Here’s one of the questions I am really wrestling with: How do I care for the least of these? I believe God defines this group broadly. It would include physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. These needs are all around us if we are willing to enter into people’s lives. I get that and still have a long ways to go in living into that, but where I am specifically struggling has to do with the physical needs question.
I look around my life here in Charlevoix, MI, and don’t see a whole lot of physical needs. We have our share of food pantries and resale shops. There are definitely people struggling with addictions to drugs and alcohol. And there are some that are definitely struggling paying their bills. But there is a difference between physical needs here and the physical needs there - there being in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and in some locations in Central and South America and Asia.
I went to Kenya and experienced some things I will never forget.
I saw kids living on the streets – no Moms or Dads - kids as young as my son. He’s 5.
I had a young girl offer me her baby. She wanted me to take it.
I had a young man ask me to take him off the street. He’d been there over 8 years.
I walked through a couple slums and saw kids playing in the filth and stench.
I heard Sabina’s story – a young girl who was gang-raped and became pregnant.
I heard Cindy’s story – a mother of two who chose to give her boys to an orphanage because she was dying of AIDS.
I encountered suffering. I saw things that didn’t make sense at all. Where is God? How could he possibly allow these horrific things to take place? I was emotionally and spiritually overwhelmed and some of that continues. I haven’t been completely dulled and numbed by being home – away from this. But some numbing and dulling has taken place. It makes it easier, but I definitely don’t think it’s better.
We just can’t ignore these needs and call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. We just can’t.
God hasn’t called you or me to fix these problems. We can’t. But he does call us to be part of the solution. In fact, solution is the wrong word. It’s compassion. When we see the truth of what some people experience in this world, we can’t just turn away. It’s like the Levite and the priest who saw the man alongside the road and passed by. We can’t pass by.
“Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” Bob Pierce
We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges. Read that sentence again and this time read it through the lens of your Biblical knowledge. Remember the stories of men and women who acted on God’s behalf. Think Moses, Joshua, David, Nehemiah, Peter, etc.
We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges.
Too often, we do.
“What can I do about the AIDS pandemic?” “How can I help the orphans who are thousands of miles away from me?” “What can I possibly do about injustice?” “I don’t know how to help people still in slavery around this world.”
Those are outstanding questions. They are worth asking. But where we get paralyzed is when we ask them on our own. We think we can actually answer each of these questions for ourselves. But we can’t. We don’t know. We may be tempted to send a check to some reputable organization that helps some of these people in need, but as much as that might calm our conscience for a while, it does not address these questions appropriately, because it continues to address them on our own. We do something. We feel better. We can go back to our normal lives. I did my act of charity – God is now happy with me – I get extra credit.
Here is what I’m learning. Only God can answer those questions for me. The problem is I haven’t been asking. The problem is I’ve gotten caught up on my life and my routine and my plans and my agendas and so I’ve stopped asking – I’ve stopped caring.
When we get so lost in ourselves, we lose perspective don’t we? All of a sudden the color of my car really matters. If my sports team isn’t doing well, I am emotionally affected. I find myself caring a ton what others think of me even though I don’t really respect them. I want what I want and I deserve it. Whoa. How did I get to this place? A place where selfishness reigns and I actually believe others exist to serve me? Sin. That’s what it is. That’s what keeps bringing me to this place. I am separated from God. I no longer rest in his arms. I live for me, by my power, with me as the focus of my worship. No wonder I don’t care about those who suffer. I don’t even think about them – there is no space to because I’m filled up with me.
You cannot serve two masters. You just can’t.
If sins reigns, it reigns in my perspective of others, God, and me. I see God as my holy Santa Claus, people as my servants, and me as the King. Now I know we have trouble thinking we’d ever say this out loud, but it is definitely how I sometimes live.
What could the poor people of the world who just want my money – what could they possibly do for me? They just want stuff from me. If my perspective is sin, I can see absolutely no reason how they fit into my plans. They are completely off my radar screen. I won’t even ask the questions above. Why would I? They have nothing to do with me. They just get in the way of my plans – keep me from fulfilling my wants.
