Shirlee Abbott

Just Education

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

Should education just be about academic skills–reading and writing, math and science?

Should schools teach justice–right from wrong?

What does a just society do about poor-performing schools?

Just questions . . . with no simple answers.

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Just Questions

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

In these unsettled times, justice comes into question. Justice is blind, we claim. The Greek statue of Justice wears a blindfold, supposedly to avoid favoritism–of friend over foe, of rich over poor, of one race or ethnicity over another.

- - Does blind equal fair?
  - Is fair the same as just?
  - Can justice coexist with mercy?

God is not blind–He sees all.

Isaiah 61:8 (NIV)
For I, the Lord, love justice;
I hate robbery and wrongdoing.

God is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly loving. The rest of us, blinded by our own experience and expectations, will fall short.

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Shelter in Some Other Storm

Posted on June 21, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

Our news has been so COVID-centered, I missed Category-5 Cyclone Amphan in real time. I discovered what I’d overlooked here in The Christian Post. I was shocked by the devastation in Bangladesh and parts of India.

“‘When you take a country like Bangladesh, Assam and the East coast of India, you have to remember that these are tens of thousands of mud houses. People live on the barest of essentials,’ Believers Eastern Church presiding bishop and founder K.P. Yohannan told The Christian Post . . . ‘In America, when this type of thing happens, the whole country converges to help with roadways and helicopters and everything. It is nothing like that there. These people have been left on their own.'”

Believers Eastern Church “Servant Boat” carries food and humanitarian aid to these neglected people.

Lord God, You see every storm. We thank You for the Believers Eastern Church and their willingness to sail in and help. Shelter this boat from disruption and storm, grant smooth sailing into the places of greatest need, and supply what’s needed for these dear people. Forgive us our self-centered view of the world, and give us eyes to see what You see, in Jesus’ name.

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Where’s Sin?

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

Genesis 4:7 (NIV)
Sin is crouching
at your door.

Don’t let it trip you.

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Without Sin

Posted on June 18, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

Let’s imagine Jesus in the midst of one of our angry crowds seeking justice. This snippet of Scripture, spoken to a different group seeking different justice, might dissolve the tension.

John 8:7b (MEV)
Let him who is without sin among you
be the first to throw a stone.

Before we self-righteously condemn others, we should look at ourselves with the eyes of Christ. Are we good enough to cast the first stone? Not likely.

Jesus was without sin, and he chose a path of redemption, not destruction. We should do likewise.

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Uprooted Sin

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

When you uproot one sin, don’t replace it with another.

Don’t replace slavery with Jim Crow.
Don’t replace segregation with discrimination.
Don’t replace hatred with a sense of superiority.

My mother always said, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Jesus said:

John 8:11 (NLT)
Go and sin no more.

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My Sins

Posted on June 16, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

“O Lord, forgive me my sins,
the sins of my youth, and my present sins,
the sin that my parents cast upon me, original sin,
and the sins that I cast upon my children,
in an ill example;
actual sins, sins which are manifest to all the world,
and sins which I have so labored
to hide from the world,
as that now they are hid from mine own conscience,
and mine own memory.”
John Donne (1571-1631)

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The Sins of Our Fathers

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

We like to think, “It was them, not us.” We prefer to ignore the sins of our ancestors.

- - - Slavery and segregation
    - Punishing the innocent, protecting the guilty
    - Corruption and greed
    - Calling good things bad and bad things good

Not just them. Us, too.

Jeremiah 14:7, 20 (NIV)
Although our sins testify against us,
do something, Lord, for the sake of your name.
For we have often rebelled;
we have sinned against you . . .
We acknowledge our wickedness, Lord,
and the guilt of our ancestors;
we have indeed sinned against you.

Confession in good for the soul–our own and the nation’s.

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Shelter from COVID-19’s Spiritual Implications

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

Life in Abundance ministers in 56 disadvantaged communities in 14 African and Caribbean countries. COVID-19 has escalated the need:

“We recognize the severity of this for the urban and rural poor we walk with, many of whom live in crowded areas, rely on daily income, have pre-existing medical conditions (such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, and malnutrition), and have less access to proper healthcare and education . . . We partner with over 150 local churches in these communities and have the infrastructure in place to train local staff members and leaders to deal with not only the medical side of current needs, but also the economic, social, and spiritual implications people are facing.”

Money helps with medical and economic needs. Spiritual matters call for a spiritual response. Let us pray:

It’s a global pandemic, Lord, with spiritual implications. We pray for a global spiritual response–for the transformation of minds, hearts and souls. Where there is anger, bring love. Where there is despair, bring hope. Where there is bitterness, bring forgiveness. Where there is lack, bring abundance, in Jesus’ name.

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The Church Laments

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Shirlee Abbott

The COVID-isolated Church laments, but not at the level of the Old Testament exile:

Lamentations 2:6 (NIV)
He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;
he has destroyed his place of meeting.
The Lord has made Zion forget
her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;
in his fierce anger he has spurned
both king and priest.

Thanks be to God; things could be worse.

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