WAYS TO AVOID

From Proverbs 31:
This is the advice of a mother -- "give not your strength to women or your ways to that which destroys Kings" .  Interesting that a mother’s advice to a man she cares for, one she wants to give the inside track to, is to avoid other women.  I think that "unknown women" are different from "mother",  "wife", "sister":  he should not spend his money, time and influence for women that are not his family or ones that cannot be trusted. 

The thrust of a man's life should not be women.  I think it would not be even his wife.  He should not view his  life’s task as living for his wife.  His purpose is to serve his God.  In the service of his God he cares for his wife and raises an educates his children.  In the exercise of serving God, a man serves others:  like wife and children.  God requires it.

These should be the ways of Kings:
- - Be not we drunk
- - Open the mouth for the dumb that are appointed to destruction
- - Open the mouth in order to judge righteously
- - Plead the cause of the poor and needy

The function of government is not to distribute services and wealth but to:
- - Step in as an arbitrator and an advocate for those with little wealth, low mental capability, in desperate situations. 
- - Rightly apply an administer God’s and human law. 
- - To decide between one and the other . 
- - Have a heart for, and be an advocate for, those that cannot speak in that are scheduled to be pushed aside. 

WHO WRITES THE AGENDA?

Many of the People I worked with took laptop computers home with them so they could remotely communicate with the Home Office.  I didn’t want to do that.  To me work was work and home was home.  When there were work flurries at work there did not have to be flurries at home.  I did not want work to grab hold of me and manipulate my thinking, my actions, my free time and specially my family time.

But it’s different with God.  Wherever I am I can always communicate with God.  I know God wants me to call back to the Home Office.  God is concerned with my thinking and my actions.  He always wants influence over me.  While worldly work would attempt overload me with things to think about and things to do, God gives me only what is the most needful and important at the time.  Even the church and brother Christians would seek to impress their agendas on me. 

I believe God is the best agenda writer.  He knows what items to put on, what to leave off, what to emphasize, how to order them and what to revisit.  Beyond all this, He knows how our "meetings" fit and interplay with everyone else’s meetings.  I want the grace to know what God’s agenda is, and how best to prosecute it. 

God’s "emails" and "meetings"  promote and build his Kingdom, which is where I want to live.  I wish to be a "repairer of the breech restorer of paths to walk in"  God’s Kingdom is good for everybody.

WRITING IN A CORNER

In a growing family sometimes it's hard to withdraw to a place quiet enough to write anything about God, or to hear from God.  Yet within all the noise, interaction, chaos and chores is my greatest blessing.  In my life I have had lively talented people:  my wife and children.  Although sometimes we chafed each other, we were not so empty of character so as to have small personalities. 

I thank God for hands that can write with some degree of expression.  We must learn to appreciate action when we would rather be quiet and be inactive.  I must learn to view the cacophony through some other lens.  In need to observe and learn from the process of life and activity rather than being walled away from it. 

MAN-MADE ORGANIZATIONS

From my journal back in 1997 I apparently joined a union at work.  I don’t remember this and can only say I did now because of the Journal entry.  I wrote the following:

I have been noticing a lot lately that God says that he will be found by them that seek for him.  But he will refuse those who forsake his ways.  This has been occurring many places in Second Chronicles.  There are some, like Asa, who do well at first by seeking the Lord, yet do poorly later by seeking men's help.  Lord if I did wrong by joining the union I am sorry.  You delivered king Asa from the Midianites, over a million men.  You could have delivered Asa without the help of the Syrians.  (Asa might have even complicated your plans for the use of Israel against the Syrians).  But Asa sought the help of man.  Lord I know you can deliver me from work, the union, or any organization of men.

I also know you can use any man or organization in my life to deliver or prosper me.  I ask that you establish two things (for you are the one who establishes - no matter what any man does): I ask for the grace to always seek your will, first an above all.  And I ask that the efforts and fruits of my life be to the establishing of your Kingdom in the world and the one to come. 

I also ask that my answers to any man be those which can only be used for the building of your Kingdom and the destruction of all that is against it.

