The following is a short reflection I wrote a few years ago.  The specific events related have passed from my day to day memory (and further details have taken some of the edge of), but in the light of the recent tragedy in Boston, these same thoughts might be worth considering for many of you where you live.  The issues are resurfacing with each new wave of violence wherever it shows up and by whomever perpetrates it.

Today, I saw something ugly.  I guess I am naive; I did not expect to see this.  But, in a country with one religion dominant over the others, maybe it is inevitable.

My children pointed out a group of boys beginning to bother a young girl of another religion, different than the group.  This cadre of boys used some of her religious terms disrespectfully, intentionally to mock her and her faith.  They made lewd gestures, obviously feeling brave in their superior position of number and place.  They even threw some rocks at her before I arrived to send them away.  Religious abuse, physical abuse, ugly abuse.

My children were repulsed, they knew it was wrong (I praise God that they did and alerted me to the situation).  I wish my language capabilities would have allowed me to speak more to the boys as well as the lone girl.  But in the end, all I ended up being was a big adult, meddling in their affairs.  I heard the word “foreigner” flicking off of their tongues as the boys slithered away.

I was disturbed.  The thoughts would not leave me alone.  Sure, the boys will call me names.  And, I suppose the girl will at least recognize that an adult has grown beyond the prejudice (or maybe he was just a sympathetic person to her religion or cause).  I could not communicate much at all.  That made the frustration deeper.

Ponder with me some thoughts that won’t leave me alone . . .

Do we think that people of a different religion are deserving of our disdain and disrespect, making us free to treat them as less than human?  More than that, do we think that others who are different do not even have the right to be treated with the dignity and respect that many religious teachers have taught historically?  Do we somehow think that our code of ethics only applies to others of our faith or culture – the rest, well, they don’t deserve kindness?  Ugly.  Even uglier when done in the name of religion by people who claim to know God (by any name).

Sure, you may remind me that I am too flower-eyed and maybe I just need to own up to the world we live in.  Maybe.

But, stop for a moment, dear friend.  Let me ask you to be painfully honest with yourself.  What assumptions do we make?  Do we automatically decide that “we” or “our own” don’t act that way?  Do we think that this sort of ugliness can only be found in the other in some far off land?

What if it is closer?  Then what?  When do we honestly assess the sin of our hearts and acknowledge the depths that our cultures are dragging us down to?

We need a revival of godliness and lived out faith again.  One that begins with honesty and repentance.  Repentance even if we have “the truth” of a religion that we are convinced of.  Repentance for every thought of prejudice and even hatred towards people different than us.  Repentance for the times we allow the fear for safety to move us to marginalize the other and consider them unworthy of the basics of human interaction.  Or, even deeper, repentance for our pride in thinking we are above such things like this.

Chances are, as you read this, if you are a Christian, you automatically assume that the actions were done by the majority religion in the country I am now living.  And in that assumption maybe there is only a little jolt to your complacency.

But, that is not the case.

The boys were Christians, having just attended religious services earlier in the day, and they were the ones abusing the lone Muslim girl.  I cannot stomach it, still.  Has popular Christianity devolved into this?  Is that the witness that current “Christ followers” want to be shared with the world?  Is that what Jesus would do?

Of course not!  So, as we are repenting, let’s ask God to change each of us; because any of us are capable of such things without God’s grace changing us moment by moment.  Maybe we all have something to learn about submission again.  It is time for both Muslims and Christians to repent and start choosing to live by God’s kingdom principles again!

Now some of you may be asking:  which denomination?  Good question.

Can you feel the pride trying to recoup and maintain composure?  Repent, again.

I can assure you, dear reader, you don’t want to know which denomination!

It was ugly.

                          

So, let me catch you up a little bit on the exciting things that are happening to the Gallant family here in Indonesia.

Family News

The first thing I need to say is, we are blessed. We are so grateful at the way that God has led and brought us here. As you know from our own personal story, we know about hard times and we know about pain. But, we truly feel that this is a time in our life when God is simply smiling on us, and we are grateful. He is so wonderful and we are so thankful.

