Every child has a right to happiness

When I first came to Australia as a 7 year old child, no friends, FOP (fresh of the plane) and with no knowledge of English, it felt pretty intimidating leaving my country of birth El Salvador and dumped into this new and foreign place my parents had decided to call home.  

As I now understand we were given asylum in Australia as refugees of civil war. My parents made the arduous and difficult decision to leave behind their family, their livelihood, and everything they knew to be home to give me and my two younger brothers the chance of a better life. El Salvador had been in civil war for quite sometime now and though I do not remember much of it due to my parents shielding us from the terrors of war, I came to understand through family and friends later what was really happening in our place of birth, brutality and terror of a military dictatorship on the people of El Salvador.

Fast forward now and my life has been very blessed, shaped by this wonderful sunburnt country of ours that I call home. Diverse in nature by its many different people and cultures I fell in love with so much so that I married a beautiful Romanian women, together we have built a family of 5 and are complemented by my three gorgeous children-Sofia, Isaiah and Rafael.

The joys of being a parent have been amazing! If anything has shaped me more as human being than anything else it has to be fatherhood. I have learnt to understand many mysteries that life has thrown at me, but one of the most beautiful experiences has been the dynamic of a father and a child. I never would have imagined the power such a little life could have on me until that day we received Sofia in to this world, to hold her in my arms knowing that she is a product of me and my partner falls nothing short of a miracle. The birth of the other two has not dulled that moment; not one bit. Now they are running around hugging me, asking me questions, mimicking in everything I do and imagining a world that I have lost the ability to imagine-Yep they are teaching me to imagine again.   

“Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”-JFK.

Their ability to imagine and inspire new ideas has opened my eyes to see children for what they really are-they are the essence of Hope. The hope that one day they will become the leaders of our world and if we do not build an environment that nurtures love and happiness for our future leaders they will be unable to cope with the problems of tomorrow. I believe that deep down there is something more profound within us...that we are more then mere flesh and bones. And none is more clearer; and more evident than in the potential of a child. We must advocate and learn to protect our greatest asset, because the answers for a better tomorrow lie in the child you help raise.  No child should bear the scars of injustice, we must give voice to the voiceless cause children can be an easy victim. So with that I plead my case, my parents made a sacrifice to bring me happiness and for that I believe there can be no greater sacrifice.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”-JC.

As for me I will lay down my life like it was done before me for my children. That is where I shall find my place of peace and happiness and I will be an advocate of this for my children and every other child until I have breathed my last breath.

This post is part of a series inspired by the Prevent Abuse of Children Today (PACT) campaign, hosted by Stepping Stones Nigeria.  Please add your name to the PACT petition to prevent abuse of innocent children in the Niger Delta and visit the site to find out more: www.makeapact.org

Do we really believe that God is Good?

Watching Rob Bell's Nooma series -  kickball the other night left me with a a very deep and profound question about the character of God. In the video Rob is raising a very serious question about how we ultimately perceive God and how what we believe about him speaks volumes about ourselves and our spiritual condition. The question he is asking is "Do we truly believe that God is Good?". In answering this question I found myself digging deep about what i think this question is really asking. One thing for sure is it's not a simple Yes or No answer.

I began to see his argument that in life many of us want certain things to happen to us prematurely. We want success, we want fame, we want recognition , we want money, we want, we want, we want.... and in those things, when we have achieved these things we will be complete and content so it seems; and amazingly its in the little things that God begins to open our eyes to the peril of our reality. I have 3 kids and the other day my youngest son wanted to just eat lollies. In his eyes lollies taste great and satisfy his senses, but he fails to see something I have learned to achieve over time, wisdom. I know that he will get sick from just eating lollies and that he needs a good nutritional balance of foods to keep him healthy; and believe me this argument is not going to persuade him otherwise. I cannot rationalise with a 1.5 year old. I just have to say no too him and be the bad guy, until one day he will understand the choices i made for him where for his benefit not mine.

In my sons eyes Daddy is NOT GOOD would be going through his head. In this journey of life; many at times it can seem that we want things from God and he doesn't show up, he doesn't answer, he takes things away that we love or he just plain and simply is punishing us for our sins. But even as adults with our wealth of wisdom tend to forget (like my son) that  it is always to our benefit and we blame God for no getting what we want or begin to debate with him the purpose of our suffering.
I had this conversation recently with an elderly woman. Well respected in her field and devout christian. She had been sick for many months know and she was at her tethers end it seemed. She spoke to me about how she knew she had made wrong conscious choices and God was punishing her. I spoke to her about how we have been brought up in this idea that God is always punishing us when we sin and i don't always believe this is the case, so i spoke to her about the story of Moses and God at the top of Mt Sinai. Where Moses argue's with God about how he is not worthy to take the mantle and put the fight to Pharaoh and he says "they will not believe me" in other words he was doubting in himself. Than God replies "What is that in your hand?" Moses replies "a Staff". God is asking what do you have at your control to yield to me. What is that of you that you can give me, the power you seek is right in your hands Moses all you need to do is surrender it to me and I will display my power! I wanted her to understand that all this time, all those choices lead her to where she is today, because she forgot to look at what God had put in her hands and surrender it. Instead she has been running with it tightly in her hands, like an unsheathed sword that is never put to use in battle, in doing this we lose the fight and thus her in predicament she had lost her health. So at times it can seem like God is punishing us when really we are punishing ourselves in not listening or being sensitive to God's cues for us. We need to remember that we are not robots and we have been given the power of free will.   

Thus suffering is a tool to help shape our fallen state and realign it to its perfect original posture. The problem lies when we begin to put our own human definitions to describe or paint a picture of who God is. We begin to use terms like Good and Kind and we must be careful not lose the true fidelity of God, we have been indoctrinated with God being Good and if your are Good and Obedient God will then bless you, so give your money. We have reduced God to an automatic teller machine ruled by transactions... a transactional God. We skim over the stories like John the Baptist who suffered much for the glory of God, it's obvious suffering is not something we like to talk about when it is directed towards us.
We must begin to see that at times it can be good to feel the searing heat of a distant fire, to warn us of danger. The receptors of pain are good for steering us away from what we want and also we must at times welcome suffering in order to restore the self, for only through suffering  do we truly grow and prune ourselves of the dead weight. Take the example of a broken heart, I remember this process so vividly in my mind and the struggles of pain and anguish during my worst times, but through this my resolve grew and became more focused and clearer in thought which ultimately lead me to surrender and follow Jesus wholeheartedly for I had finally reached a place where I had nowhere to go-my only option-him. I grew new appreciation for my family and friends and I learnt not be defined by someone else. I am who I am through the artistry of the creators hand.   

God is good, always Good. He is looking out for us, giving out advice to steer us away from situations that will harm us equipping us with tools (like Moses) to defeat the enemy in front of us but more importantly the enemy within us. Read James 1:17 

"Every good and perfect gift comes down from the father who created all the lights in the heavens. He is always the same and never makes dark shadows by changing". 

Until we truly deal with the question of what we think God is like? Things will never make any sense. Do you really believe that God is Good? So when we find ourselves asking God wanting something, lets remember that God is Good. Just around the corner God has something even better install for us. The grass is even Greener on God's other-side!