Just thought I would post a few reflections on hearing Dr. Ben Carson this morning at Cornerstone Church.
1. Anytime a person in the political arena speaks in a regular church service you should expect to hear something akin to a testimony about their life & faith and learn more about who they are as a person. Their political positions are already being debated publicly in other forums so it's not about that. Dr. Carson did not disappoint on this and I appreciate knowing more about who he is & his faith.
2. He shared for a while about his mother who was a hard working woman and a "penny pincher." I was especially touched when he said that on Sundays she would take him & his siblings with her and they would go to anyone's house who had a crop of some kind... beans, berries, corn, figs, whatever!... and would ask the owners if they could glean 4 bushels that day; three for the owner and one for their family. Something about that just touched my heart. It reminded me of the story of Ruth & Naomi. Ruth gleaned in the fields behind the harvesters, willing to take the left-overs. God elevated her to owning those same fields eventually!
3. This was probably the most poignant part of his "testimony" to me. He spoke of being a young teenager with extreme anger & fighting often. One day he had such an outburst of anger that he took a knife and with great force, tried to stick it into another mans gut. The knife hit the other man's large belt buckle and broke.
He knew that day that if the knife hadn't hit that buckle, he would have killed that other boy and sent to prison or at the least, in a juvenile detention center.
He walked away from that encounter, locked himself in his room, grabbed his bible and began to read in Proverbs about the foolishness of anger and how it brings death. He prayed and wrestled with God over this anger and 3 hours later he left his room, delivered from that anger and NEVER had an anger outburst again. He said people have said, "Well, you are just holding all that anger inside now." and he said "No, I have been delivered!"
I loved that story. It helps me understand and appreciate his subtle presentation style a little better.
It also reminded me of something Pastor Hardwick said years ago regarding his time doing ministry in the prisons. "We are all just one bad decision away from being in a prison." Dr. Ben Carson was one bad decision away from prison vs being a neurosurgeon/Presidential candidate!
4. My last thought, and this is somewhat political though not terribly so. He made the statement, "Our country was designed for citizen statesmen and not for career politicians."
So true.
Lord have mercy on us and give us citizen statesmen who want what's best for the people of our country and who will honor our constitution as well as the law of your Word.
5. I have not decided who I am going to vote for in next year's election.
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