Change and the Zombie Inside

There are times in our lives when things change.  Sometimes we see it coming and sometimes we don't and sometimes we see it coming but hide our face in denial in hopes that it isn't real.  Irregardless change is one of the few true constants in life.  We all have to deal with it and some of us handle it better than others.

Change is a time when the zombie inside can wreak havoc in our lives if we let it.  Change by it's very nature brings uncertainty and that can lead to anxiety and fear.  It is when we are in these kinds of emotional states that we are most vulnerable to its influence.  

In times like these we need to be on our knees.  We need to be not just asking God for provision or direction but we need to spend at least as much time if not more listening for His voice and not making any move until we know we have heard from Him.  Of course once you have you need to act and with decisiveness and step out in faith.  Don't listen to the voices of fear and doubt, that's the zombie trying to get you to act impulsively or irrationally.  Once you go down that road it can be awfully hard to recover.

My wife and I currently find ourselves in a time of uncertainty and we have for several months now.  While things aren't heading exactly where we had hoped we are praying and trusting God to lead us and guide us by His Holy Spirit and we are constantly on our guard against the zombie inside... 

Abolition Movements

If you ask the average person in America if they oppose slavery, or if you're keen to be politically correct, human trafficing most people would say yes. Ask the same person if they consider themselves to be an abolitionist and you will most likely get a confused look and maybe some mumbling. It just isn't a term we heard used in our everyday lives but that is changing.

What is an abolitionist? Simply stated it is a person or group of people looking to abolish (i.e. do away with) something.  The term is most often linked with the nineteenth century movement to abolish human slavery in the British Empire and here in these United States of America.  I am happy to say that there are many examples of these same kinds of abolitionists around today and the numbers are growing thanks to organizations like Not For Sale. These organizations are opening peoples eyes to the fact that slavery still exists in the world, it simply isn't legal anymore. 

The fact that it is illegal does mean that there are now legal avenues that can be used to bring down slave owners, exploiters and merchants that weren't available to the folks in the nineteenth century and that is good but that isn't the whole issue. When we fight against slavery we are battling to change a mindset. People are human beings and, by the virtue of the fact that they ARE human, have an intrinsic value. The aren't property, they are PEOPLE.

You might be thinking, "Well, duh that's a no-brainer!" but traditionally slavery was justified by declaring that the slave wasn't, in fact, a genuine person but an animal and therefore could be owned as property. Those who enslaved others denied the personhood of the enslaved. That's why it took so long to make slavery illegal, you had to change the worldview of the slave owning culture so that they could accept that the enslaved were, in fact, people.

Now that term personhood is one that comes up in another societal debate. One that traditionally isn't associated with the term 'abolitionist' and that issue is that of abortion. The pro-abortion folks say that the organism growing within a womans womb isn't really a person until it is born. Therefore it is not morally wrong to terminate it for whatever reason the woman whose womb it happens to be gestating in deems acceptable.

As a Christian I cannot, in good conscience, agree with that assessment. I believe that God handcrafts each and every person and if that is the case then from the moment of conception they are a person, someone who was lovingly created by God and who God had planned a future for. It is therefore murder to end the life of that human being, no matter what reason I may have.

"What about in the case of rape?", you might ask. Honestly, while rape is a horrific act and is never justified under ANY circumstance the fact of the matter is that of a pregnancy does result that child is still a human being and no one should have the right to end its life. That child had no say in how it was conceived and to sentence it to death because of the crimes of its father isn't right by any standard I am aware of. You wouldn't put a kid on death row because his father was a rapist, a gun runner or a drug dealer would you? No, you'd go after the father and punish him.  Now, I can understand a woman in that situation not wanting to raise that child sure to the painful circumstances surrounding its conception but there are many couples out there who can't have children who would be more than willing to give such a child a god home by adopting them but that's another discussion for another day.

So why bring up abolitionists and them talk about abortion? What's the connetion? There is now an organization looking to abolish human abortion around the world. Their name: Abolish Human Abortion or simply AHA.

Ok, so what does any of that have to do with fighting the zombie inside? Stripping someone of their personhood so that you can trample their liberties for your own selfish reasons is the height of allowing your inner zombie to rule you.