MAKING WORK PLEASANT

When I was working, I had these thoughts:

My job is a pleasant place because it gives me challenges, new things to do, and allows me freedom to invent or discover the solutions to those challenges.  But I often feel distressed when something new comes up.  I even delay action on these things for worrying over them.  Maybe that's why I spend so much time in the software. 

Perhaps it would be better to view these challenges as part of the pleasant place, as a game I have entered, something to play seriously, but not get upset about.  If I succeed (win) fine, if I lose, so what, I still have my eternal Salvation.  But how does this really play in?  What about the scripture, "Whatsoever thou find to do, do it with all thy might"?  Should I not consider it a game, should I care about it more deeply? 

God looks on how we play the game in the same way we listened to our young children at a piano recital.  We go and sit in the front row, smile at the performance and invariably clinch our teeth.  What is important is that the child played, did the best he could.  We lasted through sour notes and hoped for the pure ones later.  In the same way God waits while we perform the recital of life. 

The outcome of national or business affairs will have little or no effect on the Kingdom of God.  If I lose at work it is no big deal, but if I win it is no big deal either.  It is how I live in the Kingdom today that matters - how I play the game.  God will control the outcome of the game as he always has.  We just control which side it is we play on:  God’s side, or the world's side. 

One driven by the wind is motivated from the outside .  One driven by God is driven from the inside. 

AVOIDING FOLLY

A mocker resents correction, he will not consult the wise,  A mocker is one who ridicules, one who points out by criticism or cynicism what he perceives to be faults.  There was a lot of mockery at my old workplace.  I set a task for myself to keep from indulging in mockery, to keep myself from sharing in fault finding.  “The discerning heart seeks knowledge but the mouth of the fool feeds on folly"  In keeping myself from the mockery and complaining mentioned above, I had to look to the essential good of every task I did.  I thought I should write down the "essential purpose" of every task and "silver lining" of every apparent bad situation.

“A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel".  When People were getting angry, I needed to be patient.  I needed to be the one to find the solution, the one who can find the solution to both sides, if I could.

“Folly delights the man who lacks judgment, but a man of understanding keeps a straight course.”  Sometimes I found myself in this situation when I was working a software problem.  For example I might be using Access to make a report.  I wanted the software to do a task, like copy in some fields from a spreadsheet rather than typing them in myself.  I would spend a whole day in folly (trying to make the software do the work) rather than keeping a straight course simply typing the report I needed while giving up on the rabbit trail of the software solution.  In that situation I was delighting myself in folly.  Working the software was more fun than the actual task I was using it for.  I could have honored God by honoring my work by sticking to the task I started with, saying the course. 

In spite of the above, what a wonderful privilege God had given me.  At work I received challenging tasks, new ones all the time.  I was given a free hand about how to achieve them.  I could even go about them in a wrong way, as when I spent too much time on the software.  I was given wonderful and interesting tools to work with.  I traveled to many interesting places in the country.  We did real work, useful work, national defense work, not merely entertainment work.

WHAT TO WRITE DOWN

Instead of the exercise of - or maybe In addition to - writing down, "I will conquer my daydreaming", perhaps I should write something like, "I will control my thinking and my activity so that I spend my effort toward things productive, toward the Kingdom of Heaven".  A corollary of that is, "I will not waste my time on entertainment which is harmful to the Kingdom of God, and therefore harmful to me".

1 Corinthians 9:27  But I keep under my body [and my thoughts], and bring it [them] into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

2 Corinthians 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Philippians 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

1 Timothy 4:15  Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.

Joshua 24:15  . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Sometimes I feel I am in a dangerous, dry and thirsty land.  I ask the Lord to please deliver me.  Please create in me something where now there is nothing.  God is the one who creates something from nothing. 

ONE OVER THE OTHER

Playing musical instruments can teach us more than the practice of music.  A while ago (quite a while ago) Calvary Assembly called an asked that I come and play the timpani Sunday morning.  This was Wednesday.  We were attending another church at the time, Saint Paul’s Presbyterian.  I had to decide if I would play at Calvary or play at Saint Paul’s.  It was a struggle for me to make up my mind because Calvary was a more interesting and challenging venue.  Finally, I decided that to choose one would show favor for the one I chose, and disfavor for the one I did not.  This put the choice out of the arena of personal musical advancement and into the area of loyalty.  As long as they needed my I would play at the church I was attending.

