>God is neither hardhearted nor softminded. He is toughminded enough to transcend the world; he is tenderhearted enough to live in it. He does not leave us alone in our agonies and struggles. He seeks us in dark places and suffers with us and for us in our tragic prodigality.
At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice. When slumbering giants of injustice emerge in the earth, we need to know that there is a God of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like the green herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man.
But there are also times when we need to know that God possesses love and mercy. When we are staggered by the chilly winds of adversity and battered by the raging storms of disappointment and when through our folly and sin we stray into some destructive far country and are frustrated because of a strange feeling of homesickness, we need to know that there is Someone who loves us, cares for us, understands us, and will give us another chance.
When days grow dark and nights grow dreary, we can be thankful that our God combines in his nature a creative synthesis of love and justice which will lead us through life’s dark valleys and into sunlit pathways of hope and fulfilment.
— from Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr

So many times people try to only pick one side of God. When someone has hurt us we want Him to be a God who deals with that person, but when we are the one who has done the hurting we want a God of mercy. I agree with Mr. King, I am thankful our God is both toughminded and tenderhearted. Toughminded enough to give us truth and discipline but tenderhearted enough to give us a second chance when we have went away from that truth.
This is the example that Jesus gave us when he came to reveal God to us in the flesh.

Jesus was toughminded. He could not be “handled” no matter how hard the people tried. He could not be influenced or swayed or deceived or stumped. He could not be emotionally manipulated or intimidated by popular opinion. He used his mind. He knew how to think. He knew truth and the lie can never stand up against the truth.

Jesus was also tenderhearted enough that he felt compassion for all. He didn’t use His knowledge to condemn another or beat them further down into their sin. He didn’t see Himself as more superior and walk over the one who was dead in their sin. Jesus rolled up His sleeves and got right down in the muck of another’s life in order to use His tough mind to pull them up.

We are called as believers to be “shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16), “to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.” (Romans 16:19) We too must be both toughminded and tenderhearted. Our minds must be strong enough to hold up against all the lies of the enemy and all the philosophies and false doctrines of man. Yet we must also be able to give compassion (not pity) and mercy and grace to those who in their soft mind and weakness have become a prey.

I believe this can only be accomplished in and through Christ in us. We have not the ability to do this on our own… we will either be tenderhearted with no toughmind, allowing all sorts of sin and corruption with no rebuke, calling it tolerance or even love. Or we will be only toughminded and will love not. We will be cold and heartless and show no compassion to those who live below our standard.

As I parent my children I can see the need for both the tenderheart and toughmind. I must be toughminded so that I know how to lead them and set a standard and expect it to be kept. I have to be toughminded enough to not allow my children to “handle” me. My children will not control me by emotion. However, I also need to be tenderhearted with my children showing them love and mercy and grace. They need to know that they are loved because they are mine, not because they are perfect.

My parents use to tell me that they loved me with one hand and the other hand was for my backside when I got out of line. And it was true. I knew they loved me no matter what, but I also knew they would discipline me no matter what.

Hmmm how interesting it is that over and over as we discover the truths of the character of God we find the greatest illustrations of Him (other than Christ Himself) in the family, either through marriage or the raising of our children.

No wonder Satan works so hard to destroy and distort the family…

Well yesterday was my first experience with New Orleans.
I walked with my husband down the streets… some of them beautiful… some of them flat out terrifying and so very sad.

Yes I went down Bourbon Street.

I have never been to a city like this one. I usually feel rather safe wherever I am and I don’t scare very easily. Of course this has gotten me into trouble many times.

In my life I have ended up in many places I had no business being. What made it worse was that I was in these places with no protection or covering. I was indeed very foolish in my days of rebellion against my God.

I had actually planned to come to Mardi Gras once when in these days of rebellion. After walking down this street on the arm of my protective husband, I know that it was God’s intervention that stopped this visit. I believe my plan was actually to come to the Mardi Gras after I met my husband, it was meeting him that stopped that road trip. I had him on my mind, not Mardi Gras.

I shudder to think of what might have happened had I been so foolish to have come to this place during that time as a 21 year old woman, who would have at that time no doubt been intoxicated and blind, and without the covering of God, or my father, or a husband.

I thank God for His times of divine intervention.

We made it to Bourbon Street and my husband looked at me and said “Are you ready?” My hands began to sweat immediately and my stomach went in to knots. But yes I was ready.

The smell was different on this street, my husband described it as a mix of urine and vomit, like the smell of the nastiest night club bathroom you had ever been in… and yes that is how the entire street smelled. We both know that smell well from our own days of rebellion against God and His ways.

There was a sense of imminent danger, and the feeling of knowing that this was a place of evil.

I walked with a death grip on my husbands hand. Yet I walked with confidence and assurance because I had two of my greatest protectors with me, my God and my husband.

This was a moment that I was reminded of one of the reasons I love my husband.

He sets his guard around me as if he is my own personal body guard, and he is. When I am on the arm of my husband I truly do not worry, no matter what is going on around me. I knew someone would have to go through him to get to me and he walks with me on his arm in a such a way that says, “She is mine, you touch her, or say or do anything out of the way to her to hurt her in any way and I will kill you.”

This is also the way I always felt when I went somewhere with my earthly father. I knew if I was with my Daddy, all would be fine. I still feel that way when with him.

I have been blessed with protection.

As I walked down this street and saw these women, sitting in the doorways, barely clothed, my first thought went to my flesh of fear of my husband seeing them and desiring them over me. Hate and jealousy almost springing up over women who hadn’t even saw me or my husband yet.

Crazy? Yes…

Then as I walked, my heart quickly became heavy with sadness for these women… where were their protectors?

In my days of rebellion against God I shook off my protectors. I told my God and my earthly father (not out loud mind you, just in a spiritual sense, I never lost my fear of God nor my Daddy, I know this is what kept me in those days, my fear and underlying respect of them both) that I didn’t need them and I went my own way. It was the wrong way and I got hurt. I still bare the scars of this rebellion.

There were men walking up and down this street, but they were there to exploit these women, not protect them. They were here to use them and destroy them, not rescue them. Here was Satan walking in and amongst these men and women blinding them with drunken intoxication and lust of the flesh and the momentary pleasures of sin and binding them in heavier and heavier chains.

I looked at these men and these women and I knew that was once me. I know that could easily be me again if I do not stay under the protective arm of my God and my husband. I know this because as we turned off Bourbon Street and up another block, the beauty of New Orleans was seen.

The old buildings with the iron railings. The ferns on the balconies. The horse drawn carriages. The sound of street jazz music playing in the air.

Yes intoxicating.

How easy it would be to come in here on this street and have a glass of wine or mixed drink… then have another… and then find yourself back on Bourbon Street.

The devil knows what he is doing.

There was an entire street we walked down that was lined up with booth after booth of “psychics”. What was interesting about this was they were set up right outside the front door of a huge beautiful church building. Now I do not know if this is an active church or just a building now, but how very sad the sight was. It reminded me of the days of Ahaz that I studied in Isaiah and how the people brought the idols into the temple of God… and no one cared.

Oh church we must get busy. We can’t just keep living our lives behind our stained glass walls and pretending that there are not people out their in chains that need set free.

As we walked down these streets I wondered what would happen if I ran up and down these streets shouting “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;…” (Rev 18:4)

Then I had to ask myself, if God really asked me to do that, would I obey?