If I was to finish that title it would include:
The Good side and the Bad Side
I could start by listing you off a long list of reasons why I hate traditions and maybe I should, but I won't. I'll let you search in this blog post and discover my reasons.
If you have read my all-famous About-Me page(which I hate) you will know that I grew up in a Mennonite Church. I respect the fact that some of you may still be there. I just want to say this... It is likely one of the first places one could refer to when discussing Traditions. This would also be the spot to reference back to the sub-title "The good side and the bad side".
You see, you can have a good tradition of always having mashed potatoes on monday nights, there is nothing wrong with that. Mashed potatoes are good, and if its something your family or you always do and it's a tradition you have put in place, there is nothing wrong with that. But now to all you anti-tradition people I ask the question. Did doing the same thing a couple months in a row make it wrong? Or what makes a tradition wrong?
What makes a tradition wrong?
Back to our mashed potato example. If my family decides to have mashed potatoes every monday night(which we don't) and then all of a sudden one monday night we missed it because Mom ran out of potatoes in the house and now we all feel guilty and feel like we have sinned not only towards our family but towards God and we feel the need to confess to God over missing mashed potatoes on monday night, is that not wrong?
You see the tradition had no point to it. It was simply something that the family decided to start. There was no spiritual value one way or the other... It wasn't a point where our relationship with Jesus Christ was put in jeopardy if we by chance didn't have mashed potatoes on monday night, but rather just a simple decision that we as a family are going to have mashed potatoes on monday nights.
Let's take this a step further... and don't laugh we will continue with the mashed potatoes on monday night scenario.
Let's just say my Dad's Grandparents had the tradition of mashed potatoes on monday night, and their reasoning behind it had no spiritual meaning, but was simply the fact that because of the Great Depression, Grandpa only went to the General Store in the Big City every monday to exchange enough corn from the garden for enough potatoes for one meal as long as they were mashed and whipped. This became a standard by which was passed onto my Grandpa which passed it onto my Dad. Who when starting his home insisted on having mashed potatoes on monday nights. with simply the reason of carrying on a generational tradition in hopes that each one of us children would do the same.
Now if I don't carry on that tradition for mashed potatoes on monday night. Have I sinned?
Should I go back and confess to my parents and to God, for not carrying on the tradition of mashed potatoes on monday night?
Excuse #1: We have done it for years, why change it.
Excuse #2: We don't know anything different.
Excuse #3: Coming from my Dad here, "your mother adjusted" she used to have rice every monday night in remembrance of her Great-Aunt Once removed's trip to India in the year of 1902 which she never returned from because she died of a terrible disease.
You are all likely for sure laughing by now, but do you get my point of how ridiculous this can get and how quickly we don't even know why.
Why do you wear a veil on your head if you are a women? My Church has done it for generations.... AHHHH that makes me want to scream.
Why do you wear a veil on your head? Is is not to show honour and glory to God, and a sign that you respect and believe in God's perfect design(and much more could be added to that).
Or has it simply become nothing more than a tradition, where all you do is make mashed potatoes on monday night because Great-Grandpa did? Or you wear a veil on your head at a certain age because your previous 8 generations back Grandma did the same thing?
That's why I believe it is so important for each one of us to discover what you believe, why you believe, how it is going to change the way you operate, and what are you going to help instil the Bible and its instructions in the next generation so that it doesn't become nothing more than mashed potatoes on monday night.
If you haven't had the opportunity in your lifetime to discover on your own what you believe? What do you believe about God? Who is He to you? What has He done in your life that has changed You? any of those I encourage you to do so. You will be so amazed by what you learn.
All of a sudden a tradition with a spiritual meaning, which you have newly discovered will take a whole new meaning.
Do I say all this to say I am in favour of traditions? No I don't what I do say is this.
"Don't allow the things you do with a Spiritual/Biblical reason and instruction to become nothing more than a heap of mashed potatoes on monday night."
Please feel free to comment... I know some of you have tried... and I am trying to get that fixed... So please comment....