Back to God’s true part in my life. When he’s king, I’m not. When he’s king, then I began to realize that life in his kingdom is very different than life in mine. If I look to him as king, then the questions above become priority and the questions above are looked at through the eyes of humility. I can’t answer them. I am not in control. It is not up to me to figure this out, because I know I can’t. If I really see people the way God does, then I will long for them to experience his love and I will remember that Jesus says that when we care for those in need, we see Jesus. No, that’s not a typo. Jesus is in disguise among the people in need. Poor people. Hungry people. Broken people. Oppressed people. Discarded people. Displaced people. Unwanted people. His people. He’s there. And boy do we need to find him. Boy do I need to find him.
It’s an interesting theological question. Jesus is everywhere, right? Jesus is always with us. But yet, in this interesting text in Matthew 25, we see Jesus say he is there among the hungry, sick, naked, prisoners in a unique yet real way. When we care for the least of these, we meet Jesus.
And what is maybe the most challenging part of this call is what it does for us. We need to care for the least of these because of what Jesus does when we meet him in this way. He transforms us.
When we sit in our comfortable homes, leading our comfortable lives, Jesus is definitely there with us. But because of our unwillingness to step into the messiness of this world, we are not transformed in the ways God desires to transform us but more than likely are being “conformed to the pattern of this world.” (Rom. 12:2)
Mother Teresa said something that just haunts me.
“It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
The decisions I make to live the lifestyle I live leads to children dying? Is that really true? Because I choose to live the way I live and not give the way I’m called, children die? Isn’t that a little over the top? Is it?
Worth pondering for a moment. Worth even asking God if this is true. Worth not reading on and just ignoring what she said. Worth really engaging with God if it is true a child could live if I would give. Ask him.
If it was your child who was hungry or being abused or alone, what would you want people to do who had the power to do something? How would you feel if you knew that across the ocean lived a bunch of people, even those who claimed to follow the same Jesus as you do, who spend more on cosmetics and garbage bags than on helping brothers and sisters in Christ in need? Really, how would you feel?
We can do something. What we can’t do is nothing. Indifference is sin.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The worst sin towards fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King Jr.
When is the last time you asked God for help in knowing how to care for the least of these? Now before you start the progression of beating yourself up because you haven’t for a long time, pray now. Instead of letting a voice inside of your head that is not God’s take you down the path of guilt and shame, let God’s voice direct your path which is always toward hope – not only hope for you to live into this call, but hope for those who have begun to lose hope.
You can bring hope. And that is exactly the role God has called every single one of us to embrace – bringing hope. Being a hope bringer.
You see, when you come into the presence of God, he will change you. He doesn’t want acts of charity to alleviate guilt. That is self-centered. He wants hearts that so reflect his that compassion pours out when we see people – especially when we see people who suffer, who experience injustice, who have lost hope. As C.S. Lewis said, we are called to become little Christs – people who have been so influenced by our time with Him, that we speak, act, think, and love like him.
If we’re not seeing Jesus, we’re not becoming like him. We are not transformed by intellectual efforts, by having the right thoughts, or by living by our self-determined lists. We are transformed when we live in his presence. When we let him touch our lives, change our hearts, as we follow him. Then we’ll end up where we need to be and we’ll become who he longs for us to become.
As we bring hope, we find hope. As we see joy, we experience it. As we love, we are loved. As we give, we receive. It is the irony of the gospel. It is the way of Jesus.
It’s funny how much I want to tell you what to do. In fact, I actually see it as part of my own defense mechanism for not doing anything myself. At least I told you what to do. I’ll give some suggestions at the end, but I’m not telling you what to do. God will. Talk to him. Let him speak through the passions and experiences of your life. There are people in need who you have been designed to help. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where and when. I know he does. Let’s ask.
One thing I believe we all need to do is become more aware. We need to look for information and help in understanding the truths of what is taking place around the world and in our communities. We need to ask questions and pursue accurate information. And I hope more than anything else, it leads us to face-to-face encounters with people in need, so we can see Jesus and hear what he wants to tell us. And so he can break our hearts. Heart-breaking is good and necessary because our hearts have become calloused and hardened. Only Jesus can soften our heart, so we need to go where he does this work.