When I played at Saint Paul’s, Ron, the drummer, said he had missed me on the percussion the previous week when I had been in Seattle.  When you're loyal you're missed.

DON'T GO TO MOON

I am not in favor of a manned expedition to the moon.  There are many reasons the foremost of which is the enormous national cost.  What will be the cost-to-benefit ratio for having humans on the moon?  Unmanned machines can safely accomplish almost all tasks required for scientific or economic purposes as humans could do.

What advantage will there be?  Do we want to identify and mine materials there?  The cost to bring such material to earth would equal or exceed the cost to establish equipment on the moon’s surface.  The cost to establish humans there would be even greater.

The money could be spent on near-earth orbit projects such as Space Lab, Satellites, medical experiments.  Florida’s "Space Coast" will continue to thrive as it presently is without a moon program.

I believe we should fund the exploration of our own oceans.  They are readily accessible; they are right on our coastlines.  We already have extensive experience working in that environment.  We could further develop the vehicles to enter that environment by modifying or re-designing them or inventing new types.  We can expand our knowledge of the living organisms that live there, many thousands of which we may not yet know.  There are no living organisms on the moon.  If there were, they could not be kept alive on earth except at great expense.  We can  develop new concepts of ocean exploration and material retrieval.  Any material that can be retrieved will be cheaper to retrieve from the ocean than from an object 238,900 miles away. 

Ocean exploration will more directly and cheaply benefit all citizens in the United States.  Explore space but limit manned exploration to near orbit ventures.

SOMETHING FROM NOTHING

Sometimes we are not even aware of what the long view should be.  Most of the time, and most of what we think or do, we do not consider the long view or big picture.  The only think about what we need or what right now. 

Since the writer in Psalm 63 is writing from a "dry and worn out land" this may suggest a-frame of mind of trying to endure through hard times because  better times are coming.  An example is exercising when I do not want to because I know I will be better off if I do.  And it's not because I can "feel Noble" that I've done the exercise;  it is better because it really does have a different, and more gratifying reward.  Perhaps every spiritual discipline will be the same way. 

Psalm 33:9 speaks of God creating something from nothing.  Having this in mind, maybe it is acceptable to ask God to do what seems impossible.  We ask him during what seems to us an impossible situation, to create something from nothing, to supply resources where there are none.  We ask God to give us that desire.  In our asking God to establish our desires for us, we should not lose sight of the long view - what is God's will in this the matter and how will this have meaning in God's Kingdom in the future. 

Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, Whatever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.”

SAY IT, MAKE IT

I've read how a person, call him Leroy, writes down what he wants to accomplish repeatedly many times a day.  He says that he has attained things, even things over which he could not have control.  My question is, is this a good technique, or is it something “New Age” that I should avoid?  Does it really provide power over the uncontrollable?  More important, is it a technique God would want me to use, or want me to avoid?

The act of writing, "Leroy will become a dedicated Christian", and believing that the writing of the phrase over and over will make it come to pass seems to border on faith theology.  "I write, I believe, therefore it will happen."   Where is God in all this?  If we can write and make it happen who needs God?  What if someone else writes, "Leroy will become a dedicated Satanist", will it cancel out what the Christian writes?  What if there are 10 Satanists and 2 Christians writing, but the Christians are writing in fervent belief?  What will happen to Leroy?  It seems to me that if either thinks that the writing itself will accomplish the task they have made the step of using this technique as faith theology.  They have attributed to this technique a power in, and of, itself.  The man does not have the power, God does not have the power, Satin does not have the power; the technique has the power.

A positive reason for the technique is it would keep important things before the consciousness.  I could use it for my planning for the day.  Or is this crowding out some thinking or method of doing something that God would rather me do?  I should always direct my life according to God’s view.  As I make my plans I should ask, "Is this according to God's will"?  If written, these things must be in harmony with the Kingdom of God.  I should pray, “Lord, if there is any power in this technique please let it be your power, or at least let it be a power that you will use for your benefit in My life.  Please protect me from harming either you, or my family, or myself.” 

So how should a Christian use the technique?  He should use it to refresh his mind about items of real worth.  He could concentrate his mind on the details of the items.  The technique could rise the items as matters of prayer:  both to bring before the Lord and to hear from the Lord. 

