Your calling

"Follow me."  The Lord Jesus to His disciples

Following the Spirit is every believers calling, no matter what.  No matter where you are in life, you have one thing to do:  follow the Spirit. 

This is our very salvation, which is our calling, the essential meaning of being called. 
This is our full time ministry.  To be saved, to be a believer, is to be called by God.
Jesus' simple command to follow Him was the call and salvation of his first followers, and of His followers even today.

This means a lot to me because I always wanted to be called to do "full time ministry," meaning to get paid to follow the Spirit.  But I didn't realize that  by simply working as a believer I am getting paid to follow the Spirit, though I'm not part of an institutionalized ministry.  Whatever I do, I am to work with all of my heart as towards God and not man, as Paul said.  It's God whom I serve.  I've always been a full time minister, and if you believe in Christ, so have you, no matter where you are in your life.

Say you're feeling like your life is a mistake because you took a job you shouldn't have taken.  Or you moved to a location that you regret.  Maybe you're in a relationship that is no where near what you hoped it would be.  Now, living in regret, you're retracing your steps and wondering how you can start over, how you can fulfill your calling.  I have good news for you.

Wherever you are, stay there. 

God will lead you while you are in your situation,

or He will lead you out of your situation. 

It is written, 

"Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them."

1 Corinthians 7:20.

Say you were an unbeliever, married to an unbeliever, when you first believed in the Lord.  Like Paul says, you should remain married, which is the situation you were in when God called you, even though your spouse is an unbeliever.  This is a hard situation to be in.  But God will lead you in that situation, or out of that situation.  Until He leads, stay where you are.

Or say you were working a particular job before you believed in Jesus.  Now that you believe, you're wondering if you should change jobs.  Again, stay in that situation, and God will lead you while you're in it, or He will lead you out of it.

Of course, the exception to all of this is if you were doing something illegal as a job, or if you were committing adultery against someone else's marriage.  In those situations, your salvation means that you leave your sinful life. You never stay in a sinful situation.  God never calls you to sin, or to stay in sin.

But if you simply regret where you are, stay there, and follow the Spirit.  Pray for God to set you free, and even look for His liberation.  Don't try to liberate yourself, unless you are resisting or leaving a situation of sin.  Stay where you were when you were saved, when God called you.

This is your calling:  follow the Spirit wherever He leads.  This is all the apostles had to do when Jesus said, "Follow me."  Wherever He went, they went.  Whatever He commanded, they obeyed.

It's the same for you and me.
This is my calling.
This is your calling.
Follow the Spirit.

Our Imaginary God (Part 2)

Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.~The Lord Jesus

How can you find out God's will and know it?  First, you have to reject your Imaginary God, like we talked about last time.  This is the god who likes everything you like, loves everything you love, always agrees with your common sense.  The true God is more like this.

Say you're thinking about taking a new job.  You like it, it makes sense, it's everything you're looking for salary wise.  Yet something isn't "right."  You feel a faint uneasiness, something (or Someone?) suggesting that you wait and keep looking for jobs.  

"But why wait?" you reason.  "How could the God (of your imagination) have a problem with you taking this job?  It's a good job, meaning you actually would be doing good in the world.  Doesn't the Bible say that you should do good?"

Assuming you really care what the Bible says.
You know what I mean.

You know that for most of your life's decision, you aren't consulting the Bible.  You're consulting "common sense," or what makes sense, or more honestly, what you want to do...assuming that what you want to do is what God would want you to do...if it's not a crime at least...

How much of our lives is based on a genuine desire to do God's will, even if it wasn't what we were thinking?  Is it possible that God would want something we didn't think of?

Of course not.  God gave us common sense for a reason, right?

He did, if we redefine what "common sense" is in the first place.

Click here for Part 3.

Our Imaginary God (Part 3)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The Lord gives wisdom, out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

~King Solomon

What is "common sense?"  It's the "sense" that humans have "in common!"  But what is it's origin? 

God.

God is the Creator of creation and the origin of the principles that govern our lives--the origin of common sense.  Wouldn't it be common for creation and creatures to follow the Creator?  What is more intelligent for a creature than to trust their all knowing Creator, the one who made them and defines the purpose of their lives?

So if by "common sense" we mean we trust in the principles God placed in life and the universe, then our definition of "common sense" is a good one.  It would mean we are ultimately trusting in God and not ourselves.  But if we think we can figure it out on our own, "it" meaning anything, we are actually not using common sense.  We're trusting in ourselves, and in our Imaginary God, the one who is our peer, our equal, and our servant.

We don't like that.

We don't like that we were created to serve and not to be served by God.  That, by the way, is the difference between the true God and our Imaginary God, the way we can truly know the will of the true God:

The True God is our King and Master, and we His subjects and servants.

The Imaginary God is our subject and servant, and we are His master; 

He exists for us and our happiness.

Again, if your happiness is the key to your decisions, then your God is imaginary.  But if God's purpose for your life is the key to your decisions, whether that purpose makes you happy or not (though it will, but that's not the focus), then your God is the true and real God, and you will find His will for your life...and know it.

