Renovation

This blog hasn’t exactly been what I hoped it would be. My plan for it was to be a place to reflect on things that I’m learning about God, Jesus, church, the Christian life, etc. I feel like it’s turned out to be a place where I mostly write about my own life, and not necessarily in the context of how God is working in it. My plan is to change that and figure out some way to renovate this blog and make it more about God. I’m thinking that I’ll start using it as a platform for reflecting during my quiet times, which would make the blog more Scripture-centered and hold me accountable at the same time. I’ll continue to write about books & sermons and post videos as well. Every now and then there may be a “Life Happenings” post if God was clearly working, but aside from those instances, I’m hoping to minimize these types of posts. I’m trusting that God will lead me in the right direction with this blog and that it will help someone, even if it’s just one person. I’m not too sure anyone really reads this anyway, but I feel like I need to write it 🙂

Little Things

 

I noticed the autumn leaves for the first time yesterday. They are beautiful. I’m sure they leaves started changing a long time ago, but I never took the time to notice them. I thanked God for giving them to us to enjoy and went about my day. I got to thinking.. Why can’t I notice the little things on a regular basis? Why is my life so hurried and busy that it takes me so long to realize what’s going on around me? I could be completely missing a gift from God! So I’ve decided that I’m going to try to start doing that–noticing the little things, being aware of what’s going on around me, slowing down. While I’m at it, I want to learn to use my time more productively so that I’ll actually have more time to slow down and notice the little things. I think this is something everyone should try; our society as a whole has just gotten so busy, and our schedules have gotten so full. So if you haven’t yet, take a few minutes and go outside. Look at the leaves. Find beauty in something you wouldn’t normally notice. View the world as if you were seeing it for the first time. You just might be surprised at how fulfilling life is when you make room for the little things.

Repentance

* Ask yourself this question & think about it before reading any further: If life got really good, what would it look like?

 

Church today was amazing. Sunday school was amazing, worship was amazing, and the sermon was amazing. During the sermon, Jim talked about repentance (Mark 1:9-15). Normally I wouldn’t think a sermon about repentance was amazing. I always get uncomfortable reading or hearing about repentance because the idea of feeling bad about everything I do just doesn’t sound very enjoyable to me. So when Jim said, “Does repenting mean feeling bad? No,” it caught my attention. He went on to explain that there are two different kinds of sorrow–Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow leads to repentance which leads to change; worldly sorrow doesn’t bring about change. Feeling bad is something, but it’s not enough. Feeling bad is a sign that something is wrong, but a lot of people never seek help or do anything differently as a result of feeling bad. Basically, we shouldn’t feel like we’re doing something right by feeling bad, or as Jim put it, “Don’t feel good about feeling bad.” 

God wants to be the Lord of your life. He desires us to recognize who He is, to change, and to give Him glory by living our lives accordingly, not just asking for help in certain parts of our lives or at certain times. Living for God’s Kingdom changes everything we think and do; has God’s reign in your life changed what you think and do? Or are you still following your own way of thinking and behaving? God doesn’t forget His plan or purpose in the midst of your rebellion; is God’s will and purpose being worked out in your life or are you busy building your own kingdom by doing what only makes you happy? 

The whole American idea of retirement is spending the last years of your life enjoying the little kingdom you’ve built and glorifying yourself. Is that really what you want to do with the last years before you die and come face to face with God? What are you going to say to God when He asks you to explain what you did for His Kingdom versus what you did for yours? The Bible instructs us to do two things: repent & believe.

– Repent of yourself; even the good things we do are for selfish reasons. We don’t even know how far our good things are from the will of God. We’re not good people who occasionally do bad things; we are all broken, chasing our own dreams, following our own agendas, and completely disregarding God’s purpose most of the time. In this way, we are all lost until we accept the fact that we need a Savior, and Jesus is it.

– Believe the Good News; even though you’re undeserving, God loves you anyway. He’s worth more than anything the world can give you.

..so after reading all of that, ask yourself this question again: If life got really good, what would it look like?

What Life is All About..

John Wooden, former basketball coach at UCLA, died today. He was 99 years old. Apparently he was a really good basketball coach, but I think this video says more about him than his record does. I feel so blessed to have seen this, and I hope everyone who watches it will feel the same.

