Finding My Voice

It is hard to know how to react to our modern world. We face a continual cry of coming economic collapse, an unbelievable negative barrage that is our Presidential election, and the moral sickness that has become the norm. How does the godly person respond? I am a pastor. What kind of leadership should I be providing? Where should I speak? Where should I stay silent?

I see a drift of Christian leaders toward silence. The words of many Christian leaders excuse or make excuses for the absolute moral depravity of our time. Those who do speak out with a clear moral voice have the feel of the last gasp of a dying man. It comes across more as a whimper than as one speaking on behalf of God.

It has been difficult to “find my voice.” Do I scream? Do I play the academic? Should I just be quiet? Should I be more personal? Do I try to forecast what I don’t know?

God’s laws of sowing and reaping have not gone away. Where there is sin or where someone is playing the fool, there will be a day of reaping. We have taught mercy as if the outcomes of poor choices simply disappear. Outcomes don’t go away. Mercy just means someone else pays. When it came to our sins toward God, Jesus had to pay. When it comes to the decisions of Presidents and pastors, the people pay.

What is needed in our world is more men and women of God. We need godly examples who are willing to pay. When I chose to work with addicts and alcoholics, I did not fully visualize the degree to which I would be pounded spiritually, emotionally, and financially for their decisions. That is the price of being a man of God. That is the price of loving others. We choose to cover the sins of others and that means we take many of the blows.

I’m not sure there is much that is of any value that can be said as a Christian leader today. The only voices that seem to be heard are those that are justifying our march toward spiritual and social sickness. But I do know that in laying my life down for others, my voice is being heard in that circle. There are many who are listening, and trusting, and getting better. They are turning away from foolish decisions and creating a new destiny.

Very few of those that I have helped have been helped because they “heard my voice” or because they “woke up” to biblical values. I asked one man who had a sudden change of heart what had made the difference. “Because I finally figured out that you were not like so many others who had used me. I realized that you cared.”

We need tens of thousands of men and women of God to get out of their own selfish worlds, fearing what apocalypse is going to come and when it is going to come. Personally, I’m surprised we are still on planet earth. I believe in the rapture. I’m also surprised the United States is still seeing any level of prosperity. I believed the words of Billy Graham, that he spoke over 25 years ago, that if God didn’t judge the United States for its depravity, it would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

If we believe in things like the rapture and the coming judgment, how do we live? We stop worrying about self and selfish things and we live as a man or woman of God. Selfish Christians get involved with others until they get hurt and then they are done. The godly person connects to God. He (or she) listens for His voice and obeys Him. He gets involved in the lives of others in a way that “pays” for their sins. He connects at a much higher level than the selfish person would ever connect.

In today’s world, that seems to be the only voice that can be heard. Go be that voice!