Our Imaginary God

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.~The Apostle John

If God just so happens to agree with almost everything you want to do, you're worshipping an idol.  This is what God says,

"My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts.  As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts." 

King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, second only to Jesus in wisdom, also said,

"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.  Lean not to your own understanding.  In all of your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths."  

Most of the time what we think is best won't match what God thinks is best.  Why would it be?  Do we see all ends or know every situation fully?

We think we do.

We think we're so logical, so full of common sense and experience, that we can handle almost anything and anyone in any situation.  We think we are as smart as God.  But C.S. Lewis shows us our foolishness.

"In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself.  Unless you know God as that--and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all.  As long as you are proud you cannot know God.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.  This raises a terrible question.  How is that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves as very religious?  I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God."

An imaginary God.

This is the God that agrees with almost everything you say, or almost everything you feel.  The God that feels as strongly about what you're considering as you do.  This is where we must be careful, hyper vigilant. 

How do we do it?  By denying ourselves completely.  It means we have to be honest about what we feel so strongly, then wait until our strong feelings subside.  Unless we do that, we will deceive ourselves.  We will think the God of the universe agrees with everything we plan.

Obama, T'Challa, and Black People in America (Part 2)

I read a commentary on Black Panther scathingly criticizing T'Challa as a weak sell-out of a character, with Kilmonger being the only real hero and revolutionary in the movie.  I thought long and hard about this criticism, and used other four comic book characters and movies to shape my conclusions.

What do Superman, Wonder woman, Thor, and T'Challa have in common?

They are all comic book characters.

Obviously, right?

But think about the implications of taking a comic book character and making him or her as real as possible, in a kind of historical fiction.  Think of the problems that come from pressing reality on these characters, and of putting these four heroes in our  real world histories.  We'll start with The Man of Steel himself.

SUPERMAN
Some people had a problem with Henry Cavill playing the role superman because he's British.  Why?  Because, by some, this Kryptonian was conceived as a good ole' American.  Maybe even a Republican.  Even his uniform was connected to the American flag in some people's minds.  In Superman 2, he put the American flag back on the White House after defeating General Zod.  Yet Cavill's Superman in "The Man of Steel" showed us how a Kryptonian would be seen if one really came to our world.

He would be an alien.  Plain and simple.

He was neither American nor British, though the Kryptonians happened to look white.

As an alien, he wouldn't be immediately trusted by the American government...nor by Batman for that matter.  There would be issues as to his jurisdiction, authority, and accountability.  Morally, a character like Lex Luthor would wonder where Kal-El was when he was an abused boy who needed a savior.  After all, Lois Lane can barely sneeze in Nigeria without Superman flying all the way from Metropolis to say "Bless you."  A real Superman raises real problems.  So does a real Amazon Warrior Princess named Diana.

WONDERWOMAN
Was Diana a feminist?  I don't think so.  I think she embodied the feminist ideal...to a point...depending on how we think of or define feminism.  But I don't think Diana came to earth for women.  As the daughter or creation of Zeus, depending on the back story in DC history, she was either a goddess or a demigoddess.  Not exactly a woman.  Definitely not human.  Definitely not focused on women's issues.  In fact, Gal Gadot, a Jewish woman, may not embody every feminist ideal for every feminist.  What about Black women who are feminist?  Or even Jewish women, for that matter.  Is Diana more a representative of Greek women, in terms of the mythology?  That's not the impression I get of her.  She doesn't seem to have a particular affinity to the Greeks any more than Thor, the Norse god of thunder, has an affinity to Norwegians or other Celts.

THOR
We don't think of Thor primarily from Norse mythology.  We know that's where his character is from, but we don't focus on that.  His coming to earth in the Marvel Universe also had serious implications, resulting in responses from Tony Stark and Nick Fury in relation to the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.  A real Thor would cause real problems for the world and in the world, like a real T'Challa and a real Wakanda wouldn't work well in the real history of Africa, and of Africans in America.

T'CHALLA
So, if there was a real Wakanda, how could any oppression happen on the African continent, ever?  How could slavery in America have taken place?  Surely the previous Black Panther T'Chaka, and the Black Panthers before him, would have destroyed any attempts at oppression, wouldn't they?  The slave masters and Hitlers of the world wouldn't stand a chance...or would they?  Wonder woman fought in the war against Hitler, but where was she previously in the history of humanity? Where were any of the Amazons in any of the tragedies of human history? After all, they were created by Zeus to protect humanity, not just women, and not just Greeks (unless "humanity" meant "Greeks," like "all men were created equal," meant "all white men were created equal?")  Where were any of the Greek or Norse gods, or the Kryptonians, or the Wakandans, when we needed them?

Do you see the problems we create when we place these characters in our histories...if we insist they must fit perfectly and neatly into these histories?

Of course, my goal was to deal with the issues that come up in the movie "Black Panther."  Kilmonger's issues.  T'Challa's issues.  Nakia's issues.