If one would pick up a paper upon which I had written, would he be able to say, "These are noble and godly things that are helpful and promote God’s Kingdom"?

IF JESUS IS LORD

Many people use the expression "Jesus is Lord".  They understand the use of that phrase as proof their Christianity or of another person’s Christianity if he uses that phrase.  It "proves" they are a Christian. 

Yet what is more important is that he really treats Jesus as Lord in his life.  Does that person actually control his actions and thinking according to what Jesus prescribes?  If he does not, all he is showing is he is merely capable of voicing the phrase.  The phrase is meaningful if he says the phrase because, in fact, Jesus tells him what to think, where to go, who to see, what to say, what to buy.

The phrase "Jesus is Lord" is not like a magic word such as "abracadabra".  The voicing of the phrase does not cause unseen events and conditions to be true and does not show they are true.  If one voices the phrase this does not necessarily demonstrate he is saved or that Jesus is really the lord of his life.

BEING SEEKERS

Proverbs 2
Man can seek God through experience: speaking in tongues, prophecies, healings.  Man can seek God’s thoughts through the scriptures: reading the Bible, Bible classes, seminaries.  Proverbs 2:5 says that after you seek wisdom, understanding, knowledge you will get to the fear of God and the knowledge of God.  Proverbs 2:6 says God gives wisdom; "out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding" .  Maybe this is a combination of experiential man and the studying man:  the "heart" man and the "head" man.  We must seek with the head but be open to the heart.  We must be sensitive to the heart but be controlled by the head.  We cannot fill the head if we do not attend to the words of the mouth of God.  We cannot fill the heart if we refuse to experience what God will give us in our heads. 

Men are the thinkers, the rational ones, and woman are the feelers, the emotional ones.  Both can miss God.  Proverbs 2 shows that there are two types of sinners each characterized by a sex.  Verse12 tells us of the evil man, the one who thinks his way away from God.  Verse 16 tells us of the strange woman, the one who falls away from God through experience. 

God gives wisdom.  It's something we experience when we are in the right setting.  God proclaims knowledge and understanding.  We do not acquire understanding or knowledge unless we work for them.  We cannot know if we do not read or hear.  We cannot understand unless we think and meditate about what we know. 

WHO ARE OUR ENEMIES

Psalm 23 says God restores our souls (sets back to the original condition).  He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. 

Psalm 53 says God despises our enemies

Psalm 83 says the enemies take counsel together against God’s people.  The psalmist asks for their shame and destruction. 

The Church is the house of faith, it is the set of believers.  Some conspire to rid themselves of the Church.  For those of us in the Church, the conspirators are the enemies.  Yet God will preserve us an provide for us in the face of our enemies.  He will restore things we may have lost, some through our own fault as well as those that are the fault of others. 

Who are my enemies?  Some, like Edom and Moab, are related.  Perhaps these are they who are in the church but not of the church.  Others would be those who do not want God's principles to govern.  These days they could be those on the extreme liberal or those on the extreme conservative margins.  These are the ones who want to do away with God's order.  It is not enough to throw off restraint, they must also eradicate the old system and the people (God's people) who uphold it.  These are the ones who God despises.  In front of these God prepares us a table.  These are the ones for whom we may request destruction. 

TV or Facebook or the Internet can be an official voice of the enemy if we are not careful about how we listen.  They do not teach, they impress.  They can leave isolated thoughts and feelings.  They leave the unprepared viewer with the emotion of the enemy worldview, but not the rational back up.  Viewers may have vague opinions about the proposed worldview, and they may have strong emotion about it, but they may not have been provided the reasoning behind it.

The unmovable proponents of a destructive worldview are the ones who say, “there is no God” AND would thrust believers aside to powerlessness or destruction.

We who believe, have read the Bible, and who have reasoned out our view, could reason with them but we cannot know if they would listen to our views, or even want to.

THE SEEKING OF SIGNS

The Pharisees asked for a sign.  Jesus says no sign will be given but that of Jonah. 