Our family is continuing to get older, and wiser, and also more adventurous. Elijah has actually begun his high school years at Fletcher Academy in North Carolina. We miss him very much, but we are so proud of him and how well he is doing there. We are very excited to see how he is maturing and enjoying his time there very much. Of course we miss him and we look forward to seeing him this coming June for our furlough. Elijah just signed up to go on his first mission trip to be a blessing to other people. We are so glad to hear that he has an interest in that and we are going to be sending out email letters to people in the future so that they can help support him in this project.

Hannah is continuing to go to an international school near Bandung, where we live and she absolutely loves it. She is top of her class now and enjoys being in the fellowship and having friends and enjoys the schoolwork too.

Noah and Hadassah sometimes go to that school also and do some extracurricular classes. They are enjoying that very much. And, Penny enjoys a bit of a break from teaching them. They take classes like music, PE, art, and even some Indonesian language class. It is a lot of fun and we are excited to watch them learning and growing.

Our home life is busy in addition to the children, we currently have seven young ladies living with us. Three of them are nursing graduates who are getting their professional licensure and four of them are full-time students at UNAI. So, you can imagine that every meal time is a fun and busy time. We have almost 12 people who eat each meal. Two tables and lots of chairs and lots of food. It is an exciting and blessed time. We are not exactly sure how we can afford all of this, but God keeps giving and so we do too. It's amazing to live this way.

Those of you who know Penny real well will realize that she is very happy to have such a nice full house with lots of people to talk to and interact with. She is truly blessing the lives of these young ladies and mentoring them to become wonderful wives and mothers in the future. I am so proud of her for what she is doing. Our house is never boring. Here is a picture of some of our gals.

You also know, of course, that our family loves animals. And, that is no exception here either. Our house inside currently has two parakeets, two hamsters, a fish, a dog and a cat. Outside we have two geese, three ducks, seven chickens, including roosters, and many fish in our two ponds. Two hens and one duck are currently sitting on eggs, so the family might be growing soon. Life is very full and very good. We are grateful. And you might imagine, that with all this noise and activity I need to escape sometimes. And that is when I go out to my bamboo prayer house in the backyard. That is my own little place for quiet and solace.

Work Highlights

My work this last year has been very full and very good. My focus is on trying to help grow future leaders in discipleship and mentoring them to be a blessing to others. I travel around to the different places inside this union and helping to share a bigger picture of God and his love and inviting others to share that in a beautiful way with their neighbors and their friends. I enjoy doing that very much. Also, I have a team of people who work with me and it is wonderful getting closer to them and watching God bless their lives as well.

We have translated a book that is very good to share with our neighbors here. We are working on two more books for this year. And we have created two websites that help to equip people and give them ideas. Of course these resources are all in Indonesian language, but if you would like to have some of the source material from English I can give those to you if you would like. Some of the materials are available on the Internet or from Amazon.

We have translated many documents and are establishing a training website so that people can systematically build their knowledge and experience as they become a blessing in the community around them.

One of the exciting movements that we are beginning is called Searah. It means one direction, and it is not the musical group we found out later that has a similar name. It is a movement of predominantly young people who are choosing to agree and work together to do good. They are people of faith whether they are Muslim or Adventist or whatever, people of faith choosing to agree and choosing to work together to be a blessing in the community. We just finished our one-year anniversary of the organization with a special celebration of bringing people together from different groups. It was very beautiful and very touching. In the last year we have done things like peace training, interfaith cooperation activities, trust building events, helping orphans, cleaning areas and raising awareness of certain needs in the community. We expect this coming year to do some health programs and working in the villages and other needed things here. As we do these things people are very interested in what we are doing and the relationships are growing between these young people of faith. Hearts are being knit together and beautiful conversations happen more and more.

The group is openly spiritual. It is based upon three commitments. The first commitment is that we should be completely surrendered to God. The second commitment is we want to be the very best that we can be. So, that means if you are a Muslim, be a true surrendered Muslim. If you are a Christian, then be a true follower of Jesus Christ. Be the very best person you can be of your faith. And the third commitment is to community. We believe that faith needs to be practical and needs to bless our communities if it has any worth at all. It is exciting to see young people of faith working together, encouraging each other into end time living, and being a blessing in the community. It's thrilling to watch and it is just beginning. We look forward to a very bright future working together.

