Discover_

I've been thinking about moving to New Zealand again. I was talking to Alicia last night, and she says she can set me up with a house and job and everything. The thought scares me a little, and I don't want to leave the rest of the family, especially with a new baby on the way, but this is a great opportunity too. I have to move out sometime, so if I can get housing and work taken care of before I get there, that;s great! I guess it all comes down to Mum and Dad's decision. If they say no, I don't go. And if they say yes, then I guess I'm going home!

So. I've been reading all these posts, and I've come to the conclusion that debate is a good tool, but a terrible master. It's good to stand up for the truth, good to seek the truth, and good to lead others to the truth. But it's bad to be stubborn. Open minded is a hard phrase to deal with, because perhaps the best position is somewhere in the middle. 'The mind is like an umbrella, it functions best when open.' A true statement to be sure, but you have to be careful not to be 'so open minded your brains fall out.' I don't know. I've found that nearly everything has a grain on truth to it, but most things have mostly lies with just enough truth to be convincing. Maybe that's why Eastern religions are so popular. They have enough truth to be convincing, and enough lies to be deceiving. Haha, I can't believe I'm so off-track. Maybe the point is that we are so easily mislead by the small truths that we miss the Truth. I'ma gonna stop rambling now. But I want anyone actually reading this to think about this quote. I just stole it from Scott Hanna, he said it was ok as long as I gave him credit, so here it is :)

"There's 3 sides to every story, your's mine and the truth."

Why are people so hard on each other? Christians in particular, we're the worst at it. I don't know if we're really worse, maybe it just feels like it. After all, we are held to a higher standard. The greatest commandment we have been given is to love. To love first God, and then our neighbor. But we, quite frankly, suck at both.

I talk to maybe a hundred people a day on the various forums I'm on, and everyone has their own opinion, and everyone is so sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong. I have no problem with debates, I think they are great learning tools for everyone involved, but in the midst of all our arguing, can't we be loving and respectful? We are called to speak the truth in love. I see many people speaking truth, or at the very least what they believe to be truth, but I'm not seeing much love.

Even when the debate centers around sin, the debate shouldn't get personal. We are called to hate the sin and love the sinner. But we seem to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Can't we be a little more caring?

I believe that there IS absolute truth, don't get me wrong here, and I believe we should be trying to find it, and to share what we have learned so far, but we need to accept that while there is absolute truth, we as sinful humans don't have it. We need to study scripture and be willing to learn from others. And we have to do it in a far more loving way.