It's Not On The Outside

Have you ever been buzzing with frustration after one thing after another, after another has gone wrong?  Ever thought, "if only I could just have a break..."?  Ever felt so wound up you think you might explode?

No matter what is going on in your life, though, none of that frustration is coming from the outside.  Frustration, anger, rage... they all start on the inside.  Yes, sometimes you should be angry and frustrated by the world you live in.  We should all be upset by injustice and cruelty, but letting that anger stew on the inside is not going to help.  It's not God's way.

Jesus is the perfect example of perfect balance.  He got angry, He expressed anger, and He always did it right.  It's pretty incredible to read some of the things Jesus did and said and to realise that He was always in control - He always spoke and acted in perfect love, not simply as a reaction to how He was feeling at the time.

When God created us in His image, He gave us the power of choice.  Animals, on the other hand, simply react to the physical conditions on the outside.  They are driven by circumstances.  Too often, we behave as though we are animals.  Something happens.  It makes us feel bad.  We let the bad feeling drive our response.  We give up our power to our emotions.  But no matter how we feel, we can choose how we respond - if we depend on God to empower us to do what is right.  In fact, even when we let our emotions control us we are making a choice - the choice not to do the hard work of thinking about what we're doing.

Often we try to control life.  We try to protect ourselves from bad things and ensure that good things happen to us.  There's certainly a place for taking sensible precautions, but we can't control our world.  No amount of preparation can protect us against all disease and natural disaster.  No amount of manipulation can stop other people from doing things we don't like.  What we can control, what we can choose, and what really matters is what comes from inside us.  It's our reaction to whatever happens, whether we like it or not.  We can choose to act in love despite pain and frustration.  Or we can let our emotions carry us.  What will you choose?

Is This The World We Want?

I had a dream the other night.  I was searching for something or someone in a hospital - I don't remember what.  As I rushed through rooms, I passed through a lab.  On a stainless steel topped bench lay a newborn baby - alone, clearly in pain, gasping for breath, lying in a little pool of blood.  On a nearby bench top lay the severed heads of other newborns.  Even as I rushed past, I comprehended the scene, but I still rushed past, leaving that living, dying baby alone on the bench in the hurry of my unknown errand.

I woke up horrified.  Would I really do that in my waking life?  Would I really think it was none of my business that someone else's baby had been left alone to die in that sterile room?  And this morning, lying awake in bed, I realised that God was telling me that it is time to stop doing just that.  It is time to stop rushing past the grim reality that is so awful I don't even want to talk about it.  I have written about it once before - quietly, where just one or two people would read it, but now I think it's time to go as public as I can.  So I'm asking you what I never ask - wherever you are, whoever you are, please share this with everyone you know, because we all need to ask ourselves if we're really accepting our world the way it is right now.  Go check the facts for yourself to make sure I'm not just being hysterical.  We need to ask if this is really OK with us.

Let me be clear - this is *not* about people power.  There's only one government I would vote for, and that's God's, so I'm not telling you who to vote for or not. I'm just asking YOU - are you OK with this?  Do you accept this?  God wants to know. Now I'll tell you where I stand.

While we want to know which politicians will put the most money in our pockets, and while abattoirs where pigs are mistreated are hastily shut down - while foreign policy walks on a knife edge over the live cattle trade, something much bigger is happening right here in the state of Victoria.

Right now, it is legal to rip a living baby of any age into pieces, provided he or she is a least partly in the womb. The word for this practise is so sanitised, we don't comprehend what it really means anymore.  We call this abortion.  We call it abortion when an unwanted baby is thrown in the bin (sometimes still alive) after being burned inside and out with a salt solution.  We call it abortion when a living baby is vacuumed out of the uterus.

You can read the bill passed in 2008 here.  You will see that, while anaesthetic must be administered to experimental animals (see here), there is no legal requirement for any pain relief for a baby that is being annihilated.  Importantly, in all that "Abortion reform" bill, there is no restriction on how a baby is killed or removed from the mother's womb, except that it must be by a "registered practitioner".  There is no mention of how the baby is disposed of after it leaves the mother's body, whether living or dead.

I AM NOT OK WITH THIS!

I wonder, when our children and children's children grow up - knowing that they were "chosen" to live, while many other babies died because they were sacrificed to the idols of money and convenience - will they make it legal to dispose of elderly people (who are an economic drain on society) by dismemberment? Or perhaps they will be "humanely" disposed of in a purpose-built gas chamber?  Will they make it legal to cut the living heart out of a disabled person (perhaps you or I after a stroke or serious car accident) to replace their own dying heart?  Why not - if we have taught them that a broken baby should be thrown away, just like a broken toy?  Why should a broken adult be any different?

How can we so vocal about animal rights and protecting the environment (for our children, supposedly) when the most vulnerable members of our society can be legally vacuumed out of existence??  Let me make this clear - an abortion (the killing, with no regard for pain or suffering) may be performed on a baby after 24 weeks, right up to the moment of birth if the medical practitioner:

reasonably believes that the abortion is appropriate in all the circumstances; and has consulted at least one other registered medical practitioner who also reasonably believes that the abortion is appropriate in all the circumstances.

Are you OK with this? All it takes (in the Australian state of Victoria) is two registered medical practitioners to decide that it is "appropriate" to kill an unborn baby right up to the point of birth. While there are pages of laws on the treatment of animals, I can't find any information about the protection of unborn children in Australia except statements such as this one on the Queensland government website:

If the unborn child is assessed as being in need of protection after birth, we will offer ongoing help and support to the pregnant women [sic] (emphasis mine).

In other words, unborn children are considered to be of less value than animals (including unborn animals) in Australia. I'm not OK with this, and I will never be OK with this. It is time to stop tiptoeing around abortion as though it's just about choice. Abortion is about the choice to (often brutally) murder the most helpless and innocent of all human beings. If you are reading this and are considering abortion, please write a comment. I will do everything I can to help you not have an abortion. Or contact someone who can help you. Please.
Right now unborn children in Victoria have no legal protection that I know of. This is not the world I want. Is this the world you want? If we continue to ignore, and even mock, the most basic of moral laws, we will pay the price. Are you prepared for what this will cost?