{"id":429,"date":"2014-01-23T14:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=429"},"modified":"2014-08-12T23:20:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:20:58","slug":"hope-for-the-buffalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/hope-for-the-buffalo\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope for the Buffalo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is not as it should be. There is hurt, despair and brokenness. There is violence against women and children, civil wars around the world, cancer, famine, global warming and those are just a few of the popular ills of the world. What are we as followers of Jesus to do? Should we bury our heads in the sand and look for redemption in the \u201cother life?\u201d Many Christians, including myself, \u00a0would contend the answer to that question is an emphatic NO! Though, even if we answer with a no, the weight of the burden can sometimes drown us in\u00a0a sea of despair. Active Hope<\/em>\u00a0is for those of us who dream of a different world, a world with less chaos and despair and more hope. It\u2019s for those of us who work towards a solution to the problems of this world.<\/p>\n

In the third section of Active Hope,<\/em> the authors suggest strategies that help the dreamer cope when challenges come that threaten to derail our intentions and efforts. At the end of chapter 7, they ask a series of questions to help individuals discern their goals and resources to achieve them. I\u2019m going to answer each of his six questions.<\/p>\n

1.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>If you knew you could not fail, what would you most want to do for the healing of our world? <\/em>I worry about the Earth that I\u2019m leaving my kids. Will Glacier National Park exist? What animals will become extinct? What parts of creation will be so polluted my kids won\u2019t be able to visit? I would love to do something that helps heals creation, and that helps people connect to it.<\/p>\n

2.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>What specific goal or project could you realistically aim to achieve in the next 12 months that would contribute to this?<\/em> There\u2019s an area to the north of us called the Buffalo National River.\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the most pristine national rivers in the United States. It has bluffs, fish, trees, slow moving waters and hog farms that are polluting<\/a> the water. \u00a0I\u2019d love to help ensure that the hog farms aren\u2019t killing the ecosystem of this national treasure.<\/p>\n

3.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>What resources, inner and outer, do you have that will help you do this? <\/em>\u00a0I have friends who are involved with protecting the Buffalo. They would gladly welcome help in the fight. I also have a desire to be involved.<\/p>\n

4.)\u00a0 What resources inner and external will you need to acquire?<\/em> I don\u2019t know tons about the debate right now. I would need a study group or something to help me catch me up on the conversation.<\/p>\n

5.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>How might you stop yourself? What obstacles might you throw in the way? <\/em>\u00a0I can get think of lot\u2019s of obstacles that will get in my way, and they\u2019re not exotic ones. They\u2019re just the typical day-to-day stuff that consumes all my time (things that I\u2019m grateful for though) like kids, school, church, adoption and now trying to sell my house.<\/p>\n

6.)\u00a0 How will you overcome these obstacles?<\/em> I could involve my kids and family in the conversation. This could become one outlet for family time!<\/p>\n

While these questions aren\u2019t groundbreaking, they did prove insightful for me. They started at the 50,000ft level and moved towards the 10ft level. For me, I think the hardest part about pressing on towards a goal is just the humdrum of every day life (kids, school, work). I need to find a way to incorporate what I\u2019m passionate about into my everyday life and not see it as something different.<\/p>\n

So, how would you answer those questions?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is not as it should be. There is hurt, despair and brokenness. There is violence against women and children, civil wars around the world, cancer, famine, global warming and those are just a few of the popular ills of the world. What are we as followers of Jesus to do? Should we bury […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[179,2],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activehope","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}