OK so in my Humanities class today we had a discussion. The discussion was centered around rules that each group in the class came up with to govern their own "school" based on Benedict's rules. (not completely sure about Benedict's rules but the point here is that we had to make rules) Each group had about 15 minutes to think of the most rules that made the most sense to govern our "school." As we made our decisions, my group tended to make decisions based on how it would benefit our lives, mainly selfishly. We made rules about how classes should not take attendance and things to that nature, because rules that lean this way benefit a more “lazy” lifestyle. The more and more our group went on the more personal disagreements I had with them. Overall I agreed with most of the little things that we decided upon. When the class finally discussed their decisions, as a whole the topic became more of a debate than a discussion, which brings me to my sole purpose for this post today.
One group in particular I did not agree with at all. I will say this up front: I do not have children and do not know exactly how I would react if I did have children, but based on my views now this is how I see things. The group I disagreed with was mainly making what I call “left-winged” decisions. The first point we talked about was having a required quiet time (a daily time where one spends time with the lord and nothing else). These people wanted to make quiet times mandatory and at certain times of the day. I would like to point out now that I think quiet times are very beneficial to a Christian’s walk with the lord. I do not, however, think it should be mandatory due to so many circumstances that come in to play. One instance would be about my mind and how that works, and from the people I have discussed this with today, they believe the same way. My mind works like this- if I know I need to do something, more than likely I will do it. If I do not do it then I do not benefit from that and that is all there is to it. If I am forced to do something, like sit down at 10a.m. everyday and have my quiet time, I am not going to want to do it. I will actually be bitter and not gain anything from it at all and the time set aside for that specific purpose would have been in vein.
Another topic that this group had was about required chapel attendance (chapel here at school is not required but it is encouraged). I feel like the same principle applies here because if someone is forced to go to church and doesn’t want to go, more than likely nothing will be gained from it. Don’t quote me on this but I believe Paul teaches that if you are fasting and all you are thinking about is eating than to go ahead and eat because your fasting isn’t serving its full purpose anyway.
I believe that we should have a choice whether or not we have a quiet time, or go to chapel, and etc. The bottom line is that God knows and we know. We know that going to chapel/corporate worship and having our quiet time can benefit us in our daily walk with God. God knows whether we are there or not and whether or nor we are there for the right reasons. When we are forced to do these things it takes the love and worship out of our motive for going. Our heart chooses what is more important to it (ties back to previous posts). As we go to Chapel and have our quiet times we should be doing that to grow closer to God, not because we are forced to. I fell when we are forced to do things we have a bitterness, which I talked about earlier, toward going and we lose our true motivation for why we are going. We cannot be monitored at all times of the day (except my God). Basically this is my whole purpose in writing today: Choices we make affect our every move. When we try and force others to do as we think we must also think how they think. People who govern must think of those below them, the ones who are receiving the rules. If our government took those statements into consideration before making the decisions that they do the country and world would be in a lot better place. But also, if everyone knew Christ the world would be a much better place. Just something to think about until next time, God Bless!
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