Another pitfall is to ‘channel your ambition into that work which God prepares for you, prepares you for, and guides you to; and not into your own self-determined (and so usurpatious) ends’. Been waiting for that ‘proper’ outlet for my ambition for 20 years and it’s mostly dissipated and gone now.
@@JustinHonaker I wouldn’t quite say ‘nothing’; just nothing difficult or deliberate. I’ve been doing normal people stuff (job (not ‘career’), house, church, etc) - there’s just no direction to it or fire behind it, and there’s nothing that indicates a work that has been prepared for me or a discernible gift with clear application, let alone the ‘divine guidance’ I was taught to expect and organize my life around. Thinking about investing - at least then I can use the money for good stuff. I mean… I know He ‘owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ and all, but He at least seems to use the wealth of people.
I wonder if it's occurred to Andrew that perhaps the spiritual and practical gifts required to start a successful business may not be things God's Holy Spirit has given every man. I am fairly certain that Andrew has given no thought to societal inequities that make it more difficult, perhaps nearly impossible, for some men to find even a well-paying job, much less be able to start their own business. Further, it seems that Andrew and his audience and his superiors are presuming that laziness is overwhelmingly likely to be the cause a person's or a family's poverty, employing an analysis of current socio-economic conditions straight from the Book of Proverbs. And while Proverbs is unequivocally valuable to us as a part of God's Word, wise interpreters of Scripture understand that a basic rule of Biblical hermeneutics is to not use it or the Book of Psalms in devising doctrine. The world has changed so as to be virtually unrecognizable to the author of The Proverbs or to its intended audience; it seems that an extension of that wise hermeneutical principle would be to not discuss economics, poverty, opportunity, and business with a reliance on the Proverbs but on the character traits the Book requires of us, applied to the situation that human beings find themselves in today. Let me be blunt: There is almost no greater way of expressing contempt for and disinterest in the poor around us, the least of these with whom Jesus identifies, than to analyze their deprivation through the lens of the Book of Proverbs. I have spent more than a decade working with the very poorest of the very poorest in this country and I can assure you that almost none of them was poor because they were lazy, but because they lacked literacy skills, documentation, experience, and anything close to a just, level economic- opportunity playing field. If you were ever open to sitting down and talking with me I could tell you of not only documented facts about how many jobs poor people often juggle, but I would give you real life examples of people I know who worked insane hours with insane effort and did it in two, sometimes three jobs for 90 jours a week. I promise you that you can be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and his Word by living a quiet life and not striving for greater material things, as well as by caring enough about the poor to try to understand the source of their multitudinous deprivations. You do not. I wonder if you can rest, Andrew, in the fact that should you ever develop a more true understanding of poverty and injustice, Jesus will still love and commend you even when Doug won't. I am curious how you reconcile Christ's admonition to "Seek ye first the kingdom of God" with your braying about dominion and profit and Christians being conquerors and creators. I doubt that you would be willing to engage with me, but I would welcome it. My email address is siyocreo@live.com. Continue to bless you and your family, and in ways I would humbly suggest you have not considered.
@paulhines3807 , nope. We're doing just fine, my husband retired early, and I was able to stay home with both of my sons when they were little. It's just that I understand social inequality and we do our best to use what God has blessed us with to directly help others.
Another pitfall is to ‘channel your ambition into that work which God prepares for you, prepares you for, and guides you to; and not into your own self-determined (and so usurpatious) ends’.
Been waiting for that ‘proper’ outlet for my ambition for 20 years and it’s mostly dissipated and gone now.
So you’ve been doing nothing and drifting for 20 years?
Stop waiting. Lift up your head, open your eyes, and go achieve something for God’s glory.
@@JustinHonaker
I wouldn’t quite say ‘nothing’; just nothing difficult or deliberate. I’ve been doing normal people stuff (job (not ‘career’), house, church, etc) - there’s just no direction to it or fire behind it, and there’s nothing that indicates a work that has been prepared for me or a discernible gift with clear application, let alone the ‘divine guidance’ I was taught to expect and organize my life around.
Thinking about investing - at least then I can use the money for good stuff. I mean… I know He ‘owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ and all, but He at least seems to use the wealth of people.
I wonder if it's occurred to Andrew that perhaps the spiritual and practical gifts required to start a successful business may not be things God's Holy Spirit has given every man. I am fairly certain that Andrew has given no thought to societal inequities that make it more difficult, perhaps nearly impossible, for some men to find even a well-paying job, much less be able to start their own business. Further, it seems that Andrew and his audience and his superiors are presuming that laziness is overwhelmingly likely to be the cause a person's or a family's poverty, employing an analysis of current socio-economic conditions straight from the Book of Proverbs. And while Proverbs is unequivocally valuable to us as a part of God's Word, wise interpreters of Scripture understand that a basic rule of Biblical hermeneutics is to not use it or the Book of Psalms in devising doctrine. The world has changed so as to be virtually unrecognizable to the author of The Proverbs or to its intended audience; it seems that an extension of that wise hermeneutical principle would be to not discuss economics, poverty, opportunity, and business with a reliance on the Proverbs but on the character traits the Book requires of us, applied to the situation that human beings find themselves in today. Let me be blunt: There is almost no greater way of expressing contempt for and disinterest in the poor around us, the least of these with whom Jesus identifies, than to analyze their deprivation through the lens of the Book of Proverbs. I have spent more than a decade working with the very poorest of the very poorest in this country and I can assure you that almost none of them was poor because they were lazy, but because they lacked literacy skills, documentation, experience, and anything close to a just, level economic- opportunity playing field. If you were ever open to sitting down and talking with me I could tell you of not only documented facts about how many jobs poor people often juggle, but I would give you real life examples of people I know who worked insane hours with insane effort and did it in two, sometimes three jobs for 90 jours a week. I promise you that you can be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and his Word by living a quiet life and not striving for greater material things, as well as by caring enough about the poor to try to understand the source of their multitudinous deprivations. You do not.
I wonder if you can rest, Andrew, in the fact that should you ever develop a more true understanding of poverty and injustice, Jesus will still love and commend you even when Doug won't.
I am curious how you reconcile Christ's admonition to "Seek ye first the kingdom of God" with your braying about dominion and profit and Christians being conquerors and creators. I doubt that you would be willing to engage with me, but I would welcome it. My email address is siyocreo@live.com. Continue to bless you and your family, and in ways I would humbly suggest you have not considered.
You are broke right?
@paulhines3807 , nope. We're doing just fine, my husband retired early, and I was able to stay home with both of my sons when they were little. It's just that I understand social inequality and we do our best to use what God has blessed us with to directly help others.