Nagging God

 

Sometimes I feel like I nag God. “I keep telling him “we need . . .” or “we want . . .” There are even times when I feel like I’m being a whiny bitch. Or times when I say, “Not that I’m ungrateful for what I have, I am grateful, but . . .”

Then as I was reading my Bible one night, I came across a story in the book of Luke. In Luke 18:1-7 a widow goes before a judge seeking legal protection against her opponent. At first the judge refuses, but she keeps going to him to ask for justice. Finally he says to himself, “If I don’t give her legal protection, she won’t leave me alone.”

The Bible goes on to say how serious are we about our prayers to God? Are we asking daily or are we asking once or twice and then leaving it alone? God wants to know we’re serious. That doesn’t mean He’ll grant every request, but if you keep asking you will receive an answer. He may say, “Yes” or “No” or “Not right now.” He may even say, “The answer is on the way.”

There’s another example of perseverance in prayer in the book of Daniel. In Daniel 10, we read that Daniel had been mourning and fasting for three (3) weeks while waiting for a response from God. When he finally got an answer, he learned that God had dispatched the messenger the moment Daniel set his heart on understanding and on humbling himself before the Lord. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia had withstood him until Michael came to help him.

Now the messenger didn’t tell him that he’d been nagging God. In fact, he said that Daniel was a “man of high esteem.” Daniel 10:11 (NAS)

After reading what God said about persevering in prayer, I was much encouraged. You see, my roommate and I have been praying for something for a few years now. I admit, I haven’t always prayed about it daily.  After all, I didn’t want to be a nag. After reading the passages in Daniel and Luke though, I got more serious about that request and others.

I know now that if I want God to take my requests seriously, then I need to seriously be on my knees praying. I need to be like the widow who refused to allow the judge to give her justice.

One last thought, when we pray for something, we need to be prepared to accept His answer. I once prayed about something I truly needed. I finally realized that I needed to pray for the situation in a specific way. When I did, the answer I received made me wonder if God had lost His marbles and the universe wasn’t aware of it. When I finally learned to trust that God knew what He was saying when He gave me the answer I needed, my life improved in ways that I can’t write here. 

Transgender Restroom Usage

 

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook about transgender people wanting to use the restroom for the gender they believe they are, rather than the one they are born as.

Just allow me to say that I have nothing against transgender people. Everyone I’ve ever met has been kind and considerate.

Having said that, I do have problems with sharing the bathroom with them. My problem isn’t so much transgender people as it is the abusers who would take advantage of such a situation by pretending to be transgender to gain access to potential victims.

I say this from two perspectives:

1)    As an adult survivor of childhood sexual, physical, & emotional abuse

2)  As a parent

Being a survivor of abuse, I understand the emotional damage just one incident can cause.

As a parent, I find it frightening that an abuser would use a situation like this to target a child. When my son was younger and needed the restroom in public, I’d stand nearby ready to rush in if needed. At times I felt like I was “stalking” the men’s room even though I knew I was just being a good parent. Thankfully, nothing ever happened. However, I shudder to think what could happen to innocent children when transgenders are allowed to use the restroom of their emotional gender rather than their birth gender. I don’t blame them for wanting to be safe, but I do blame the bullies and perverts for making this whole discussion necessary.

In locker rooms there’s also the issue of making someone uncomfortable. I know I would not feel comfortable changing clothes in front of a man or taking a shower after working out, etc.

It seems to me that the best and simplest way to solve this is to make single stall gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms available in addition to the regular men’s and women’s versions. This way transgenders have a safe space to do what they need without infringing on someone else’s rights and abusers have no reason to enter the restroom of “their” choice.

A Non - Biblical Look at Gay Marriage and Abortion

Several days ago as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I saw a meme on a friend’s timeline about people being against stem cell research, gay marriage, and abortion. The idea was that no one could come up with non-biblical objections. I looked at it and thought, I don’t know anything about stem cell research, but I could come up with non-biblical objections to gay marriage and abortion. Then I moved on. Partly because I wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle that and partly because I wanted to see what else was going on in my friends’ lives. I couldn’t get it out of my mind though. So I went back to my friend’s timeline to look for it. After scrolling through the prior six days posts and not finding it, I decided I’d have to answer it here.

I’ll start with gay marriage. When you look at the way men and women are made, it’s pretty obvious (to me, anyway) that their bodies are meant to fit together. A man has a penis which fits nicely into a woman’s vagina. However, if two men come together, there is no natural place for them to insert their penis. They have to use the anus, which was not meant for that. Not only that, but to use the anus you must use some kind of lubricant as the body will not produce its own for that purpose.

If two women come together, they have their vaginas, but no penis to insert into either. For them to have any kind of sex life, they must use their hands, mouths, or toys designed for that purpose.

The physical builds of the two genders alone tell me that two people of the same sex should not marry.

There is one more reason though – children. If a gay couple want children, they must seek outside help. They must either adopt, hire a surrogate mother or in the case of two women, one or both could use a sperm donor’s sperm to get pregnant. There is no way for two people of the same gender to get one another pregnant.

This brings me to the subject of abortion. I’ve heard for a long time that it’s a woman’s body, therefore it should be her choice. I’ve never understood that. Especially since as I mentioned above, it takes two people, a man and a woman to get a woman pregnant. So, the baby is comprised of DNA from two people, not just one. Not only that, the baby only occupies a woman’s body for approximately 9 months. It’s not like a cancer that will eventually kill you. It’s another human being comprised of DNA from two people, not just one.

I did ask someone once, how it was “a woman’s body when it takes a man to get her pregnant.” She refused to answer at first because I’m clearly a Christian. I told her that I hadn’t mentioned the Bible: I’d simply asked a question. She told me it was too complicated to explain.

I know, you’re probably asking, “what if the couple used birth control and still got pregnant?” Well, we all know that birth control is not 100% guaranteed, unless a man has a vasectomy or a woman has a hysterectomy. A woman getting her tubes, “cut, tied, and fried” as one friend of mine used to say, isn’t an absolute guarantee. I’ve heard that in rare cases, the body heals the tubes or grows new ones. As for the pill, I’ve personally known two women who got pregnant while on it. Condoms, sponges, contraceptive jelly, and diaphragms can all fail. If you have sex, even with birth control, there’s always a risk of getting pregnant. It only takes one sperm getting through.

I also think that abortion for the sake of convenience to the woman, is ultimately selfish. You may not want the baby, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of couples who can’t have children on their own and would love to have an infant. They would gladly adopt the unwanted babies that so many people abort.

There are however, two reasons for which I do understand getting an abortion. The first would be medical. If the mother’s life is in danger because of the pregnancy or if the baby won’t survive.

If the baby isn’t going to live, then I don’t think a woman should be forced to carry it till it dies.

Here’s a link to a story about a woman whose child wasn’t going to survive: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/07/the-hardest-abortion-i-ve-ever-had-to-perform.html

I also read a story recently in which a woman was forced to carry her baby till it died, because she was more than 14 weeks pregnant. If a doctor can tell a woman with certainty that her baby isn’t going to survive outside the womb, then I think the decision about what to do, should be up to her.

The other situation in which I can understand having an abortion is rape. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it happens and in some cases a woman gets pregnant as a result. In that case, I can certainly understand and accept it if a woman wants an abortion. I would hope, however, that she would carry the baby to term and if she doesn’t want it, give it up for adoption. It would be a way to have something wonderful come from something awful.

So, for those of you seeking non-biblical answers to these questions, those are my answers.