The Slow and the Furious: But and Yet

"This is going to hurt me more than its going to hurt you!"

The phrase heard around the world. No matter what language you speak or the neighborhood you’re from (unless you suffer from affluenza), these words preceded an inevitable form of punishment.

"How can it be?"

How can my pain hurt you, not as much, but more than it hurts me? As a child, this paradox baffled me to my core. It made no sense that the source of my perceived affliction would hurt more than I. As a child, and sometimes even now, my thinking was simple: Up was the opposite of down, there were winners and losers, and there were pain givers and pain receivers. Now, you ask me to believe in a mutual suffering? A mutual suffering that stems from love and anger.

Love. It has caused wars, raised heroes, built nations and caused committed men and women to gladly look death in the eyes and stare back! So has anger. These two great passions can be seen as the seeds from which all great efforts and conflicts grow.

A man will climb and cross mountains to get to the woman he loves. If she were harmed, in anger, he would traverse those same peaks in pursuit of her assailant. A mother would move heaven and earth for her children, yet she will grow angry if they misbehave and discipline them.

In the same way, God would do anything for His people because He loves us. Not unlike the loving mother’s reaction to poorly behaved children, this does not absolve us from the discipline of His love.

I was always taught that whenever you see 'but' in a sentence, the latter often contrast the aforementioned statement, BUT when you see ‘'yet,' a crucial detail is about to be added. In Numbers 14:18, we read:

"The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.

Yet

he does not leave the guilty unpunished"

The Lord loves us, but this love doesn't negate His anger when we exhibit undesirable behavior, yet the discipline is still from a place of love. Love and anger are a two car garage that are attached to the same house. One is a luxury sedan and the other is a four wheel drive SUV. They pull out of the same driveway and onto the same street. The weather or circumstance determine which the driver takes, but they are both intended to get us safely from point A to point B.

God is abounding in love and slow to anger, but that anger isn't rooted is hate. It's rooted in love. He only grows angry because He cares. My fear is not His correction. My fear is when He no longer desires to correct.

Written by Lt. Darell Houseton
Newark Ironbound Corps 

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Small Beginnings

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin..."
Zechariah 4:10 (NLT)

Are you at the beginning of something? Or are you in the middle of trying to begin again? This verse struck me as I listened to it this morning. At first, I thought it was because I was at the beginning of something new, but then I tried to dig deeper beyond my gut feeling. Often times, I want to skip the beginning and get to the end result. My new year's resolution of dropping those extra, unwanted pounds is hard work, and I would rather it just be gone.  Nature doesn't work that way. 

God doesn't work that way either. The principles of our universe don't work that way.  Remember learning about inertia in science class? If you suppressed that memory, here is what it is:

"a property of matter by which something that is not moving remains still and something that is moving goes at the same speed and in the same direction until another thing or force affects it"

Basically, if something is not moving, it will remain that way until something acts upon it. If it is moving, another thing can affect it. Notice this principle is no respecter of size. 

To God, size doesn't matter either. God rejoices to see the work begin and specifically says He rejoices in the small things. I'm not sure where you are at or what might be waiting to begin in your journey – it doesn't matter, just start.

Written by Chip Kelly
Territorial Lay Leader
Development Bureau Director

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Invisible

With their latest song "Invisible," the band U2 recently joined with Bank of America to raise funds for (RED) to fight AIDS. As lead singer Bono explains the inspiration behind the song, he remembers coming out of a subway station and feeling unhip in a crowd of people. He recalls that people "didn’t see you in the crowd, you were just invisible."

This feeling of invisibility combined with a desire to be seen is highlighted in the song's chorus:

I’m more than you know
I’m more than you see here
More than you let me be
I’m more than you know
A body in a soul
You don’t see me but you will
I am not invisible

This is a feeling shared by millions each day, the feeling that we are just part of a crowd; the feeling that we are invisible to most around us. If we're honest, we don’t see many of the people around us each day. They are just invisible, nameless people who cross our path and are gone. It may be the mom at the grocery store struggling to provide nutritious meals for her family, or the businessman in the seat across the train who commutes 2 hours each day, or the homeless man at the train terminal who is trying to keep warm.

In Matthew 19:19, Jesus tells us to "love your neighbor as yourself." As a member of The Salvation Army, I believe that these "invisible people" are my neighbors. I am humbled to be part of a movement that reaches out to the invisible to "meet their needs in Jesus' name without discrimination." Whether it’s a food box, family programs or shelters, the invisible are seen by The Salvation Army.

Perhaps, like me, you want to focus more on the invisible around you. I would encourage you to reach out to your local Salvation Army to donate your time making the invisible visible.

Written by Richard Pease
Divisional Controller

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