My eyes open wider when i let myself be taught. When i let the spirit of God work through my experiences of light and of darkness, i can see and feel more clearly with a heart and mind of revelation. God's truth, once meshed with the life and experience of a human being acts similarly to conscience. The thing about God though is that he does not often force us to change into a deeper sense of knowing, he waits upon those who will respond to his call to live out His kingdom. But the truth is somehow written on our hearts, that it makes sense to those whom God reveals it. One of these unspoken or hidden truths has come to me tonight as a culmination of feelings and errings over this year, a general theme in my thought patterns that now has a name and identity.In life, we have two options, to consume or to create. This will generally apply to anything involving people and the kingdom. The worst type of consumption i have discovered to date is the consumption of people as commodities, something to be bought and sold, as inhuman material objects, as resources. The first and most obvious disgrace is that of the slave trade, in which people are bought and sold as sex slaves, cheap labor, militia, illegally adopted children etc.. (for more information, visit www.stopthetraffik.org) But even in our everyday lives, we take and take and take from the people we meet, and we value them by their equivalent worth to us by whatever need or deficit we have. Just for a few examples...
*The employer who treats a staff member purely on an input/output basis without any recognition of them as a human being
**The man/woman who satisfies his/her sexual desires with pornography at the expense of the sons and daughters, mothers and fathers that produce it.
***The musician that only appreciates his fans during a show, then later disregards them
****The many of us who continue to buy tea and coffee at a cheap price at the expense of poor farmers/producers over the other side of the world.
*****The person who uses others as pawns to gain social status or position, whether it be in business or in their personal life.
These kinds of thing have become very apparent to me lately, but the thing that i realised about all these and similar situations is that they can all be redeemed, there is another side to the coin, in each scenario, there is a chance to create! I encourage to seek for the opportunity to create...
You imagine what it could be like if we saw our relationships a bit differently, if we treated people with dignity and respect, if we escaped from this cultural mindset and world view of dog-eat-dog and profit margins!
