Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Choices and the Christian

Welcome to The Barna Group! Very interesting data (though nothing new) on the Barna site today. "Born Again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as non Christians." I am still working through the reasoning, but let me take a stab. Christianity is a zero sum game. Yesterday's score does not matter, only today's. This cuts both ways of course. Yesterday's failures can be forgiven and forgotten (good for us.) Yesterday's heroic deeds can be just as easily forgotten. (not so good for us.) Take this a step further. Are you more concerned about what God will do for you tomorrow or what God did for you yesterday? We are forward looking and so is God. Okay, there is the groundwork. Now what about this divorce thing? Every single day we must wake up and choose between God and ourselves. Each day we are given the opportunity, completely independent of what happened yesterday, to do good or not good (also called "bad" in the prepolitcally correct society.) While it is true that Christians have more weapons in this daily battle, the fact of the matter remains the same. We all must choose each day whether we are going to follow God or someone else. So...just because a person is a born again believer does not mean that they will avoid poor choices in the future. The stock brokerage industry is fond of saying 'past performance is no indication of future performance'. This goes for the believer as well. Can we make good choices? Does God want us to make good choices? Is it possible to live without poor choices? Yes, yes and yes!! Here comes the but...this is only possible with God's help. When we turn our back on God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we Christians are just as susceptible (maybe more) to making poor choices. So does it suprise me about the divorce rate? No. Does it sadden me? Absolutely. And let me go on to say that before we judge anyone Christian or non-Christian, let us be sure we have the full story. How many people in our society are hurt each day because we recklessly jump to conclusions without walking in their shoes? That is not my intent in this post. My intent is to call all of us to make good choices about not only marriage but career, relationships and a host of other important things in our lives.

posted by Todd Nelson at 9/08/2004 04:10:00 PM

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AUTHOR: Todd Nelson TITLE: Choices and the Christian DATE: 9/08/2004 04:10:00 PM ----- BODY:
Welcome to The Barna Group! Very interesting data (though nothing new) on the Barna site today. "Born Again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as non Christians." I am still working through the reasoning, but let me take a stab. Christianity is a zero sum game. Yesterday's score does not matter, only today's. This cuts both ways of course. Yesterday's failures can be forgiven and forgotten (good for us.) Yesterday's heroic deeds can be just as easily forgotten. (not so good for us.) Take this a step further. Are you more concerned about what God will do for you tomorrow or what God did for you yesterday? We are forward looking and so is God. Okay, there is the groundwork. Now what about this divorce thing? Every single day we must wake up and choose between God and ourselves. Each day we are given the opportunity, completely independent of what happened yesterday, to do good or not good (also called "bad" in the prepolitcally correct society.) While it is true that Christians have more weapons in this daily battle, the fact of the matter remains the same. We all must choose each day whether we are going to follow God or someone else. So...just because a person is a born again believer does not mean that they will avoid poor choices in the future. The stock brokerage industry is fond of saying 'past performance is no indication of future performance'. This goes for the believer as well. Can we make good choices? Does God want us to make good choices? Is it possible to live without poor choices? Yes, yes and yes!! Here comes the but...this is only possible with God's help. When we turn our back on God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we Christians are just as susceptible (maybe more) to making poor choices. So does it suprise me about the divorce rate? No. Does it sadden me? Absolutely. And let me go on to say that before we judge anyone Christian or non-Christian, let us be sure we have the full story. How many people in our society are hurt each day because we recklessly jump to conclusions without walking in their shoes? That is not my intent in this post. My intent is to call all of us to make good choices about not only marriage but career, relationships and a host of other important things in our lives.
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