Untangling

We are constantly aware of other people’s opinions. They surround us, filling the perception of ourselves.

Are people going to make fun of my hair? Did I play good enough at the game?
Do my pants look alright? I’m not as spiritual as he wants.
What does he think of me? Does she love me? Do my parents think I’m a success?
Am I a good friend? Did I say the right thing? He does not think I am as pretty as her.

We are bombarded by the worries of judgment by other people. It’s easy for our lives to be lived in the fear of being less than adequate, a failure. We setup our standards in comparison to others so quickly.

Our culture shows us who we should be on magazines. We see the model of perfection on television. The worldly standards are set in plain view. Beautiful, rich, attractive, successful… words and images that plague our minds.

Not only do worldly models of perfection stress us out, but even the church culture.
We see people worshiping so fiercely, so intensely, so passionately….and wonder….

Why can’t I be like them?

I went through a phase in my spiritual life where I thought I could never measure up to other Christians.

They knew so much about the Bible. I knew so little.
They had such perfect smiling faces. I was depressed and awkward.

I was constantly comparing myself to others.
I forgot about the only true judge of my person.

And that is God.

“We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.”

God is the only one who knows us the the maximum. He knows our thoughts and our longings. He knows where our heart dwells.

I was so worried about not having perfect worship, perfect knowledge, a perfect mindset.

But God knew that I wanted to worship him, wanted to believe him, wanted to be good with Him.

God is going to look at you. He is not going to compare you to John, to Bob, to Sarah, to Jane.

He is going to look at your person, your desire for Him.

Even if you were the last person on earth, he would still have sent His son to die for you.

That is how much he loves you and enjoys you. He made you. He wanted you to exist in the first place. He does not care what Martha thinks about your shirt or Jenny thinks about your grades. As long as you are not causing others to sin on purpose, God is for you.

We oftentimes compare ourselves to others who were born with different gifts, circumstances. But we can’t. We were all given different traits, appearances. We are supposed to be different.

If you think someone is prettier than you, celebrate it. God made that person, loves them.

If someone is more spiritual than you, remember that God encouraged them to be that way. God gave them the nutrition to grow in that way.

We are all different. But in God’s eyes we are all the same, all fallen, all imperfect, all needing of a savior.

When jealousy comes along, remember that we are all in the same boat. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all need something, we all need Jesus to make our weaknesses into strengths.

Whenever the downcast thought approaches, when the depression overtakes, with the ineptitude of your qualities overwhelms you and makes you sad, remember that God loves you. He wants to help you.

Call out to God humbly. Talk about your weaknesses. He will make you strong.

“Humble yourselves, therefore under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

Check out this Blog on God’s opinion of Success

Success in God’s Eyes

“You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” James 4:14

Sometimes you realize…when you are walking down the street…the trees swaying, the pavement wet, purple flowers withering, drops of rain….your life is nearing death, waiting for the end.

Everyday holds a possibility for dying.

The car could crash. The building could collapse. The gun could fire. Your breath could expire.

Why don’t we live in that reality?
Why do we insist on slopping around our time, as if time was an entity to be wasted?

No day is going to be exactly like today.
No sunset will be the same.

We do not value everyday to the extent we should.
We are constantly waiting for the next one to arrive, for tomorrow to happen, for Friday to be enacted.
Students sit in classrooms longing for time to go by quicker.
Workers wait for shifts to be over.

We are pushing for death in the way we want time to pass.
We should value every moment, make the most of it and realize how mysterious and insane life is.
Think about earth. A little globe floating around in the middle of a big nowhere.
Think about the continents, the countries, the states, the provinces, the counties, the towns, the neighborhoods, the homes…

And you are sitting in that home.

How small are you in the whole spectrum of things?
How is it that you are living?

Why even live?
Why even try?

There has to be more to this existence. Why waste this unique life you have on drugs, on pointless endeavors, on trying to get the perfect job, on trying to find the perfect person? Look how meaningless it all is.

Without a greater purpose, your life is like a baseball game that without any players, without rules, without anyone watching, without an empire. You are just hitting a ball around without any goal.

Your can allow your life to be meaningless…or you can look beyond what the world tells you.

You can choose to say that you are here just because of a natural phenomenon.
Or you can choose to search for the source of your existence, your Maker, your savior, your God.

He put you here with a purpose. He gave you the delicate life you hold for a reason.
Your time here on earth can be spent bringing God glory.

When you pursue God, when you fill your life, make your life worship…life becomes ever so full, so real, so devastatingly beautiful. When you realize why you are here…you begin to fill your wasted time with goodness.

“Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things, for you died and your life is now hidden in Christ Jesus.”

“So we fix our eyes not on what is sen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Take a look at your moments, at the way your life has been going…perhaps you will find something beyond.

Some ideas were from the Purpose Driven Life

You wake up in the morning feeling like scum. No one loves you. You do not have a boyfriend. Never have. You must be ugly, unwanted. You look in the mirror, see for a second a glimmer of beauty, but the world has told you otherwise.

No person is in love with you. You should feel like perfectly good garbage.

You’ve given up on humanly love. Once, you thought that someone liked you, was fond of you and then the episode ended in confused rejection. You can trust no one.

A person who is starving for love from another human being will daydream in dangerous portions.

Humans want to be loved and to have someone to love.
Something in us longs to be filled.
Girls want to be romanced, to feel beautiful.
Guys want to be the hero, to have a pretty girl by their side, or a conquest taken.

But since we are all humans, why are we so obsessed with finding another lowly person to fill our sorrows? Why are we pushing for all of our love to come from another human who is incapable of perfect love?

We get in relationships because we think we fill find love makes us happy.
Our culture tells us that that one special person will satisfy our every loving need.

But every hopeful ‘princess’ and every aspiring ‘prince charming,’ has been duped by a deceiving spell.

People are not perfect.
People cannot give perfect love.

We strive to find the ‘one’ and when we think we find them, we are unsatisfied.

Getting love from another human being can bring much happiness, but people always fail.

Nobody can be completely content in a marriage alone unless another factor is involved. People cannot find lasting joy in a couple built from imperfect people.

The happiest, fulfilling relationship is built on the love of God. That love never fails. God is love.

When we get all of our confidence and main source of joy from God, everything clicks. When your ’soul mate’ fails you, God is still there. He always wants you. Never changes His mind. He gives you flowers, adventures, food, your looks, air to breathe. He even died for you. Jesus can be your ultimate lover if you would let Him.

When you find happiness alone in God, when you “Delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart.”

God knows you want a relationship. But when you have a relationship that is God-centered, everything comes together.

Go to God first. He’s your true love. He knows what you need.

Ideas for this blog came from Captivating. http://www.ransomedheart.com/

People are merely people until you start noticing how wonderfully unique everyone is. Walk to class, carouse a grocery store…look at the people. They all have the same inner thought process as you. They are thinking. You are thinking. Some will wear skirts, some jeans, some turbans, some necklaces. Hairstyles. Facial expressions. Conversations.

People are so fascinating, but I think we have forgotten.
We are soon to judge.
Soon to hate,
To become jealous.
We think we know a person until we actually talk to them.

First impressions are too false, too scanty.

People are people too.

When you start thinking about your own hurt, don’t you realize that the people you are passing by on campus might be feeling the same way.

Why are we so afraid of people? Why won’t we talk to people? Why do people make fun of other people?

It’s the lack of the golden rule in our world. Treat others as you would want to be treated. A principal fading.

We are so obsessed with ourselves that we forget about the others out there. Look at all the possibilities. What if people weren’t afraid of each other? What if in ‘Aggie’ lingo, we said Howdy to each other?

Christians are called to love, to be a light shining in the darkness. But if we treat people like dirt, like strangers, we become just as dark.

If no excess of love exists, ‘Christians’ are just the same as everyone else.

We need to see other people as spiritual and show the love.

“No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God’s love is made complete in us.”

“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

Look around the people. God made them and loves them. We should love them too.

This blog speaks of the importance of unity with other Christians:

Working Clay Blog

Your life is like a bowl of spagetti. It’s tangled. All of your experiences are mixed together, wrapped in each other. Unfortunately, those bad memories can overtake the good. That day you broke up becomes a noodle strangling your ideas of love. That moment you found out your grade was less than satisfactory becomes a noodle that is drenched with sadness. That day you ruined your career, or you betrayed a friend, you made your mom cry, or you got in a fight…those regretful moments become a never-ending noodle that you can never seem to finish eating.

You dwell on that bad memory, you keep slurping the endless noodle… If you don’t let go and take a bite, you are going to end up choking on the negativity.

Eating the toxic strands of your life is not healthy. Constantly remembering, dwelling, pondering, imagining, thinking, digesting…soon you will be overtaken.

Our bad memories, our failings are hard to forget about because they are so a part of us. We have built our lives around them, entangled all of our emotions in the past. When we mess up, it’s hard to erase that mistake.

