I Look Out into the World

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By Michael W. Raley

I look out into the world

And I see the rage,

The violence,

The hatred,

The deception,

The fiery rhetoric,

And my soul is overwhelmed.

I pray and I hope

For a better tomorrow,

Yet I wonder if the time for reasoning,

Accountability, and deep soul searching has past.

For the longest time,

When I looked out into the world, I felt a detachment,

Not realizing maybe I should be the one to change.

When I looked inside of me and my spirit,

I realized much work still needed to be done.

If I focused on changing myself,

The world would change as well.

I can’t change world events,

But I can change myself and my responses,

Thus, changing my perspective

When I look out into the world.

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Change is Coming

“Change is the only constant in life.” -Heraclitus

The time has come for me to make a change in my life. After seventeen-and-a-half years, it’s time to move. I don’t like moving. The only thing I dislike just as much as moving is looking for a job. My dislike of moving might be the reason I stayed here so long.  However, as I write this, the house will be on the market within the next day.

I have good memories of living in this house, but it has become a painful reminder of loss and struggle. This is the house I built with my ex-wife. I have to make a change for my mental health’s sake. Now begins the transition process. The upcoming weeks are going to be filled with looking at new places, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, planning a new budget, you know, all the fun adulting stuff.

Believe it or not, I welcome the change. This is the start of a new adventure. I am writing a new chapter in my  life. The decision to sell was an easy one. I’ve overstayed my welcome in a bad situation, but I finally realize that I have the power to change it. I was so bound up with depression and grief that I could not see my way out of the situation.

Change is going to come in life, no doubt about it. When change comes, we have to ability to embrace it, and “go with the flow,” or we can be dragged kicking and screaming. I’m tired from the kicking and screaming. I’m ready to follow the stream to see where it goes.

 

Discovering and Using our Talents

Imagine for a moment you are given an extravagant gift- it could be anything. The person who gave you the gift waits for you to open it, but you just set it aside and say “Thank you.” The Gift Giver leaves and the gift sits on the table where you left it. The next day, the gift is still on the table, unopened. A week goes by and dust is beginning to settle on the gift. The next thing you know is that a month goes by, then a year, maybe longer, and you have yet to open the gift. As you are sitting down watching TV, there’s a knock on the door. It’s the Gift Giver and he wants to know how you enjoyed the gift. You show him the gift sitting on the same table and talk about how you were not sure how he would respond to your opening it. The Gift Giver becomes angry and takes the gift away from you, giving it to someone else.

The above story is an oversimplified, fictionalized, and partial version of the Parable of the Talents, as described in Matthew 25:14-30 (the Parable of the Ten Pounds is found in Luke 19:12-27).

Jesus tells the Parable of the Talents within the context of His Mount Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25), where He describes the prophetic signs of His return and what believers must do in order to be prepared. The parable describes the rewards received when one does his or her work for the Kingdom of God.

However, what if we were to examine the Parable of the Talents without the eschatological layers? What would we see? How can we relate this parable to discovering and using our gifts in everyday lives?

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.” (Matthew 25:14-15, NKJV).

Of course, the man traveling to the far country is Christ ascending to heaven until His second coming. The servants represent all of us. The word “talent” is a term for a substantial amount of money. However, let us use the word talent to indicate our skills, gift and abilities.

From the onset, Jesus is telling us that life is not fair. Unfortunately, not all of us are born into wealth and privilege, nor do we choose the family we are born into, just as we cannot choose our skin color or country of origin. Not all of us have the same talents, skills, gifts and abilities.

The Bible states that the servants were given gifts according to their abilities. Hence, one servant received five talents, another received two talents, and the other received just one talent. The first two servants doubled their money and were commended and rewarded for their faithfulness, while the third servant buried his talent. The third servant let his gift sit on the table.

Listen and read carefully to the words of the third servant:

 “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.  And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’” (Matthew 25:24-25, NKJV).

The servant’s response of hiding his talent indicates two key factors in his decision: an improper understanding of his relationship to his boss (Christ) and fear. When we are not related correctly to Christ, we do not understand our freedom in approaching Him. If we have accepted Christ, we can come boldly to the throne of grace, yet we can hold ourselves back because of guilt and condemnation, believing God is going to “throw the book at us” like some harsh judge. The Bible disproves this unworthy mindset because:

*We can come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).

*There is no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1).

*God took the book of your sins and nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).

