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Ok...I read this article, "Hitler paintings 'go under the hammer' in Germany". See link if you are interested in reading it. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090416/ennew_afp/germanyhistoryhitlerartpainting
After reading this I saw Hitler differently...he had a root of rejection. The same root as Cain. (of Cain and Abel). After Adam and Eve rejected God by hiding...the iniquity came in Cain as a root of rejection. Had he embraced what God said to him about his sacrifice and dealt with it....imagine the difference it would have made! (Read Genesis 3-4 for this story)
I found it fascinating that the man responsible for millions of deaths, and starting World War II had a root of rejection. He wanted to paint and be an artist....but instead of dealing his disappointment and persevering, instead of dealing with this root and creating beautiful...he became one of the most destructive people who ever lived. He was responsible for starting many innovations in Germany...yet they were used for destroying not building. He left a wide path of destruction in landscapes, buildings, and worse that he destroyed lives. His negative impact still echoes in my family...and no doubt plenty of families who contain veterans of WWII. (Proverbs 18:21, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.")
Hate is a powerful thing. Hitler bred hate. He chose an enemy to destroy instead of dealing with his own issues. He blamed Jews and Gypsies and others for Germany's woes and set out to destroy them. He actually was quite brilliant to do what he did. But he lived out of a wounded place and was truly a blind man. He missed the boat on the calling for his life, because someone with that much salesman power should most definitely have been an evangelist! You know what I mean! Seriously!
You can still see the fallout from this in Europe today. I was in England in 1996. I was shopping with my friend Thomas (from Berlin), and a sales woman refused to wait on him because he's German. WHAT? WWII was like 50 years ago. Thomas pulled me out of the store and explained that this happened to him a few times, and that it was ok. She's an older lady and probably lost her husband or son in WWII....and it's ok. I was like this is not ok....you were born in 1972...this has nothing to do with you. He just shrugged.
I didn't understand why people hated this (really really cute and ) sweet German young man for something that happened fifty years ago. It made no sense. Kinda like God when He looks at the grudges I've held for petty things for stupid reasons against people around me. It's the same thing...just a sunshinier face.
We are called to love. We are expected to forgive. Those are the weapons we have in the war against hate and the world's culture. Love may not look like much of a big deal staring into a tank barrel...but it's helping people and being there for people that changes them. It's not beating them over the head with a stick. This may sound like a 3rd grade explanation to world problems....but it's what I see. What our soldiers are doing currently in Iraq and Afghanistan- protecting people so they can learn and see that there is another way to live, is SO important. The news talks about casualties and money and oil. But truth says that those people have been bitter over sibling rivalry going back to Father Abraham. Do I hear rejection iniquity issues?
God's been really working on my own rejection issues and maybe this is why this impacted me so strongly. I have lived much of my life as to avoid being rejected. I lived in a box trying to be everything my Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, Siblings, teachers, youth group leaders, pastors and friends wanted me to be. And I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. It took a lot of counseling and steps classes and prayer and MTS and CTS and crying and people pouring love and hope and more love into me for me to realize that it's ok to be who God made me to be. It doesn't matter whether or not people accept me...it matters that God made me and already knows me and loves me. Not everyone is going to like me...not even in the church. And that's ok. We won't like everyone. But we do have to love them. Love matters. Fulfilling God's call on our lives matters. Lord knows, I've caused enough destruction in myself and those around me...it's time to build. It's time to pour out. It's time to plant and water and grow.
What legacy do you want to leave behind? A legacy of building and kindness and hope and love...or a legacy of destruction. The choice is yours.
Some scripture for you, to help you settle some things. NIV, courtesy of www.biblegateway.com
Number 1: Get to Know God (The book Praying the Names of God REALLY helped me with knowing God)
Ephesians 1:17-23, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Number 2: God Made You. He knows your strengths and weaknesses. He wants to go beside you and help you get where you need to be.
Psalm 139:14-16, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
Number 3: You were created with purpose and that purpose can only come to pass when you seek God wholeheartedly with all you are!
Jeremiah 29:11-14. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD."
Number 4: God does not reject you! It has been people who have rejected God, yet He gave His only son so you can be accepted.
Romans 11:1-2, I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew."
Acts 7:38-40, "He (Moses) was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us. But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. They told Aaron, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don't know what has happened to him!''
Number 5: People are people. They speak without thinking. They will offend you. They will reject you, but remember they rejected Jesus too.
Luke 6:22-23, "Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. "Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets."
Number 6: God will be with you wherever you go. You aren't alone, ever.
Joshua 1:6-9, ""Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
