Roosters of the World

I recently visited a friend in South Texas where we used to live. Early that morning the neighborhood roosters began to crow - first the one behind her house then the one down the block and so on and so on. At first I lay there with my eyes closed trying to shut the noise out thinking to myself " I do not miss this one bit!"

Finally, half asleep, I rolled over and reached for my cell phone to check the time - 4:32am. "Lord, please, help this things to study to be quiet!!! I'm not ready to get up," I prayed.

Silence from the heavens - I guess that sometimes God just wants our attention. OK, I thought no word from God, no silence of the roosters. So I pulled the pillow over my head!! "If that thing does not hush I am going to get up and ring it's neck and have some fried chicken today!" Silence! Golden silence - no other rooster had answered his last cry. Good I thought, I can get back to sleep.

Just as I dozed off it all began again! IF there is one thing I have learned in this christian walk it is that Life's little "pot holes" (inconveniences, trials, derailments) are divine appointments with God. So I sat up and seriously began to pray about what God would have me to learn that day and I go my bible out.

Jeremiah 33:3 Show me great and mighty things Lord, I prayed.

Life - the world - is much like the roosters. A contest, a constant battle or competition to see who is the best (The head rooster). Have you been guilty of participating? I have, and if each of us were truly honest with ourselves we would find that we all are at some point or another in our lives. We desire the praise and acceptance of others. Sometimes we find our value, identity and worth tied up in the world system. We are either the rooster crowing or the rooster finding something to crow about - something that could measure up to the world standards and proclaim that we have arrived, that we matter.

If your lost, here it is: The world says to matter you must have this education, do this job, wear these clothes, drive this car, make this much money, have this type of kid doing this activity, belong to this club, look this way, live in this neighborhood, or this house -- - and the list goes on. For women, you must be a super-business woman, or an excellent soccor mom, or Proverbs 31 in a cape if your stay at home mom, you've got to be a certain weight, your children must behave the best, have the best and be involved in everything everyone else is doing and be the best at it!

The terrible thing is that all this begins when we are young. The lies are planted there by the enemy! I lie that we don't matter unless we meet this ever-changing, impossible standard that the world sets. I see it in my own children as they struggle to reconcile the world view to the bible. "Why does it matter so much what kind of game system you have, what type of Barbie you play with, car you get when your 16, job you have, boyfriend you date, cell phone you carry?" It often comes out in the open ended statements they say: "Mom, so and so has is getting the new dsi......." Child-eese for "Mom why does it matter, do I matter if I don't have this, will I still fit in, will I still be worthwhile, am I still important, do I still have a purpose?????" Isn't this the very question that most of us carry with us - What do I have to do to be important to the world - to show I matter? If we don't get an answer then it to turns to "I need this or that to fit in to be someone."

In the Bible we are told that the pursuit of worldly things will leave us empty because the eye is never satisfied. We will always fill empty and unsatisfied, unfulfilled if we pursue the world.

I love what my husband overheard our then 6 year old daughter told a church friend that was coming to our house for the first time. "Don't be shocked, we're different. My mom is very wierd! She won't let us have a Wii or watch t.v. She makes us play with the toys, blocks and dolls. But I have some really cool dress up and we can build a tent!"

You see when we become settled in Christ, content in his provision the world standards fall away. the pressure to conform begins to diminish as we lean closer to him. The noise and competition don't matter anymore because you are no longer competing.

The truth of the world system is once you have arrived you have to fight to stay there. Things are always changing the standard always being moved.

The wonderful thing about God is that his standard never changes - it is not based on you but what he can do IN YOU!