Of course if we have wronged someone, we should do something to at least try to fix the problem. Pay the debt. Forgive. Apologize. Go to jail. Admit your mistake. Humble yourself. We should do this because we have been forgiven. Jesus Christ died so that we would be forgiven, the slate washed clean. He forgives even if the person you wronged will not. Jesus, who will forgive the person you wronged even if you insist against it.

So you think it is no big deal to continue on dwelling on the past. Guilt is okay in your book. Anger and frustration are your best friends. You like eating the noodle of your disgusting past. But don’t you know that you are choking, tangled when what you cannot stop thinking about. When you let the past overwhelm you, you cannot move on.

No one really wants to be slurping on the sad thoughts their whole life. It may feel good to keep the anger. It may feel good to keep being jealous. But you will choke.

You have an opportunity to be erased from the old ways. Someone else can eat those bad noodles and help create good noodles in the pasta of your life.

Jesus has paid the penalty of your guilt. He has eaten the toxic noodles, causing death. He died eating up your sin so that you might live eating good food.

Jesus has forgiven you. All you have to do if forgive yourself. Bite away the bad thoughts. They do not need to exist. Forget about the past plaguing you at dinner, at night, in the morning, at the dentist.

Paul, a man who once killed thousands of Christian, talks of the importance of forgetting the past, of letting go of the bad noodles. “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

As soon as we let go, as quickly as we release the noodle strangling our plate, we are more free to do greater things and eat beyond our limitations into a God centered path.

You walk into a old, cramped book room. Evening sunset, rosy and soothing, shreds itself on the antique wallpapered walls. The air is dancing with dust as you survey bookcases loaded with tales of old, classical literature. It is a room that has every book, every work famous to man. Aristotle, Homer, Dickens, Rowling, Shakespeare…Masterpieces. Literary wonders. You pick up “Hamlet,” good but not too controversial. You pick up “Moby Dick,” great description. You cough upon the dust and then you find a Bible. It sits among the books. It looks just like all the others. But somehow, its different. An emblem of life itself. Shining gold words. Holy Bible.
People love the Bible. People hate the Bible. People get worried about using the Bible. People write songs about the Bible. People burn the Bible. People treasure the Bible. The book is controversial.

The number one seller in the world, the Bible somehow stands out. But why is that? What is the Bible exactly? It is just a book? What is the Bible all about? Does its content reveal something more?

Written by 40 different authors over a time period of 1500s years, the Bible is a hefty book. It was not one man who wrote it, as with many authors of literature. It was lots of people, lots of people believing the same things, contributing through one God.

The Hebrew Scriptures, or the Old Testament, tells of creation and the rules of God. It tells of humanity’s failings and God’s wrath, God’s love, people’s lives. Stories and stories of God working in people’s lives. You know of David and Goliath, Adam and Eve, Daniel, Ruth, Esther. The Old Testament shows us how God interceded in these people’s lives and still intercedes in ours today…But the Old Testament is much more than a jumble of accounts. It foreshadows a savior, many passages having prophesies matching up with Jesus’ life. The manna that fell from the sky, the sacrificial lamb…all symbols of the Jesus from the New Testament.

The New Testament is all about Jesus. A testament is a covenant, a promise. God’s new testament was Jesus and his sacrifice. The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have stories and eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ time on earth, the concepts he taught, the death he faced. Most of the other books in the New Testament are written by Paul. Once spiteful, hater, mass killer of Christians, he became a strong spiritual, Christian model. The books encourage people, once they have accepted Christ, to continue on in their faith. They are tools piercing the heart, feeding the truth that is capable of eternal life. That Jesus died. Our sins are forgiven. No longer are we measured strictly by the intense scale of the Old Testament. We are measured by Christ’s death. He died so that we might live fully.

The Bible is God’s story, His word and His promise. It is not just a silly piece of make believe. So many people wrote with the same goal. It was canonized very strictly and carefully, prayerfully. Try putting together a book like the Bible today and you will get contradictions piled up quickly.

The Bible is not magical. But its main promise is a miracle.

Jesus. His Death. Eternal Life. Freedom from sin. God’s love.

Next time you find a dusty old room, find the dusty Bible sitting on the shelf. It is not just a compilation of stories. It reaches into the heart and finds the meaning of life. The text reads differently for believers. You have to understand fully the blessings of God before you can find joy in the word of God.

So find a Bible. Wipe off the dust. You might find it is much more than a good book.

This Blog has a Bible Study built in:
Bible Study Blog

You have acne all over your face. Do you see it? Notice how it hurts you, makes you feel bad. You have been wronged, abused, deceived. You find a twisted delight in prodding at the puss, complaining about the protruding piece of disgust. You look at the mirror, look at yourself. All you care about is your hurt. You focus on only you. And you let the acne, the hurt spread. It overwhelms you. You are constantly conscious of your acne. You cannot forget.