Please pray for this work. As you might imagine, there are some people who do not understand this and do not like it. Some Muslims think that they cannot associate with other people. And even some Adventists or Christians have trouble thinking that they can be working with and walking together with Muslims. We are breaking down walls of prejudice and ignorance and then building a community of young people who are choosing to be the best they can be, choosing to work together, and choosing to be a blessing in the community. It is very exciting, but we need your prayers.

I recently wrote an article that will be published in the Journal of Adventist missions later this year. The published article is a shorter version since we had to limit its size, but if you would have an interest in reading the long version with all of the footnotes, you're welcome to email me and I will send you that document. It is called, Lessons from War. In the article I describe some of the challenges that I face in my work and some of the exciting things that are happening.

I am being regularly encouraged that I need to write more. I need your prayers with that. It is something that I want to do, but I need to begin to seriously carve out the time to do it. It is one of my goals this year to be better at. So I hope that you can pray and encourage as you are able.

A few weeks ago we did something new. I took my leadership team and some others who had an interest in this for a special weekend. We all came together to spend some focused time of prayer and reflection and solitude together. I realize the words solitude and together do not make much sense. Let me explain. This is a activity that I normally do alone for 2-3 days each year. It helps me to reflect on the year that is past, and to re-surrender my life to God, and look forward to the next year. I take time to look at the roles in my life and how I am doing and re-surrender everything to my God. But, I wanted to invite some others to experience it also. So, this was a led, spiritual, personal and group retreat. I explained some of the basic principles and the process. And then everyone went out and experienced it for hours on their own.

If you have not considered making this a personal growth habit for your life, I would suggest reading two documents (in English or Indonesian) and apply them in your life. Your life and the new year will never be the same. Let me know if you would like to have a copy of these documents, I can email them to you.

One more picture I must share is from a recent father daughter date where Hannah and I went to an outdoor adventure place with cable courses, climbing things and scary high stuff. If you go to my FB page you will see my amateur video of that day. But, this is my favorite picture of the day. Sometimes, we really need to help our kids!

Now that 2013 is in full swing, we are excited and looking forward to coming back and visiting friends and family in June and July. Thanks for taking the time to read this if you've gotten this far. If not, I understand. Again, I apologize for not writing more recently. I do hope and pray that I can make a much better habit this year than I have in the past.

We love hearing from you if you have the time. As you might imagine, we do get very lonely here for our friends in America. We are grateful to be where we are, but we miss many of you very much.

May this coming year be one that brings you closer to God in every area of your life. From our house to yours, we love you and we miss you.

Posted with Blogsy

                          

Here are some thoughts that have riveted my ears and seared my mind as I am hearing the truths of his research coming out. [I am writing from notes scribbled on paper as I listen and replay certain unavoidable sections, but I don't have page numbers. I do apologize. Maybe I will get the Kindle version and track some of these down later.]

1. Of the younger groups that were studied, 85% saw Christians as hypocritical! Ouch. Remember, perceptions build peoples’ pictures of reality.
2. Part of the reason for #1 is that statistically there was very little noticeable difference between people claiming to be Christian and those who did not. One case in point, people claiming to have participated in some sort of sexually immoral activity in the last 30 days (pornography, suggestive movies, extramarital affairs, sex outside of marriage, homosexual activities, etc.): 35% for non-Christian people; 30% for born again Christians (he gives a good definition of that group as well). Amazing!! In other words, if the two groups were in a room together and based on responses to this question there would be NO NOTICEABLE distinction between their moral underpinnings in this area other than the “label”!
3. According to the things that Christians use to determine who is “in” or “out” from their groups are the very things that Christians are not doing themselves – that is hypocrisy.
4. People outside the faith of Christianity have even said this: 84% said they knew a “born again” Christian [that is great as far as coverage and "witnessing" is concerned]; BUT, only 15% thought that person’s lifestyle was any different from theirs [so, what happens to the power of witness then]! Prayerfully ponder that.
5. In an age of technology and the idea that more “eyeballs” equals more “impact” for the gospel, research showed (in start contrast) that the combined effects of radio, TV, and literature tracts on blessing the control group being studied amounted to less than one-half of one percent as being a contributor to their choosing a deeper faith experience with God. The overwhelming reality that impacts people is the relationships they have and the people they know. Which means we better read number 4 again.

I will stop here for now and get back to listening – and maybe you can pick up the book sometime as well. These are important questions and issues to ponder, pray about, and wrestle with.