Wow. What an amazing man. He had one college coaching job for 28 years, was married to the only woman he ever kissed for 53 years, and lived in the same city for 61 years.  He was 14 the last time he used profanity and had his last drink in 1932. It’s strange that if someone lived this way in today’s world, many people would probably say they were too straitlaced. It’s so refreshing to see a man who followed God to the best of his ability and was a role model to so many people. I would definitely encourage everyone to read more about him, his pyramid of success, and his seven-point creed. I am so thankful for people like John Wooden; I’ve kind of just realize that a person doesn’t have to do some huge and spectacular thing with their lives to touch the lives of others.. following God is enough. Seeing the way this man lived his life makes me want to be a better person and reinforces the true reason why we’re all here.. to love.

Here are some of his quotes:

— “I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior.”

— “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

— “If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me”

— “Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.”

— “Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.”

— “There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer.”

— “What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.”

— “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

— “You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”

— “Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

Blue Like Jazz

The last few weeks have been interesting, to say the least. I was having a really difficult time with my faith, or a “crisis of belief,” if you will. (Hence, the post on Feb. 10th). I felt very disconnected from God; I couldn’t “feel it” anymore. I felt guilty, somewhat lost, and extremely discontent. When I prayed, I felt like I was talking to myself, like God was maybe screening my prayers or something. I was still going to Sunday school, church, Bible study, and a theology class, so why didn’t I still feel it?! Isn’t that how it was supposed to work? I couldn’t bring myself to pray very often or read my Bible on my own. It was a very weird feeling, and I’m still not completely sure how to describe it. One night, I picked up Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I had never read it before, but I had heard really good things about it. Not wanting to work on anything for school, I began reading Miller’s book. While reading it over the last couple of weeks, I’ve come across numerous passages that seem to be speaking directly to me. Reading this book did amazing things for my sense of spiritual security and seemed to restore my faith and ease the anxieties that I had been experiencing. Here are some of the passages that really stood out:

“I don’t think you can explain how Christian faith works. It is a mystery. And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul.”

“I am too prideful to accept the grace of God. It isn’t that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it’s that I want to earn my own way so I won’t be charity… Who am I to think myself above God’s charity? And why would I forsake the riches of God’s righteousness for the dung of my own ego?”

“Every Christian knows they will deal with doubt. And they will. But when it comes it seems so very real and frightening, as if your entire universe is going to fall apart.”

“Don’t complain about the way God answers your prayers. You are still living on an earth that is run by the devil. God has promised us a new land, and we will get there. Your problem is not that God is not fulfilling, your problem is that you are spoiled.”

“God is not here to worship me, to mold Himself into something that will help me fulfill my level of comfort. I think part of my problem is that I want spirituality to be more close and more real.”

“I suppose what I wanted back then is what every Christian wants, whether they understand themselves or not. What I wanted was God. I wanted tangible interaction. But even more than that, to be honest, I wanted to know who I was.”

“God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always know He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her.”

“I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.”

“Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon.”

“People hardly care what you believe, as long as you believe something. If you are passionate about something, people will follow you because they think you know something they don’t, some clue to the meaning of the universe.”

“What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.”

“Marriage is amazing because it is the closest two people can get, but they can’t get all the way to that place of absolute knowing.”

“I no longer think being in love is the polar opposite of being alone, however. I say this because I used to want to be in love again as I assumed this was the opposite of loneliness. I think being in love is an opposite of loneliness, but not the opposite. There are other things I now crave when I am lonely, like community, like friendship, like family. I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can’t possibly carry all that we want it to.”

“The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me.”

“There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.”

“If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.”

“We don’t need as much money as we have. Hardly any of us need as much money as we have. It’s true what they say about the best things in life being free.”

“When we worship God we worship a Being our life experience does not give us the tools with which to understand. If we could, God would not inspire awe.”

“The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.”

“We are too proud to feel awe and too fearful to feel terror. We reduce Him to math so we don’t have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom.”

“Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder.”

“I need something mysterious to happen after I die. I need to be somewhere else after I die, somewhere with God, somewhere that wouldn’t make any sense if it were explained to me right now.”

“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.”

“I used to love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did.”

“I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson.”

“Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.”

“I loved the fact that it wasn’t my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God’s, that my part was just to communicate love and approval.”

“We have the power to bring a little of heaven into the lives of others every day.”

“Your value has come from God. And God wants you to receive His love and to love yourself too.”

“God’s love will never change us if we don’t accept it.”