athenasius
Well-Known Member
Watson lake is a pretty good snapshot of western Canada. There's a reason our currency is called the Loony!Your post is giving me a headache for some reason... must be my allergy to Yucateco red habanero sauce. I can't ask either of those two, their impressions of Canadians are probably jaded... I've spent some time going up and down the Alaska Highway. Most of the people I've come across were probably a wee bit carnal. I got stranded in Watson Lake, Yukon once. I had been trying to get through Canada without having to get any Canadian currency. I told some church goers my predicament... I think they thought I was asking them for a little charity but I was just sharing my predicament. They became scarce real fast, but one did suggest I find an ATM. Stupid me, I hadn't considered that and fortunately I had my ATM card that I probably hadn't used in over a decade... It worked and I found myself with a pocket full of loonies. I got stranded on a Friday afternoon and it turned out there was a Canadian holiday that weekend so I had to stay until Tuesday morning before I could find someone to do a repair. Then on my way back through I got stranded in Watson Lake again. Same thing, Friday afternoon and that weekend had a Canadian holiday... The reason I needed cash when I got stranded was because western Canadians for the most part want to be paid with cash... no receipt involved. That's the only way they can avoid the high socialist taxes their oppressive govmint demands of them.
I'd say we are a pretty mixed lot. I'm talking Christians now. Cheeky and her list from Andy Woods seems about right for Canada.
Andy Woods just shared his list with a pie graph. He listed the Categories of people as:
Unbelievers
Baby Christians
Carnal/Backslidden Christians
Spiritual Christians
I've been there in the last 3 groups at different times of my life.
Carnality is a struggle, the war on our own fleshly desires, our heart that is desperately wicked at war with our born again nature. That war is the process of Sanctification.
Salvation is instant, and permanent. Once saved always saved.
From that point on, it's a struggle against our sin nature as the work of Sanctification is lifelong. Anyone who says they are without sin is a liar according to John.
In the struggle we develop muscles, abilities to resist the enemy, new habits, we learn the Bible as we grasp hold of it as a weapon of warfare against the enemy.
The problem with judging by appearances is we don't know how far the other person has already come, what is threatening to drown them in despair, what attacks of the enemy are they under. What personality defects they struggle with.
Or what responsibilities they are juggling.
I remember one idiotic woman in the church when my kids were very little. (Before I began rewarding good behaviour with candies every 5-10 minutes)
She came up to me about 3 years later and said, Oh my you've grown so much spiritually, when you first came you were so RESTLESS! NOW there is SUCH A SPIRIT OF PEACE ON YOU! You've really grown!
Yeah, my husband stayed home, and I was taking an 18 month old and an ADHD 4.5 year old to church with ZERO help and no nursery service. The Sunday school only got going about the time our son was 6 and our daughter was 3. Church was an endurance contest every Sunday.
I was performing like an 8 armed bandit with a genuinely diagnosed ADHD 4.5 year old son and a toddler determined to forge her own way. Once I started the bribery program, me AND the kids WERE wonderfully quiet. But it had a lot more to do with Safeway's bulk candy bin and my stash thereof, then anything going on in my spirit.
Then years later when George was going to church, a different church, a different city and we went to a home fellowship, where the adults would gather and those of us with kids brought them, but they were expected to be quiet and still and absorb the jewels dropping from the leaders' every word. At the very least play quietly with the games that one of the other adults (the parents of 4) brought.
Our kids-about 9 and 12 then and the 4 kids of those up and coming leaders were so quiet off in the corner beside the room we were in. The home fellowship hostess chirped at me that they were SO GODLY! She was SO impressed. So good, so quiet. She complimented our child rearing.
What she DIDN'T know (and why we quit shortly after-- how ungodly of us!) was that THE OTHER KIDS WERE TEACHING MY KIDS TO PLAY POKER!
It's not always possible to see what's going on in someone's life so I try to avoid classifying others in the godly to carnal spectrum, figuring that I've been all over that map at different times. And appearances can be deceiving.