I’ll leave you with one of his conclusions from the hypocrisy section (my paraphrase from listening): Could it be that God is using these cultural accusations of hypocrisy to point out the lack of true faith and the shallowness that often passes for conviction? Might these responses be God’s way of calling us to repentance and radical change? Could God be using the world to tell us Revelation 3:14-22, again?

I hope so. It has for me.

                          

I was recently in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, speaking to a small group of pastors and teachers and one of the subjects in the course of the week that I talked about was a simple, yet potentially life changing tool for your spiritual growth: the prayer journal.

I have been a “journal-er” for a number of years now and these are some simple things I have learned. I hope it can be a blessing to you as you seek to learn from your life and grow deeper in your walk with God. I do not claim to be an expert in this subject (or any for that matter except one: my failures and God’s faithfulness through it all), but I have learned a few useful things that might encourage you to start the habit or help you fine tune your already existing habit.

1. First of all, what is the purpose of the prayer journal? There can be many possible answers, and they are not exclusive of one another: a diary or record of activities (whether daily or on a fairly consistent basis); an ongoing prayer to God walking through the ins and outs of your life; a collection of your Golden List (I’ll explain below); a record of whenever you see God showing up in your life (this can be random at first, but when your personal walk with God grows and it starts happening almost every day, it is truly awesome); finally, it can be an honest reflection of God’s working, your failures and growth, and His incredible faithfulness.
2. For me, my journal ends up being a mix of all of those possible reasons and can change from time to time in its format. But, in the changing, one thing is constant, it is me writing to God and talking with Him. It is not a list or collection being captured for some unknown future reader (or even my wife who occassionally reads as well – with permission), but I am always writing in conversation with my God! I find that to be a simple and beautiful thing.
3. The Golden List. This is a great idea and can help you to start journaling on a daily basis. The name and idea comes initially from the great and easy reading book: The Ultimate Journey, by Jim Stovall. Though the same idea has been shared by other authors through the years (including Ellen White within SDA circles, and more recently even by best selling author Robin Sharma). The Golden List is quite simple. It is just a list of 5 or 10 things each morning that you are thankful or grateful for. For example: good health, blessed marriage, a job, healthy children, recent blessings, good friends, etc. This becomes a great “jump-starter” for you to start telling God thank you for all He has been doing in your life. Nothing should be taken for granted in these challenging times. No one is guaranteed an easy ride! Say thank you and start your day off on the right foot. It can often lead you into sharing your heart needs with God as well.
4. My journal has many roles now. I use it as a verbal “picture” of my life. Where I am living, my family makeup (including any students living with us, any animals that my wife and kids bring into our home), addresses, phone numbers, current working situation. All of those I list at the beginning. Then, I recommit and resurrender my life to God in writing. No waffling, no second guessing, I want what God wants. I want to give my life fully to Him, no matter the cost or the pain and I tell Him and anyone else reading it. I am His. I belong to Him. Then, I have begun making a simple index page that I will populate as I write particularly important reflections, miracles, or useful facts. Finally, at the back I keep a list of the books I have read during that journal and any particular Scripture focus areas I have listened to or read repeatedly (the Bible or the Qur’an). This addition has been a great way for me to track the new things I am learning (I am a platinum member of Audible.com and love filling my traffic time while traveling with great material to help me grow, in addition to large amounts of Scripture and other spiritual authors being listened to regulary).
5. One more thing that I have added to my journal that is really blessing me is to go from the back part, after the items I mentioned above, and keep track of my actual prayer list of people and needs that I am regularly bringing before God in prayer. So, I number from 1 and on, using the actual day that the requests are entered as breaks for the prayer requests. Then, each day as I pray I am being reminded of the needs and I am able to remember more throughout the day to keep praying (I personally don’t think God needs the repetition, but I do) and to redeem any “open” moments when I am not busy actively serving, learning, loving, or sleeping. Remember, we should seek to redeem the time and to capture every thought so that we can walk godly lives through various spiritual disciplines and surrendering to God and His will. So, the beginning of the journal goes from the front to the back in a running prayer to God and capturing the activities and miracles of what God is doing in my life so I don’t forget them; and then, from the back of the book moving forward is my ongoing prayer list. This list is being constantly monitored that way and I am able to see the answers to prayer and rejoice in God’s love and mercy in my life and in the lives of others whom I am praying for. This also means that both my personal journal and my prayer list are in the same book and are easy to keep with me. Keeping a prayer list allows me to tell people with integrity that I will pray for them and actually mean in and do it with this simple tool.
6. So, you might ask, “what’s the point, how does this help me?” Great question, glad you asked! This journal now becomes a way to remember your growth, struggles, God’s mercies, and so forth. This keeps you from forgetting the way that God has led you. One author has quipped, “you have nothing to fear for the future unless you forget the way that God has led you in the past.” A journal like this is a way to combat fear for the future since you are reminded of what God has done throughout the last year or more. I like to take time during each year to review the journal before and see the way that God has led and blessed through that time. I normally do a review on my birthday as I recommit my life for the next year that God has so graciously given me and then also again at year end. I take time to read over the previous journal, and say thank you for what God has done. I also like to keep track of any people in that previous year who have specifically blessed me. I try to send them a thank you note as well (this is a new habit I am trying to incorporate into my life after reading about it from Doug Phillips at Vision Forum). I find these two times of year to be a rich blessing to me and help me to keep my personal relationship with God and others growing beautifully.
7. Before I finish the way this has blessed me, I need to write a few more words. Journaling helps you to capture pictures of your life that poor memory will lose. Also, as you capture these moments you can learn about your life and help to navigate the future by knowing yourself and your God better. A simple book with a little time can be a spiritual life saver when the enemy tries to discourage you and your memory is faulty. You can find the many ways that God is real and has blessed you or others, answered prayers, or simply walked with through thick and thin.