Whether we're dealing with Superman, Wonderwoman, Thor, or T'Challa, the implications of what real life would be like if they entered our world are not simple...and we usually don't think too deeply about them...unless the hero is T'Challa.

CLICK HERE FOR PART 3

Obama, T'Challa, and Black People in America (Part 3)

T'Challa's character seems to  have something to prove that neither Superman nor Thor have to even think about.  So does Wonder woman.  To some, T'Challa has to represent all of Black History, and to others, Wonder woman overcomes all of feminine oppression.  Or so some think.

These two heroes, Black Panther and Wonderwoman, touch on serious political issues that Thor and Superman don't.  Superman doesn't represent British or American people.  Thor doesn't represent Celts or Anglo-Saxons.  But T'Challa is supposed to carry black people on his shoulders, and Wonder woman is supposed to be the icon of women everywhere.

But why?

Let's go back to Superman for a moment.

To a certain extent, Superman did carry America on his shoulders.  At least the old Superman did.  Henry Cavill's Superman doesn't do so as well.  But the old Superman represented America, for some reason, even more than Captain America himself.  America.  That's the issue.

America.

After all, Wonder woman mostly represents American feminism, it seems.  More specifically, white American women's feminism, because in fact, it was primarily white women resisting oppressive white men in power in the suffrage movement.  Black men weren't keeping anybody from voting because they themselves couldn't vote.  Black women weren't in the position to blatantly challenge the oppressive white men.  So what would a black woman's wonder woman look like or be like?  Or a native american's wonder woman, for that matter?  It's possible that their wonder woman would not be an Amazon, if we press the issue.

There were no feminist Zeus created Amazons sent to oppressed women everywhere.
There were no Wakandans empowered by a meteor to fight the oppressor. 
There was no Black Panther.

Yet T'Challa could represent black men, and Wakanda black people, in the Marvel Universe. But did Stan Lee, and the creators of Black Panther and Wakanda, have that in mind?  Or did William Moulton have black and native women in mind when he created Wonder Woman?  Though Wonder woman is powerfully politically impactful, what I've said shows the possible limits of her impact that are not present for T'Challa.

Whether Stan Lee thought of black history or not when he created Black Panther, T'Challa intensely affects the minds of many black people today.  This super hero can show black boys and girls in America, and on the continent of Africa, something they've never seen before, just as Obama showed African-Americans, Africans, and the world, something they had never seen before.

What T'Challa represents is mind changing, reality changing, and life changing, especially if we don't press black history too far on what he represents.

Obama, T'Challa, and Black People in America

The day after Barak Obama became president, something happened to me, and I believe to many black people in America.  I remember looking out of my window, and the world literally and physically looking like a new world.  I can't stress this enough.  The way I literally saw the physical world, with my physical eyes, completely changed.  I've had that feeling many times before...like when I went to Israel, or to London, or the Philippines.  The feeling you get when you are seeing a world completely new and unlike your home.

Having Barak Obama as president of the United States felt literally like living in a new and foreign country.

I'm not saying that I, or black people in general, agree with everything that came out of the man's mouth or head.  I'm saying he embodied something we needed to see and experience.  He symbolized something.  So does T'Challa in the movie "The Black Panther."

If you put aside all of the so called political issues raised by Wakanda in the real world of racism and oppression, issues that raise questions for what a Wakanda would mean during the middle passage for example, and you see the impact of T'Challa and Wakanda on black thought, you can see how he, and Obama, affected many black people.

True, Wakanda is an imaginary African country.  But I believe it's power comes from being imaginary.  Symbolic. An ideal that is real.  To me, the mystery and beauty of Wakanda in the comic book is that it is hidden in plain sight.  These so called backwards third world people have the power to heal the world.  The cradle of civilization has the power to restore civilization, to fight an enemy and oppressor the world has never known.  (All of this is in the Marvel Universe, of course.  A point that needs to be remembered when thinking about who T'Challa is, and what Wakanda is.)

Wakanda, and T'Challa, showed black people something we haven't seen.  A powerful, beautiful, independent African nation...untouched by white civilization or colonization.  Unapologetically African.  Imaginary.  But a glimpse of reality.

When I left the theatre, after seeing "The Black Panther," I felt like I did the day after Obama became president.  I saw myself, and the world, with literally new eyes.  Why?

Are black people so desperate for identity that a comic book character could make such a difference in who and what we are?  Is it pitiful that some of us would embrace Wakanda to such an extent that we would chant "Wakanda forever" after seeing the movie, copying the actions of the Wakandans?  Some would frown on African-Americans who hail an imaginary African nation while barely knowing the names of real African nations.

Those who frown may be missing the point.  Something may be about to happen that no one anticipated.  T'Challa may complete Obama's impact...he may even transcend his impact...because he is imaginary. 

What will black people now be?

I think we will embrace the continent and her countries in ways we've never done before.  And I pray we will embrace the God of our weary years and silent tears, becoming, finally and eternally, true to our God, and true to our native land.

Click here for part 2.