Friday, April 10, 2009

"In god we trust"

"President Obama still has not found a church for him and his family" said the radio newscaster. That was the moment when I began to think that our faith lies in the hands of the president finding his. I began to wonder weather the truth is with the person we elected or with the one he is searching for because all of us need to put our trust somewhere......

in god we trust by ~lenny.

Lenny's "In God we Trust" photo from Flicker

The truth is that all of us wonder what is beyond what we see. We want to know what is out there and at one point in our lives we ask “Who is there?” There comes a point in our lives when we just want to know the truth and they say that the bible holds it. This has been my journey to find the answer of the life-long question.

Now you could say that I am at a confused state, but aren’t we all? We live in a country that believes in a god but makes fun of him, a society that believes in life after death but ignores hells existence and “creation” is so beyond us that any other theory will do. The only explanation I could give to this kind of confusion is the need for power.

The power over our situations, control of our lives and selfish reasoning define most of us. Weather we want to admit it or not we live for ourselves. The problem today is that because of the recent economy it feels like everything is out of our control. Unemployment rates are rising, our uncertainty is constant and opportunities don’t exist.

I was not surprised to find that this financial crisis has lead to an increase of substance use. People don’t want to live in today’s reality, they want to escape it and the people who are smart enough to avoid drugs are becoming depressed. Because of that depression rates have also risen and our solution to that is prescribing them drugs. How bizarre?

According to a blog written by Elizabeth Hartney whom used msnbc.com as a resource says that the pressure of job losses, huge financial reversals and foreclosures is taking its toll, this is being reflected in the increase of people seeking treatment services. Although it is a positive sign, the financial difficulties give people the perfect excuse to rationalize their behavior on the basis that they can’t afford to actually get help.

I think this kind of reasoning leads a person away from making the right decision because they let excuses get ahead of themselves. People don’t want acknowledge that their actions influence their decisions that determine their lives. Only at their weakest do they begin to see. It is when they stand alone without anything but themselves and their choices and this is where the majority of us stand in our crisis today.

This economical crisis can either bring us down to be the weakest link or rise up a generation of a strong nation of people who don’t use excuses to hide against but the will to be more than that. To take this time of desperation and see that we can’t change the circumstances of today, we can’t rely on the president to be our hope and we can’t believe that addictions will take us away from reality long enough for everything to turn around. All these things will only take us to a place of more regret and blame. Let us start again from the beginning and go back to a time when it was “In God we Trust”.

I understand that to hear that just draws a blank in your mind. Trust me; it did that to me as well. I mean how can you start at a place you have never been before? Where will you be going and how will the problems go away? These were the questions that I asked and to start with trusting in a God was to search in the Bible. That is what led me to find Saul in Acts 21 and his story, where he was asking the same questions that I was.

Saul was heading down a wrong path. He was a passionate man but was fighting for the wrong cause. To grab his attention required blindness and that alone was enough for him to fall to the ground and ask “who is there?” He was desperate enough to call out for direction even though he didn’t believe in a god. He asked the question we all ask when situations are beyond us. At some point we all cry out and ask “what should I do?”

I believe that this story is crucial for our lives right now, it holds an answer and gives us a direction we have never thought of taking before. Take a chance. Believe the voice that no one else can hear but you. Go to a certain place, for a purpose you don’t understand and trust that there is a reason. Trust that he will guide you and show you himself. Trust that he will rescue you from your own doings. Trust that he will redirect your life to a life with purpose. Trust me when I tell you that my life was changed because I chose to question and to seek something that was beyond me.

In God I Trust, Hope.

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