The Pharisees’ generation was wicked because they asked for a sign.  They wanted Jesus to prove himself to them.  They would get no sign to prove who Jesus was other then his resurrection, which they would not believe anyway.  Are there things about Jesus that we would not believe even though he demonstrates them to us?  Are there things we are asking Jesus to prove to us by showing a sign?  We might think: “you say you are this or that, Jesus; prove it by doing [fill in the blank]”.  How about that thing where we have decided that he will not do it, or he is incapable, or his nature his of another sort?  Are there ways we want Jesus to be and we will not accept any other way?  Are we like the Pharisees, and we already have made up our minds?

Jesus gives examples showing people who did respond.  The city Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah.  The queen of the Sheba traveled to hear the wisdom of Solomon.  Neither one of these had a sign, but responded to what God was doing, and the way God was doing it.  The Ninevites did not have a sign and responded to Jonah’s preaching;  the Queen did not have a sign yet she traveled to seek the wisdom.

The pharisees seemed to want a sign before they did something.  Do what?  Jesus spoke of an evil spirit who goes out of a man and comes back bringing other, more evil spirits.  The spirit leaves and while he is gone the house is cleaned up.  When he comes back, he finds it clean and goes out to gather other spirits to the house.  The state of the house is worse than it was the first time.  How might this story of the spirit relate to the Pharisees?  Leaving the house to seek rest equals "give us a sign to make us comfortable with you" .  Finding no rest equals "nothing you do satisfies us" .  Gathering others equals "let's commiserate with others who also do not except Jesus" .  The house equals physical bodies in which they live, the organization which they run. 

The wickedness of “this generation” must be in the attitude that is seeking Jesus to perform a sign.  They might say “Jesus you really need to conform to the way we conceive of you, and you need to prove that you do conform.  Until you do, we have no use for you.“  The wickedness is in the attitude of “we are right, Jesus has to prove himself to us.”

INSIDE HIS MIND

Psalm 110
This is a psalm about the messiah, about Jesus.   Verse 1: “sit at my right hand”; verse 5: “the lord is at your right hand”.   From verse one we see the Father talking to the Son.   From verse five we see the Son talking to the Father.  This psalm is about ruling, power and judgment.   It talks of ruling in the present: "in the midst of your enemies";  and later, at the judgment and destruction of the enemies (vs 5-7).   It shows that the Father chooses to rule through the Son  and the Son rules to bring about the Father's purposes:  “I and my Father are one” because he speaks of himself as ”the lord at thy right hand”

This psalm clearly shows the Father-Son aspect of the Trinity.   Perhaps it does not show the Holy Spirit part because God doesn't want us direct our praise to the Holy Spirit.   The Holy Spirit’s function (at least one function) is to guide us to all truth, to guide us to the Father and Son.

This psalm shows us the inside personal thinking that God does within himself.   What a privilege that he shows it to us.

ARE YOU QUALIFIED

Learning my wife had written a book someone asked, "what are her qualifications?”  I wondered why she would ask that?  What were her reasons for asking this question?  Did she really want to know?  Did she want to be assured she could safely consider what my wife wrote?  Was she jealous?  Did she wonder why my wife should have any valid point?  Did she want to block out my wife’s ideas?  Was my wife in opposition to her own views?

What has to happen to establish a qualification?  Does it take a higher authority to bless you and therefore qualify you?  Must the entity that qualifies also to have been qualified?  Who has qualified the qualifier and who has qualified him?  How far back must the chain of qualification go?

There are some legitimate qualifiers.  The state establishes laws and agencies to test if you can safely drive a car.  If you prove you can via some testing the state will therefore issue you a driver's license.  Your license is a certificate thereby signifying your qualification to operate an automobile on the public roadways.

A seminary can offer training to certify that you have learned certain skills like church administration and ancient languages. 

What if you do not meet the expectations of the one who asks for qualifications?  If you read an English version of the Bible can you understand it for yourself, or must you be qualified to understand it by a seminary professor or by a pastor or elder?  Did not the Translators to English have the qualifications to properly render a good meaning in English?  Who is judging the qualification of the translators?

Does not God have the power to place in your mind the meaning and intent he has for you in the way you understand the English?  Does he expect you to know Hebrew and Greek?  Does not God say he places his spirit in you as he said he would do?  If he did that than he can speak to you personally, individually, directly.  God does not ask you to produce a license or diploma or certificate before you can read or teach the Bible.  I believe God is happy for you to share with others what you believe he has told you.

