Mardi, 3 Mars,
2015
Verse of the Day: «Il sait
néanmoins quelle voie j'ai suivie; Et, s'il m'éprouvait, je sortirais pur comme
l'or. 11Mon pied s'est attaché à ses pas; J'ai gardé sa voie, et je ne m'en suis
point détourné.» Job 23.10-11
Quote of the Day: “The best government is the one with the least amount of
useless men.”—Voltaire
«Le meilleur
gouvernement est celui où il y a le moins d’hommes inutiles.»—Voltaire
French Fun Fact:
The croissant was actually invented in Austria. (confessedtravelholic.com)
What’s Really
Happening Over Here:
Weather – Mostly
Cloudy, Precip. 10%
Temperature – 54⁰F,
high of 55⁰
News – Hollande
calls for more progress in Ukraine (thelocal.fr)
More News – http://www.20minutes.fr/actu-generale/
A Day In the Life:
Bullying is a serious problem in modern society…and in every
society before modern society, dating back to Cain. In other words, humanity
has never gone over two centuries without bullying. Pretty stellar record. But
how do you deal with bullying?
My host family was asking themselves the same question, as
their son is going through a bit of bullying right now. I can imagine that’s
not something you would ever want your child to have to go through, and it’s
even more disheartening to think that if it is happening to your child, they
are on an irreversible course toward one of two inevitable destinations: 1. It
will strengthen them, or 2. They will be scarred for a very long time, if not
for life, and those scars will most likely remain dormant only to inevitably
resurface and cause them serious relational problems at just the right time
later on in life.
I shared in an earlier post that on one of my first nights
with this family, I shared my testimony with them, which includes a fair amount
of bullying (me being on the receiving end). I’m not going to go into detail,
but thanks be to my Father I came out of door number 1 – it made me stronger.
So when they asked me for some advice for their son moving forward, I was
honored to be able to possibly help prevent him from going through anything
near what I went through. The following is a list of lessons I learned from my
own experience for dealing with bullying. Keep in mind that these are actions
the person being bullied must take themselves if at all possible, without help,
if the goal is door number 1; and that this list might also be helpful to
adults in dealing with “difficult people” (the grown-up version of bullies).
1. Remove yourself from the
situation – a lot of times if you just choose to stop spending time with/around whoever it is that is treating you
poorly, this can take care of the situation. But, I realize this is not always
possible.
2. Stop trying to please/prove
yourself to them – this is probably the biggest lesson I learned. What
happens is the victim actually ends up pulling themselves into a vicious cycle,
a downward spiral that only leads to depression. Instead of standing up for
themselves, the victim tries to prove that they are worth more than how they
are being treated. But, this is almost always motivated by fear, and so it
turns into a cycle of trying to impress someone who of course will never be
impressed. And the more you try to become something you’re not, the more they
call the bluff. It literally never works, but as people pleasers it is almost
always our first instinct. Save yourself the trouble.
3. Know who you are – this is
where it all starts. People get bullied and struggle with self esteem because
they do not know who they are, and when life happens they don’t know how to
respond. They response by letting the situation or the person dictate their
identity to them, instead of letting their own identity dictate their response
to the situation or person. As Christians, at our core our identity should be
found entirely in Christ. He is our “raison d’être”. Who are we? We are
sinners, unworthy of life who have been given life eternal. How do we respond
to situations? We love because He first loved us. Who is He? He is love. And
what is love? “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not
boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it
is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in
evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” I think that lays it out pretty
clearly.
4. Stand up for yourself – I’m
sure at this point you’re probably asking yourself: “What about standing up for
yourself? You can’t just let people walk all over you can you?” You’re right,
you can’t. But there is a time and a place to do it. If you cannot remove
yourself from the situation, and you cannot avoid them, and you have stopped
trying to please them and prove yourself to them, and you have been
consistently loving them (and love never fails by the way so this step
continues until one of you dies because said we should be doing this anyways),
and they still are treating you the same way, then you need to pull them aside
and have a one-on-one conversation with them if at all possible. If not, then I
guess you have to do it whenever the opportunity next presents itself.
5. Respond in kind – this is not
what it sounds like—kind of. This is the final straw, but also the first step
in some cases. What I mean by this is that if they are physically accosting
you, then you need to physically defend yourself. There is nothing wrong with
this. Granted, this should only be in defense, but as Chris Kyle’s dad says in
American Sniper “finish it.” (If they are verbally abusing you, then follow
steps 1-4.)
OR YOU COULD
ALWAYS DO THIS:
Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor is one of the most renowned missionaries of
modernity. Born in England, he lived and served in China for over 50 years, and
was the founder and Director of the China Inland Mission (CIM). His success was
due in large part however to his willingness to blend into the culture, by
adopting the common hair and clothing styles of the day which was unusual for
missionaries of that time period. But by doing so, he communicated to those he
was trying to reach that he respected
 |
| Hudson Taylor |
“James Hudson Taylor (Chinese: 戴德生) (21 May 1832 – 3 June
1905) was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China and founder of the
China Inland Mission (CIM) (now OMF International). Taylor spent 51 years in
China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800
missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in
18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300
stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all eighteen provinces.
Taylor was known for his
sensitivity to Chinese culture and zeal for evangelism. He adopted wearing
native Chinese clothing even though this was rare among missionaries of that
time. Under his leadership, the CIM was singularly non-denominational in
practice and accepted members from all Protestant groups, including individuals
from the working class and single women as well as multinational recruits.
Primarily because of the CIM's campaign against the Opium trade, Taylor has
been referred to as one of the most significant Europeans to visit China in the
19th Century. Historian Ruth Tucker summarises the theme of his life:
No other missionary in the nineteen
centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a
more systematised plan of evangelising a broad geographical area than Hudson
Taylor.
Taylor was able to preach in
several varieties of Chinese, including Mandarin, Chaozhou, and the Wu dialects
of Shanghai and Ningbo. The last of these he knew well enough to help prepare a
colloquial edition of the New Testament written in it.
News of the Boxer Rebellion and the
resulting disruption of missionary work in 1900 distressed Taylor, even though
it led to further interest in missions in the area and additional growth of his
China Inland Mission. Though the CIM suffered more than any other mission in
China (58 missionaries, 21 children were killed), Taylor refused to accept
payment for loss of property or life, to show the 'meekness and gentleness of
Christ'. He was criticised by some but was commended by the British Foreign
Office, whose minister in Beijing donated £200 to the CIM, expressing his
'admiration' and sympathy. The Chinese were also touched by Taylor's attitude.
Due to health issues, Taylor
remained in Switzerland, semi-retired with his wife. In 1900, Dixon Edward
Hoste was appointed the Acting General Director of the CIM, and in 1902, Taylor
formally resigned. His wife, Jennie, died of cancer in 1904 in Les Chevalleyres,
Switzerland, and in 1905, Taylor returned to China for the eleventh and final
time. There he visited Yangzhou and Zhenjiang and other cities, before dying
suddenly while reading at home in Changsha. He was buried next to his first
wife, Maria in Zhenjiang in the small English Cemetery near the Yangtze River.”
(The above indented information is
a direct quote from the Wikipedia.com article on Hudson Taylor.)
No comments:
Post a Comment