Going Through Samaria

 Sometimes it is easy, as well as enjoyable, to write my blogs. However; because I am human, my mood is sometimes depicted by certain affairs of the day(s). I lay in my bed this morning looking at the news and I suddendly felt a despair come over me that I haven't felt in a long while. I last felt this feeling many years ago when I was a young minister. I had received an unction from the Lord that the enemy wanted our children and that this would be accomplished by distracting the parents. Over the years I have seen this come to pass all to clearly. There seems to be an overwhelming trend of parents killing their children due to the influence of drugs, negative associations, or merely a desire to "live their life as they feel they should be able to". Because of these prevailing ideals we have Caylee Anthony's unavenged death, the 11 year old girl who was recently found dead in a lake near her home, the mother who drove her vehicle off of a pier with her children inside and they all drowned because of domestic problems she was having with her spouse. And let's not forget Susan Smith in South Carolina who sent her and her husband's toddlers to a watery grave in her vehicle so that she could be with her lover.  Columbine was forever shattered by two young men who ammassed an arsenal of weapons right in their bedrooms without their parents having a clue as to the carnage they were plotting to unleash.  Recently, in Norway, a madman slaughtered a peaceful group of young people to make a statement. He posed as a policeman; a symbol of security to so many, as he proceeded to maliciously destroy the lives of an entire country by his deed.  If you can't trust a policeman to protect you who can you trust? He succeded in placing this fear in many around the world. And what about the woman who killed a neighbor's child and buried his body in a suitcase at a local playground? Here, locally, a man had sex with a young male college student and the young man died during the act so the man disposed of his body in a cardboard box and put it in a dumpster. To this day the body of that student has never been found. I could go on with more incidents; each more horrible than the previous one. The list goes on and on, my friends, and you wonder when will it end, if ever? 
 Living in this age is like going to a part of town that people usually avoid because of the random acts of violence, drugs, gang activity or some other undesired permeating situation.  We avoid going "across the tracks" because of the lawlessness that is so often found there. For generations we have been told stories of "those people" and are admonished to steer clear of their ungodly ways.  After all, no decent person would be caught dead in such an environment.
 There was a time in his life that Jesus came across such a situation. Jesus was a Jew and for centuries Jews had been taught to avoid the Gentiles, (or non-Jewish people), who lived in a city known as Samaria.  Samaria was the "across the tracks" of his day.  To associate with a Samaritan was to defile your very own body. It was frowned upon because Jews actually believed that it was God's will to distance themselves from such lost and degenerate people.  But one day, rather than take the well traveled road around Samaria Jesus said to his deciples, "I need to go through Samaria".  Of course the disciples balked at this statement and sought to discourage him, but you remember how Jesus went to the well and a Samaritan woman met him there and because he gave her the Good News about God she joyfully went back to her city and told others who were also converted and came to know God.
 Our Samaria is in our own country, our own cities, our own neighborhoods, and yes, our own homes.  It is time-out for taking the long road around problems that we would rather ignore and hope that they will go away on their own. The other option, direct confrontation, is best but we shun anything that seems like work. And while we turn our heads away from our problematic friends and family members, the prince of the air, the enemy, is free to interject all of his evil, selfishness, maliciousness, hatred, promiscuity, lust, disobedience, anger and hard-heartedness on our children.  We turn over the task of educating our children to the schools, television, and the internet. We all know of the discouraging curriculum found in many of our nation's schools. And someone please tell me what wholesome lessons are being taught by the cast of Jersey Shore, The Bad Girls Club, The Kardashians, Paris Hilton, The Housewives, or the Basketball Wives?  Children are most impressionable at their young age and the actions depicted in such shows are definately misleading and undesirable in the majority of many parents themselves.
 Let's face the fact that we each will need to go through Samaria in our own lives and we must do so starting today.  We must, once again, sit down and painstakingly, but patiently, give our children the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, (B.I.B.L.E). And not so much as in the form of a sermon, but in the manner in which we live our own lives and how we treat others.
 Let us get involved in our children's lives lest we lose them to the ways of the world. It is not too late to pull them out of the fire.
 Have a great and productive day.
I love you all,
Dennis