As always God bless,
The Good side and the Bad Side
I could start by listing you off a long list of reasons why I hate traditions and maybe I should, but I won't. I'll let you search in this blog post and discover my reasons.
If you have read my all-famous About-Me page(which I hate) you will know that I grew up in a Mennonite Church. I respect the fact that some of you may still be there. I just want to say this... It is likely one of the first places one could refer to when discussing Traditions. This would also be the spot to reference back to the sub-title "The good side and the bad side".
You see, you can have a good tradition of always having mashed potatoes on monday nights, there is nothing wrong with that. Mashed potatoes are good, and if its something your family or you always do and it's a tradition you have put in place, there is nothing wrong with that. But now to all you anti-tradition people I ask the question. Did doing the same thing a couple months in a row make it wrong? Or what makes a tradition wrong?
What makes a tradition wrong?
Back to our mashed potato example. If my family decides to have mashed potatoes every monday night(which we don't) and then all of a sudden one monday night we missed it because Mom ran out of potatoes in the house and now we all feel guilty and feel like we have sinned not only towards our family but towards God and we feel the need to confess to God over missing mashed potatoes on monday night, is that not wrong?
You see the tradition had no point to it. It was simply something that the family decided to start. There was no spiritual value one way or the other... It wasn't a point where our relationship with Jesus Christ was put in jeopardy if we by chance didn't have mashed potatoes on monday night, but rather just a simple decision that we as a family are going to have mashed potatoes on monday nights.
Let's take this a step further... and don't laugh we will continue with the mashed potatoes on monday night scenario.
Let's just say my Dad's Grandparents had the tradition of mashed potatoes on monday night, and their reasoning behind it had no spiritual meaning, but was simply the fact that because of the Great Depression, Grandpa only went to the General Store in the Big City every monday to exchange enough corn from the garden for enough potatoes for one meal as long as they were mashed and whipped. This became a standard by which was passed onto my Grandpa which passed it onto my Dad. Who when starting his home insisted on having mashed potatoes on monday nights. with simply the reason of carrying on a generational tradition in hopes that each one of us children would do the same.
Now if I don't carry on that tradition for mashed potatoes on monday night. Have I sinned?
Should I go back and confess to my parents and to God, for not carrying on the tradition of mashed potatoes on monday night?
Excuse #1: We have done it for years, why change it.
Excuse #2: We don't know anything different.
Excuse #3: Coming from my Dad here, "your mother adjusted" she used to have rice every monday night in remembrance of her Great-Aunt Once removed's trip to India in the year of 1902 which she never returned from because she died of a terrible disease.
You are all likely for sure laughing by now, but do you get my point of how ridiculous this can get and how quickly we don't even know why.
Why do you wear a veil on your head if you are a women? My Church has done it for generations.... AHHHH that makes me want to scream.
Why do you wear a veil on your head? Is is not to show honour and glory to God, and a sign that you respect and believe in God's perfect design(and much more could be added to that).
Or has it simply become nothing more than a tradition, where all you do is make mashed potatoes on monday night because Great-Grandpa did? Or you wear a veil on your head at a certain age because your previous 8 generations back Grandma did the same thing?
That's why I believe it is so important for each one of us to discover what you believe, why you believe, how it is going to change the way you operate, and what are you going to help instil the Bible and its instructions in the next generation so that it doesn't become nothing more than mashed potatoes on monday night.
If you haven't had the opportunity in your lifetime to discover on your own what you believe? What do you believe about God? Who is He to you? What has He done in your life that has changed You? any of those I encourage you to do so. You will be so amazed by what you learn.
All of a sudden a tradition with a spiritual meaning, which you have newly discovered will take a whole new meaning.
Do I say all this to say I am in favour of traditions? No I don't what I do say is this.
"Don't allow the things you do with a Spiritual/Biblical reason and instruction to become nothing more than a heap of mashed potatoes on monday night."
Please feel free to comment... I know some of you have tried... and I am trying to get that fixed... So please comment....
As always God bless,
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