Having acne is like holding a grudge.

You want to get rid of the disgusting spots and thoughts in your life. But something is stopping you. It might be pride. It might be fear. It might be because that acne medicine had false advertising. But mostly it is because you think only of yourself. You and your pain become best enemies, gasping for more of that noxious air to breathe, for more bacteria to tell the world about. You may prod at the acne, may ponder about forgiveness. But you never are willing to destroy your pain, your hurt.
When someone wrongs you, it feels unnatural to forgive.
When you have acne, it feels destructive to pop the zit.

It takes courage and love to initiate forgiveness. You love your face, you are going to give that acne a kick. You show love to that person by destroying the nasty thoughts.

And when you pop the puss, it looks better. You flatten the blob of vileness and take away the sewage of sorrow. You say the “I forgive you” line and begin the process of erasing irritation. Its painful to puncture a puss pocket, to dismiss someone whose hurt you. But it makes the thoughts that plague you go away. You have to learn how to forget.

Forgiveness is an operation. It hurts. It does not feel right. But in the end, it does a whole lot of good.

We all know that popping a zit is not the best way to go about destroying acne. It may spread bacteria. It leaves scars. You are not a perfect person and so you will still have to keep forgiving.

But there is a far better way to get rid of acne. There is an ultimate source of forgiveness. Acne can be destroyed with a chemical solution. Its much more expensive and it may cost you, but it does a better, more sanitary job. In reality, there is no perfect acne removal system. But there is someone who is capable of complete and pure forgiveness. God.

“No matter how deep is the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool.” Isaiah 1:18

God is the ultimate master of forgiveness. We wrong Him everyday. We slander, abuse, pollute, attack, kill, destruct… We have so many words for all the wicked humans are capable of. And yet He forgives us.

How?

He did it through the death of His son. His solution for the acne, for the sin was the substance of His son, of blood.

He killed Himself. Just like you have to kill your pride when you forgive someone, God killed Himself when Jesus died on the cross.

“He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven.” Ephesians 1:7

When we truly believe, we have this realization of forgiveness. No more guilt. He does not hold a grudge. We are free.

And because we are forgiven by God, we are called to forgive others, to pop those zits with the best of our ability.

“You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” Colossians 3:13

It is so difficult to forgive. If something has made you cry so badly, so fiercely…You just hold on to the pain. You do not like giving up something that has hurt you. It is not fair to feel the pain, to be the one having acne.
Why do we keep the grudge? Why should we forgive and move on? Because God has erased our sins. And it would be hypocritical for us to not forgive others.

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Forgiving someone is like killing yourself, your pride. You want justice. You want to let the world know that you have been wronged.

But you have wronged others. Maybe they have never forgiven you. You know how it feels.

There is something wrong with us. We all have faults. But take God. See how allowed himself to die, see how he LOVES us. He took the love potion, the blood and washed away the sins. He is the ultimate forgiver.

God loves you and forgives you…for everything…everything! A difficult concept for humans. But a good example to follow. A good relief for the acne in this world.

You like girl. You try to woo girl. Flowers. Grapes. Tomatoes. Presents you have made with your very own hands. You think about girl constantly. You pursue girl. You give girl everything. Girl takes all the gifts in, praising the items. Only problem is, girl does not notice you, tries not to. Girl thinks you are silly, has a hatred for you. Girl keeps you invisible to her, places you as a thing to be ignored, only a thing. You are hurt, crushed but you continue on. Girl is trapped under a spell, in love with a demonic man. Girl needs to wake up, to find true love. You cannot force her, would not be genuine love. But, you are always there, reminding girl softy, purely of your presence.

This is how God loves and longs for you.

He has been giving you presents ever since you came into existence.

First, He gave you life. You exist. He allowed you to breathe, to think.

Grass to lay in, water to drink, starry skies, the ability to laugh, wind…
trees for shade, bananas perfectly made….

With beauty, He tugs at your heart. Glimpses of God. Love. God is love.
He wants you and gives you clues to allow His love to fill you.

But people reject the beauty. They reject God.

His love is the most pure.

He showed His love by giving up His only son, by dying.
And when we turn Him away, it is kind of like turning down a love.

It is how God feels.

He pursues you. You can either allow His advances or reject Him. A girl has to allow a man to pursue her more. She has to be open to the love.

“Come near to God and He will come near to you.”

He is your truest love.

Think how it feels when someone rejects you. That is how God feels. His emotions are ours. Our emotions are his.

