Bonanza

I was at the YMCA the other day and was getting changed so I could head off to work and the show Bonanza was on TV. This show actually aired well before my time but there are still some life long lessons. I think there are some general principals that most people look for and deal with quite often. I think this also applies to ones Christian walk and how they view God and how they relate to other people and there are four basic views The first one is the King concept. God is deffinitly King and ruler of the universe and will come back some day to rule to complete His Kingdom. This idea of kingship is that we want someone to follow and to pledge our allegience to. God is the only one who are complete allegience is worthy of. The other aspect of it is that we are going to plege our loyalty and respect to one of several tings, which include; God, other people, things, or they have a king concpet personally. Whether it is for self protection, someone that we are able to serve, to pledge ones loyalty to, or to find some sort of self worth. It comes down to one of two things; its the realization that there is someone or something greater to serve, or that they are the center of the universe and they want to exercise their dominion. The second thing that I came to the realization is that there is the Savior Concept. We want to be saved from something. It moves from pledging ones allegience to, to a realization that one needs to be saved from something and that God provides that way to be saved and to get into heaven. It is having ones sins forgiven, and accepted into God's family. God is the hero of the day, and He is elevated to where He belongs. With this concept, we are accepted into God's family, but it seems that it is just the entry level into God's family, because when God is just a Savior, we pledge our allegience to Him because He has saved us, but life change is necissary a requirement or working towards. The third concept I am wrestling with is this idea of Lordship. It is more than just having someone come in and save the day or to pledge our allegience to. It is the idea of life change. When God becomes the Lord of ones life, it is looking at our life as not our own, but Gods. We become that living sacrifice to God and He shapes us and molds us. This is one of the most difficult things to come to grasp with is because that means we have to look at and deal with our hurts, deficiencies and turn them over to God. When becoming children of God, it is allowing God to take the yuck in our lives and deal with it. We can not just sit and pray a little prayer and it is taken care of. There are times where realizing its there is a big step. But there is also taking it to the throne and asking God for help and then letting Him walk beside us to change us. Its not easy, and there are times where we need to realize that we are human and realizing what our stregnths and weaknesses is a benificial thing and being comfortable with who we are. This doesnt mean we don't give up and growing, but it is realization that this is who I and being comfortable with that The fourth one is the idea of scapegoating. I think its something that doesnt get talked alot about and its something we all do. Its always easier to blame someone else for the problems at hand, or if they hadn't done it, I wouldn't have done what I did. It is way to easy not to take all the blame or any of it at all. Blaming and scapegoating leads down a dark path of self destruction and revenge seeking. It is all about getting even, but in the end, that can never happen, because things tend to escilate to a point of bitterness and hatred. The flip side to this is the idea of the sacrifical lamb, or taking one for the team. If this one person gets fired, or is blamed for everything that has gone wrong, we can move on and be better and we can get this behind us. This idea of finding that sacrificial lamb often means a person or a group of people are seeking out someone to take the fall and to destroy them. It often makes them feel better, but in the long run, the issues that the scape goat fell for pop back up again and does damage to the people involved. The only thing that can relieve us and find us comfort and healing is this idea of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the willingness for that person or situation not to hold us captive any more and we can move on with our lives. It is moving on in God's grace vowing to restore our life and others instead of having people's lives destroyed through anger, malice and revenge. These are just some of my simple thoughts and I hope someone got something from it