ALL SINS ARE EQUAL

In Matthew 11:20-24 Jesus remarks about the miracles were done in Chorazin and Bethsaida and, yet they did not believe.  Had the same miracles been done in cities which are known for their sinfulness, Tire, Sidon and Sodom, they would have repented.  Jesus comments that Bethsaida and Co. will not receive reward because they ignored the miracles performed in them.  As he walks, he says he reveals the father to the “children” whom he chooses.

A main point of the scripture is to show mercies were extended to a few amongst a people, though outwardly righteous, refused to repent and accept the Lord.  This account is to stress that some sinners will repent whereas the self-righteous will not.  Jesus chooses who he will be saved, and they are the ones that choose to walk with him.

The use of the city Sodom as in illustration (Gen 19) shows that God does not exclude the sodomite, the homosexual, from mercy and Salvation.  Had the city repented it would not have been destroyed.  That sodomy is a sin hateful to God is clearly defined by scripture - - the destruction of the city of Sodom being a good example.  But we must remember sodomy is a sin among an array of sins.  All unrepentant sinners: sodomites, adulterous, thieves, murderers, liars and thieves alike will be burn in hell's fire. 

And God wants ALL sinners to repent and come as children - - to take his yoke upon them.  The adulterer and sodomite and gossiper must control their tendency toward sin.  For the not-yet-saved it is especially important to come “as they are”.  In fact, they must be as children, at the most basic entry level.  Jesus wants them that way.  They should not be put off by the existence of “religious” people.  Everyone has a starting point and a way to travel yet.

BRINGING THEM OUTDOORS

Jesus speaking to his disciples in Mat 10:27 says:  "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light".   Maybe today when God speaks to you “in the dark” he refers to the Spirit speaking to you.  Or, you think, is it only you getting an impression in your mind?  You wonder, “is this God speaking to me, or is it just my own mind that is coming up with this?”  Is it God “whispering in your ear” via a recollection of an idea you got out of private study of God's word? 

In any case, it can help to make these things public.  Sometimes others can help us know whether something is from God.  Maybe someone can help us get a better understanding of what we heard.  Maybe someone has a caution about what we heard and can back it up with a Scripture reference.  Anything truly beneficial God tells us should be told to others 

In any case, we know it must conform to God's word.  We cannot change the meaning of God's commandments for our own convenience as did the Pharisees when they said, “It is corban [a gift to God] by whatsoever you may be profited by me.”  Instead of giving a gift for the intent of making another’s life easier, they were using this act as a bribe to God to make themselves appear somehow pious. 

What was happening with the disciples in private would indeed be made public.  For example:  the Last Supper, the Mount of transfiguration, the fishing scene of John 21, Peter's betrayal, the widow’s two mites.  “There is nothing hidden that will not be made known” demonstrates that God is open and upfront. 

DIFFICULTY WILL COME

In Matthew 10 Jesus is sending the disciples out and they are to do great works and preach “the Kingdom of God is near”.  They are not too prepare themselves; either with things, or places to stay, or with weapons of self-defense.  Their mission is noble and great, yet they will encounter persecution and rejection. 

In the midst of this rejection they are to remember and hold on to what God has taught them.  Certainly, if they are to hold on during prosecutions, jailing, beatings; then we can hold on during our short bouts of doubt or the oppression or uncertainty.  God has told us there will be dark times and we are to hold on.  We must remember:  our hairs are numbered; we are worth more than many sparrows. 

They were to go out, yet they would experience these hard things.  God intended that the they should experience the hard things.  It should not be a surprise to us when difficulty comes our way.  We can only trust God will not allow us to be buried so deep in them that we despair there will never be any relief. 

In times of trouble we can ask for advice and comfort from other Christians.  The body of Christ is good place to seek counsel.  But even with Christians we must be discerning of which people we seek, for some are so opinionated they cannot provide a balanced solution.  Such people can sometimes be a part of the problem.  You may feel so oppressed by their opinions that you cannot talk freely.  You must seek a competent believer who listens and can add a good perspective to yours - - as long as both perspectives are formed on the word of God.  You can know who has good advice if you read your Bible.