Let me know your thoughts about this. I hope this has blessed you. How has a journal blessed you as well? I would love to hear from you about your experiences.

                          

I shared with them a short description of my journey and then gave a shared call for true people of faith to live that faith in these days just before the return of Isa al Masih (Jesus Christ).  In a time of rampant hypocrisy, bold rebellion, mesmerizing materialism, and deadly fanaticism, it is high time for us to wake up and move out of the darkness into the mighty light of the God of grace and mercy.  It is time for us to live out our faith in community, agreement, partnership, and praise.

The presentation was recorded and aired to other places around the world, apparently, but you can access it here.

Please let me know what you think of it.  And, let’s walk together for His glory.

Here is the audio for the presentation.

02 05-05-2011-SDA-BryanGallant-MoreThanWeRealise-1 Talk Only

If you would like to have the pdf of the slides presented, they are here.

More than we realize Australia

                          

Therefore, later as he was running out to go practice piano, I told him to go and get a particular book in the library to read. He responded and said that he did not want to read that one and went and got another one.

Sadly, because he did not obey what I said he completely failed to see the blessing that was waiting for him next to the exact book I had mentioned! My father heart won’t give up and I will try to bless him another day.

But, as I reflected on his actions, I wondered how many times my responses to God produce similar, empty results?

How many times does God want to bless us and asks us to do things that we may decide to do only half heartedly and miss out on the greater blessing He had in mind the whole time?

Could it be that behind the calls to obey lie greater blessings? I suspect so.

                          

I am sitting in the back room of our house in my new office listening to a chorus of “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Greater” on all sides of our home.  Ramadan has ended and the countryside is rejoicing in the coming of the holiday. I find it rather beautiful.

Beautiful to remember that God is Greater than anything.  Any trouble, any concern, anything:  governments, opinions, machinations of Satan, book burnings, all of it.

God is Greater!  God is still in control.  Take a moment and praise Him for He is worthy!  Praise Him that we have the promise of the soon return of Jesus Christ to finally and fully establish God’s Kingdom in our lives.

                          

Ego – Position – Value

So often our ego needs and clamors for a position. W then judge our value based on that position which naturally leads us to a greater void in the ego (because it can never be satisfied) thereby perpetuating the cycle. Our joy and feelings are then in a constant state of going up or down depending on those external issues.

But, God desires to set us free from this threefold tyranny!

Because in His reality of life our value is set already. It is set not by any inherent activity of our own or from the external trappings from others. Our value is set by God as our Maker and the One who pursued us to buy us back when He gave that clothing of righteousness (taqwa) to our first parents a long, long time ago and again through the submission of the Messiah for all humanity (made like Adam again).