Will you turn His love away or allow the possibilities? Will you allow Him to rescue you from the worldly powers, from the evil one, from Satan?

He is your truest love.

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with His love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Check out this blog relating God’s love in a romantic form.
Peggies Place Blog

Once upon a time you were born. You cannot remember that day. You cannot remember anything. That moment in your life is a sort of fairy tale, so far away and strange. You cannot figure out what that day was like by yourself. You cannot  pick apart your mind and find those days, those days you spent jostling around in the darkness of the womb, growing bones and cells multiplying, organs and tissues,  eyeballs and toes. Your brains did not have the capability of longterm memory. You were this magnificent being unknowing what you would become. You were in a stage of darkness, confusion.

Blankness and uncertainty fills the first epoch of your life. Does that scare you?

Not really.

Because it is natural. Everyone cannot remember their first stages of existence. You were not there mentally so it does not bother you. And you’ve heard about your life through another source. Most likely your parents told you about your day of birth, the months before you can remember, the pictures, the videos, the stories, even the artifacts of your childhood. They are loving and true. They give you evidence. You trust their words.

But what happens if you do not have your actual birth parents. Someone who does not know you deeply takes you in. They tell you they love you but something is missing. They did not make you. You trust them and find shelter in them, but they do not know everything about you. Or what if you do not trust your parents. You claim them as your makers but you truly do not accept their account. You find them fallible and unrealistic. You think of them as merely figures to be used once in awhile when troubles come. In these respects, you are not fully sure of your story, your existence. You cannot feel complete.

Do you know where you come from? How you got here?

Not in the birth from the womb sense. But humanity in a whole sense.

Do you know how we got here?

It all seems hazy, the past. The story of Adam and Eve. The biblical accounts. Noah. Moses. Even historical accounts of history. Aristotle. Columbus. They are so far away sometimes, so separate. But what do you use to bring yourself back into their reality? How much do you trust in those people having actually existed?

People trust history books more than the Bible it seems. Yet…

“The quantity of New Testament material is almost embarrassing in comparison with other works of antiquity.”

And when people look for their past, the definition of who they are, it all depends on the source feeding them. Just as if you know your parents and trust them concerning your birth, if you know God and trust him, you are not going to discredit His account of humanity. You are going to believe Him. Confusion lessens because you are familiar with His words, the Bible. You know your Father and know that you are His child.

But if you submit to someone else as your ‘god’ who isn’t in fact the real true God, how can you know yourself completely? Just as it is difficult to find out about your past from people who aren’t your parents, it is difficult to find out the meaning of your life without searching for it.

And if you do not trust your parents, how are you supposed to know who you are? Many people claim to know God but there is not trust involved. God is a faraway concept, a toy to be taken out when the times get rough. A figure not to be trusted. His words to be ignored.

You will know who you are if you go to your Creator.

The creation account of man seems so far and distant and out of the realm of possibility.

But it is natural.

We are all born not knowing.

We are all conceived with the same cloudy symptom.

We just need to find our Creator and know…

that there is something greater waiting outside the darkness.

You are mysterious. You might not think so. You might have the notion that you are simply simple, that your life is a tale already told. You might think your friends know you. In fact, they do not. They cannot comprehend what you think before you go to sleep, do not know what slides around in your dreams, might not know about your deepest fear.

“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.” Proverbs 14:10

Have you ever had a strange sensation that you alone could barely explain? Not necessarily a bad feeling, a sort of sentimental glimmer somewhere smeared on the edge of your existence. No one can fully understand another human being. You cannot completely know yourself. You wonder why you do the things you do. Hidden are the people you think you know. Hidden is the person inside you that you thought you knew. We are mysterious.

But someone knows everything about you, about your heart. Even if you can’t understand yourself, someone does. God does.

“For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” 1 John 3:20

Only God can know you fully. Not your mom. Not your brother. Not your best friend.

God is the one who made you, who hears the unspoken thoughts.

Do you ever felt horrible after you have said something that offended someone on accident? And then you beat yourself up with thoughts? The thing is, God knows you weren’t trying to be hurtful. He knows your heart, the reason behind the words. Let God be the judge. You don’t know yourself in areas that he does.

And what is fantastic is the truth possible for you. You can have a best friend that is always there for you, always in your thoughts, unrestricted access. His name is Jesus. He knows God. He is God. He can sympathize with your weaknesses because he himself was tempted. He’s calling your name. You just have to listen and be open to the truth that there is someone who knows you in and out. Just open yourself up to the truth. It’s no mystery.

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar…you are familiar with all my ways…You hem me in-behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain…

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139