This unworthy mindset leads to fear. Fear of failure. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of what other people are going to think. Fear that we are diluting ourselves. Fear then drives us to inaction. Fear then causes us to lose out on the opportunity to use our talents. At the end of the parable, the man takes away the talent from the servant and gives it to the man who had ten talents, casting the servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25:26-30).

Not only was the one talent servant paralyzed by fear, but he also failed to seek wisdom. The first two servants had wisdom on how to trade and invest. We must seek out wisdom and resources when it comes to using our gifts and talents. Wisdom is not reserved for a few people: wisdom is available to all. Godly wisdom is crying out in the streets, but so many reject it (Proverbs 1:20-24). Wisdom is simply applying knowledge and experience to a particular situation.

If you do not know what your talent is, take a personal inventory of what you enjoy. You may discover that you have more than one talent. Do not be afraid to try something. You cannot control what other people will think. You cannot control market conditions, the weather, or anything else outside of your thoughts, emotions, judgments, perceptions, and responses. Do not compare yourself and your opportunities to those of others, because that will only bring discouragement, doubt, and jealousy. God has equipped you for your mission or missions in life. You got this. God bless you all.

Be the Change You Want to See

Humanity has a heart condition and is in dire need of a transplant. The prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and it is extremely sick; Who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?” (Jeremiah 17:9, The Amplified Bible).

We need to look no further than our everyday lives and history to see the depths of sin and depravity as we try to make sense of the seemingly senseless world around us. Genocide. Racism. Human trafficking. Child abuse. Drug addiction. Discrimination in all of its forms. The complete disregard for the sanctity of human life. The greed, corruption, and indifference that has infected every level of society like a virus.

As we daily hear and see these stories, our spirits and minds can become overwhelmed and we will simply “tune out,” going through the motions of everyday life like a living zombie. These problems, of course, are not unique to our twenty-first century world. However, we do have the ability to affect change where we have been placed in the world, just like a parent who correctly models the behavior they want their child to follow. In order to change our world, we must do the inside work of examining and changing ourselves.

We must demonstrate love to all

No matter the color of our skin, gender, nationality, societal status, or any other external and superficial marker we use to color our world, we are all loved by God. God has loves us with an everlasting love. It is God’s desire for all to come to the saving knowledge of His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. All of us need a heart transplant. Our Christian walks should be a living demonstration of love. In fact, there is a song lyric that goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Jesus even taught His disciples about the importance of love.

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:34-35, KJV).

We must “point the finger” at ourselves

My parents taught me that “It’s not nice to point at other people.” Yet, Christians and people in general like to point at others and say, “His sin is worse than mine.” “She lives a wicked lifestyle.” “Well, at least I’m not like him.” It is our human nature to trivialize our sins while magnifying the sins of others. We may go through life with ungratefulness, or gossip, or anger, and say to ourselves, “I’ve never killed anybody.” We become the Pharisee in the parable of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, who extolled his virtues to God and in the same breath put down the tax collector standing next to him. Meanwhile, the tax collector asked God to have mercy on him because he was a sinner. Jesus said the tax collector walked away blessed. Jesus applied this principle in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5, NIV).

We must mirror the change we want to see

Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 that “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” How we speak and act are mirror images of our inner character or “inner man” as The Bible states. If we want our outside world to change, we must live “outside in.” The Apostle Peter, speaking in the context of a wife being married to an unbelieving husband, states, “Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” (1 Peter 3:1-4, NIV). Before going further, let me state that Peter is not saying people cannot have fancy hairstyles, nice clothes, or jewelry. Peter is emphasizing the need to wear our Christian virtue and not attempting to win over people with superficial things. If you have spent any length of time in church, you know that Christians have tendency to use “churchy” terms that the world does not understand. We certainly can look the part, but if our belief has no real power in our lives, then we are simply actors playing a role. The world is looking for something authentic. The world wants to know that God is real. If there is no love behind sharing our faith, then we are basically giving people a list of “dos and don’ts” and pointing out every speck of sawdust on them, which would drives the lost further away from God. Deep theology may impress some people, but people primarily want to know that you love and care about them in the midst of their struggle. A spiritual mentor of mine once said, “Nobody cares about what you know until they know you care.”

When we wake up and as we go through our day, let us examine ourselves, as Paul says, to see if we are in the faith. Are our thoughts lining up with the Word? Have we showed love to someone? Have we cleansed our hearts and consciences? Are we judging ourselves before we go and try to fix the world? When the pressure is on, what is on the inside will come out. Make sure what is inside is what you want others to see. God bless you all.