come. One day the elder, the oldest and wisest of the people, gets up, and takes out The Knife. "shnnnk,, shnnnnk, shnnnk." the sound emanates as the elder sharpens the knife. The young boys are really excited now, for now they know the hunt is soon to begin. The elder does this for hours, at a time, not eating or drinking, only sharpening the knife across the stone, until, at long last, the knife is sharp enough to break skin if you touched it to firmly.

Finally after several hours, the knife is ready, and sharp. The Elder calls 5 of the best youth from the tribe to himself. These are young men, around 20 or 25 who know and honor the traditions, who know when to speak and when to hold back, and who he trusts to follow his orders without question. It is now around 3 in the afternoon, and he sends them on a hunt, but neither he, nor the knife, go with them.

They hike miles out to the section of ice where water flows beneath. 4 of them wear very visible black, the fifth wears a very bland white. Two of the ones in black stand very close and visible to a hole in the ice where the seals must come to breath. Further along, another two take up position at a second hole, again very visible. At the the third hole, the one in white waits alone, with a single spear. A seal swims just below the ice, and notices the two men by his air hole, this is no mater, because he can still swim on to the next. At the next one, he again sees two men, so he swims on. By this next hole, he is almost out of oxygen, and must come up for air.

The man in white waits patiently as the seal comes up and looks around. He does not immediately strike, for he knows he must wait. The seal looks about, and then submerges before launching himself almost totally out of the hole. At this point, the man strikes. His thrust is deliberate and well aimed, and with it, he unleashes his full strength and skill. He is careful though, to kill the animal, and yet not let it bleed. The blood must stay inside for now.

The other men gather around, and without a word being said, they head back to the village, carrying the seal and 2 buckets of water back with them. This was not the hunt. This was the preparation.

Once at the village, they set to work. The seal is allowed to bleed into a bucket, and The Knife is dipped into the blood. The knife is dipped, and withdrawn. When it is withdrawn, the blood freezes, and The Knife is dipped again. This goes on for about 2 hours, with each new dipping, a new layer of blood freezes onto the knife. The buckets of water are kept just above freezing, with just a thin layer of ice at the top.

Finally at about midnight, the elder gathers his men together and they set out, with The Knife and the two buckets of water. They hike through the snow, walking softly so as not to alert their prey. They are totally attuned to their environment. A hightened sense of things grips them. They feel the wind, blowing towards them, they see the fresh snow, solid and without tracks in it. Now there is a snow bank about 100yd's from a thicket of trees. The elder leaves the men and walks to the snow bank alone, being careful not make a sound, nor leave a footprint. He walks to the top of the bank, more of a mound, and places the knife in the snow, being careful to leave the blade pointing vertical.

Without a word, the men carrying the buckets walk to the knife and begin poring the water around the knife in a steadily growing circle. As they poor, the circle of ice grows bigger, and bigger, and the edges grow farther and farther from The Knife. After the the buckets are emptied, the elder silently gathers his men together and says, "The hunt is complete." The men walk back to their village, not a word is uttered, but you can sense it in the air. Each one is excited. It is now about 4 in the morning and the men must get the few hours of sleep they can before the next day.

Back in those trees, a wolf slowly raises his head. He sniffs the air. There is a sent, a scent that he has been waiting for for sometime. It is the scent of blood. The pack has been hungry the past few months, and now, the scent of a wounded seal brings hope. Each member of the back sniffs, and waits. They wait for the alpha male to sense it, and when he does, they rise and go out. As they approach, each of the wolves are getting hungrier, and hungrier. But as they draw near, a new scent comes to the nostrils of the alpha male. It is the scent of man.

The alpha male holds back, fearing a trap, yet the younger ones continue on. They normally do not get as big a portion as the alpha male, and therefore, rush ahead to get what they can. The first one get's there and begins liking, and then a second and a third, then a forth. The location of the knife is set up so only four may lick the blood at a time. Have you ever licked a popsicle that was so cold, that afterwards your tongue went numb? That is what happens here. The wolf licks and licks until finally the blood is gone, and all that is left is the razor sharp edge, and when he licks this, he cuts his tongue. His tongue is numb, so he doesn't notice this, and continues to drink his own blood until, from lack of blood, he collapses. Ah, but then, a new wolf takes his place, and now there is fresh warm blood on the knife. And he continues licking until, likewise, he collapses, and another- well, you get the idea.

At 7 that morning, the village wakes up. Everyone is moving hurriedly, the dogs are barking and wagging their tails in anticipation. Everyone is excited to see what the hunt has brought in the last night. The men of the village hook up their dog teams, and away they go. They recover the kills and bring them back to the village. Nothing goes to waste. The meat feeds the people, the bones are ground down to a powder that is mixed with milk, the fur is used to make cloths for the elderly and young children that need them. What they cannot eat, they give to the dogs. Not one piece goes to waste.

Lessons from my father

A friend of mine posted this to facebook:


The series is called Lessons From My Father, and from what I have seen, it is very good.

I'd like to talk specifically about the scenario in the video where a town lost electricity. The majority of society collapsed. From just losing electricity! You see, this sort of shocked me, I'm ashamed to say. I grew up thinking what most people consider "tough," was normal. My friends and I always had the same mindset growing up. If we wanted something we got it, by building, earning, whatever. We never thought it would be given to us, and most of the time we'd get it after a great deal of working for it. Unfortunately, the rest of society is not that way.

During the aftermath of Katrina, something that's always stuck with me in my mind was a video clip of a single mom getting interviewed. She had lost her home, and belongings, and was sitting on a curb. The interviewer asked what she was going to do next, and what she said shocked me. "I'm just going to sit here till someone comes to take care of me." All I could think was what a horrible mindset.

Thinking about myself, I have a very "If it's to be, it's up to me." mindset. That's one of my sins sometimes, because I find it hard to trust that God will take care of me, and instead turn inward. However, it is most certainly a gift from God as well, because it instills a Get-R-Done, and I will survive attitude in me. That attitude has most certainly helped get me through some difficult times in life, and as long as I realize, that it comes from God, and not from me, I am blessed with success.

My dad always told me, "Don't sweat the small stuff." Funny how dad's have those words of wisdom that stick with ya for years after. I believe I've learned a lot from my dad. As a kid he did a lot of hiking, growing up as a missionary kid in the Philippines and Napal. By the time he had me and my siblings as kids, he had developed a dislike for camping. Sleeping on the ground, hiking through the woods, just wasn't his thing. He did, however, let us go camping with our friends, and my sister and I readily did that. Most wouldn't call my dad "tough." He's a computer programmer, wears glasses, etc. However, he was the one that instilled the mindset of a sheepdog within me, we trained side by side in martial arts, he taught me from a young age about God, he taught me to shoot, all that good stuff. His mindset is one of a survivor and a sheepdog.

I hope my readers will check out the other videos in the series, and teach others how to be sheepdogs.

Till next time, God bless!

Godly dating

Lately the Lord has guided me to Mars Hill Church's website, and I have been watching their sermons. Below is an excellent one on Godly dating.



Here is the post I wrote on dating before.

In everything, always consult the Lord first. If it is the Lord's will for you to be married and to find a Godly spouse, it will be so, but it will be on God's terms. His ways are perfect and pure. Who is man to question them? Who is man that he thinks he knows better than God?

It is hard to be single, our hearts long to be with someone. Be careful and discerning in who you choose. It should be someone you are ready to live with the rest of your life. One man, one woman, one flesh, one lifetime. That is how God intended it, and that is the way I intend to live.