Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Exotic (08/08/13)
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TITLE: I Am An Exotic | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Berg
08/15/13 -
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When I looked up the definition from Dictionary. COM, it read: of foreign origin or character, not native, introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimated.
Yes, that’s me. I realized several years ago, I am of foreign origin and character and I will never be acclimated to this world for I am a child of my Heavenly Father and this world is not my home.
Life changes when we realize that. Those things that can tether us to this world: possessions, pleasures and even people have a different priority for my time, energy and financial investment when I understand this life, here on earth, is but a momentary period of time when put up against all eternity.
It doesn’t make the sojourn here easy because of simply understanding that. Quite the contrary because actually, our time on earth is a time of war: of mortal combat with the enemy of our spirit, Satan.
We find truth for this situation in the book of I Peter. “Dear Friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of wrongdoing, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Turn the television on and just try to find something “comfortable” to watch that is “good.”
Pick up the phone and hear news that breaks your heart for another one who has chosen the path of destruction for life.
Take a look at most of the billboards on U.S. roadways and see enticement after enticement for fulfillment of all your dreams and pleasures.
Watch the parents of those who have drug and alcohol addicted children. Watch how they seem to stumble through life, the joy gone from their faces.
Hear the testimonies of the young women who have aborted a child. Their dreams they thought they were putting on hold by the birth of their child, have now turned into nightmares.
Listen to the sorrowful words of the young man who’s wife has left, as she can no longer stomach his porn addiction.
Just try and browse through social media sites, maybe just trying to “keep up with the grandchildren” who live in another part of the country, and try to dodge the beckoning girls “wanting to chat…now.”
Talk to a lifelong teacher, who after 40 years of teaching says she spent most of her day in her final years: feeding children or bringing appropriate clothing for a child or just tried to engage them. Ask her about trying method after method to keep the child’s attention long enough to impart some educational necessity to them. She will tell you they are falling asleep in class for not having parent’s who are really “parenting” them and giving them the tools necessary so when they arrive at school, they are ready to be students.
Lies, deceit, corruption, pride, arrogance, selfishness, poverty, religious persecution.
You know what? Everything mentioned above eventually brings pain, heartache, sorrow, disorder and chaos. Satan, he is delighted with all of the above. He is counter to God so he is the author of confusion.
But God. Yes, but God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
When I struggle with the pains of this foreign soil I am on. I remember the assurance God gives us.
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
I am an exotic. Our world is a sin-sick world. It is not my home.
Selected passages from the NIV
I Peter 2:11
John 3:16 & 17
I Corinthians 4:13
Ephesians 2:19
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Thank you for sharing your work.
I felt the anointing on this entry. Excellent job!
God Bless~
I loved this piece!
Congratulations on your ribbon...God bless~