Wednesday, November 09, 2005
A Meditation: Values
Values
Consider the following two cases:
You can say that person A was a man of deep faith, because he stuck to his beliefs in the face of every adversity. He withstood dreadful trials and pressures from multiple quarters but he never strayed from his heart.
And person B, well you can say she was a treacherous woman. When the enemy had surrounded her country and sent spies to reconnoiter the land, this disloyal woman immediately took them in and hid them from the king’s men. In exchange she asked only that the invaders spare her and her kin. Thus, only she and her kin were able to survive, as her city fell around her.
Well what do you think of these two people? We should admire person A and hate person B, right?
If that seems too easy and you suspect a trick you’d be right. Because Person A is none other than the Pharoah, and person B is Rahab. When we admire someone for holding fast to their beliefs, how easy to forget that it is only faith when the beliefs are correct. Holding fast to incorrect beliefs is a sign of hard-heartedness or delusion. And when we hate someone for being disloyal, that is an affirmation of family values assuming that one’s kin/tribe/country are, if not better, then at least equivalent to the “other”.
What these two cases have in common is that we should look outside of our values and boundaries to seek the Lord. Because our faith is meant towards God, it’s not “our belief” that must be protected, but only insofar as our beliefs are true. And if we consider Rahab to be treacherous, then are we not putting love of country above the Lord as well? Do we worship the Lord or do we worship our family stability, our country? That’s the difference between Lord-centric values and ego-centric values. How easily the values of the world conflicts with the values of the light.
God grant that we may have not the faith of Pharoah, but the disloyalty of Rahab.
Amen.