Therefore in God’s view (the only real one anyway), we are valuable with an infinite value because of Him and who He is! That value is unchanging and timeless. It cannot be diminished by anything earthy – nothing can separate us from His love because it is in Him.*

So, if our value is set and we are rested in that truth then the cycle breaks! Our position is irrelevant and our ego is subsumed in worship to such an amazing love and to the God of that love.

No more schizophrenic drives, no more irrational fear of worthlessness.

Life becomes whole, free, and purposeful.

Free to serve, free to receive love, free to give love, free to “be” instead of merely “do”.

What a priceless freedom. Only that reality can break this self-cycle of tyrrany.

True freedom from tyrrany!

——

*Of course not all will respond to that love and they will persist in rebellion. But even when judgment comes for them it will not be outside of this infinite love. Infinite love will be still be breaking for them as Love honors their choice of separation from Him.

                          

Here are seven things that we reminded ourselves of and then chose to remember and live by. I hope they are a blessing to you. He has proven Himself again to us through it all.

1. God is passionately loving and loves us. If God is for us – who can be against us (God cannot lie).

2. God has a good plan. If I submit to His leadership, He is able to bring that to fruition faster.

3. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Implication: if someone leaves, it is us. So, if we constantly choose to be His, we will NEVER be alone and outside of His care.

4. We are His responsibility. He is our Father, protector, provider, and keeper. We trust Him – He cares for us.

5. All things that impact our life come from Him. The faster we realize that, the faster we resubmit our lives fully to Him and can watch Him orchestrate our lives for His glory.

6. Our choice is to submit constantly to Him because He is all we truly desire.

7. I don’t have to understand how God is leading. He is in control, not me. My “leadership” in my family or team is not in knowing what is ahead but in remaining fully connected to God and following Him wherever and however He leads. So, in leading, I am actually following!

What is your list of indisputables like?

                          

We acknowledge His supremacy in both our lives and the world. He reigns supreme. He is worthy of all our praise and service. He is love and we trust Him.

I have been blessed this morning with some powerful words from Richard Foster about this very thing. In speaking of the prayer of Relinquishment, he says that it “is a bona fide letting go, but it is a release with hope. We have no fatalist resignation. We are buoyed up by a confident trust in the character of God. Even when all we see are the tangled threads on the backside of life’s tapestry we know that God is good and is out to do us good always. That gives us hope to believe that we are the winners, regardless of what we are being called upon to relinquish. God is inviting us deeper in and higher up. There is training in righteousness, transforming power, new joys, deeper intimacy.” [Prayer Treasury, by Richard Foster, page 52]

Further on in the process of relinquishing or submitting we realize over and over again that we have some challenging issues, however, in making that a reality. Actually, we can’t make it a reality. We can choose, but only He can make it work. So, what do we choose? To die to self, to surrender, to “islam” (the word in Arabic literally means to submit or surrender); whichever version you prefer, the process will be similar. And, it will hurt. Soren Kierkegaard says, “God creates everything out of nothing — and everything which he is to use he first reduces to nothing.” Ouch!

It will be the death of self and all its “hyphenated sins.” Or, again, as Foster relates, “It means freedom from what A.W. Tozer called ‘the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit.’ It means freedom from the self-sins: self-sufficiency, self-pity, self-absorption, self-abuse, self-aggrandizement, self-castigation, self-deception, self-exaltation, self-depreciation, self-indulgence, self-hatred, and a host of others just like them. It means freedom from the everlasting burden of always having to get our own way. It means freedom to care for others, to genuinely put their needs first, to give joyfully and freely.” [ibid. page 54]

Read those again. Freedom from SELF:
SELF. . .sufficiency,
SELF. . .pity,
SELF. . .absorption,
SELF. . .abuse,
SELF. . .aggrandizement,
SELF. . .castigation,
SELF. . .deception,
SELF. . .exaltation,
SELF. . .depreciation,
SELF. . .indulgence,
SELF. . .hatred.

WOW! Have you experienced any of those? Of course we have. Want to be free from all of them?

Wouldn’t life be powerful without needing to worry about them because they are dead and we are alive to a new life of power, passion, peace, purpose, and praise! I long to remain in that second list.

POWER, PASSION, PEACE, PURPOSE, and PRAISE!

Oh God, thank you for setting us free from those hyphenated sins and giving us new life and purpose in You!