Go to www.who.int. (World Health Organization) Click on health topics – pick one that grabs your attention. Each of them has a statistics page. Read. Click on countries. Pick one that grabs your attention. Read. Then pray for this issue – pray for the people affected – pray for the people trying to help – listen to the Holy Spirit’s nudgings (or not). Is he asking you to do more here? Keep clicking. Keep asking. Keep praying.
Do a web search on an issue that peaks your interest. Instead of shopping or checking out the latest scores, take fifteen minutes and seek out information on poverty, malnutrition, AIDS, water challenges, slavery, needs of children, the sex trade industry, orphans, etc. It isn’t entertaining, that’s for sure, but it is a much better use of this vast resource of information. Go to www.one.org and help make poverty history.
Often it is awareness that is the key to helping us know how to act. It is awareness that helps us be more in tune to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. It is often when we are confronted with suffering, we realize we can’t just turn away. We must act.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Hole in Our Gospel - part 3
Here are a few more excerpts from an excellent book, The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns.
Today we live in a media-saturated, Internet-connected, cell phone-equipped world in which everything that happens anywhere is instantly available everywhere. We are assaulted by images and stories of human tragedy and suffering, 24/7. International aid organizations broadcast their messages constantly via the Internet and other media outlets, providing convenient “on-ramps” for those who want to help but don’t know how. Lack of awareness is no longer an issue. And yet only about 4 percent of all U.S. charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind. We have become detached and indifferent toward the constant and repeated images of poverty and adversity that bombard us. In fact, our apathy has even earned its own term: compassion fatigue. But we cannot claim that we don’t know our distant neighbor is in need – not anymore, not today.
(102)
. . . for the first time in the history of the human race, we have the awareness, the access, and the ability to reach out to our most desperate neighbors around the world. The programs, tools, and technologies to virtually eliminate the most extreme kinds of poverty and suffering in our world are now available. This is truly good news for the poor – or is it?
Not really, because we are not doing our part.
Here is the bottom line: if we are aware of the suffering of our distant neighbors – and we are – if we have access to these neighbors, either personally or through aid organizations and charities – and we do – and if we have the ability to make a difference through programs and technologies that work – which is also the case – then we should no more turn our backs on these neighbors of ours than the priest and the Levite should have walked by the bleeding man.
Listen to the words of a modern-day prophet, and let them challenge you:
Fifteen thousand Africans are dying each day of preventable, treatable diseases – AIDS, malaria, TB – for lack of drugs that we take for granted.
This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening to Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern and questions our commitment to the whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not North America or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives – African lives – are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.
This is a prophetic voice, one of both passion and vision. I wish I could say that it belongs to one of the great Church leaders of our day, one who is leading the Church of Jesus Christ to the front lines of the battle against poverty and injustice in our world. But, no, this voice that should shake our churches to the core with its high call to moral responsibility is the voice of a rock star – one who may have done more to advance the cause of the poor in the last twenty-five years than anyone alive. His name is Bono, and he passionately answers the question, who is my neighbor? Then he bids us, as Jesus did, to go out and love them “as ourselves.” His impassioned plea gives voice to the moral responsibilities inherent between those who suffer needlessly and those who have the power to intervene.
Listen again to Bono’s call to our generation to make our mark on history:
We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses,mechanics, children. This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis.
President Carter identified a hole in our society, defined by poverty, human suffering, and inequality. He sees a world unraveling at an alarming rate as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, creating greater and greater social and international disparity and isolation. Bono sees a hole too – in our morality. He sees the world’s poor, beaten and bloody, lying at the wayside, while the majority of us pass by without stopping. Either way you look at it, there is a hole that needs to be repaired – and it’s getting deeper.
(104-105)
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. Flannery O’Connor
(106)
Today we live in a media-saturated, Internet-connected, cell phone-equipped world in which everything that happens anywhere is instantly available everywhere. We are assaulted by images and stories of human tragedy and suffering, 24/7. International aid organizations broadcast their messages constantly via the Internet and other media outlets, providing convenient “on-ramps” for those who want to help but don’t know how. Lack of awareness is no longer an issue. And yet only about 4 percent of all U.S. charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind. We have become detached and indifferent toward the constant and repeated images of poverty and adversity that bombard us. In fact, our apathy has even earned its own term: compassion fatigue. But we cannot claim that we don’t know our distant neighbor is in need – not anymore, not today.
(102)
. . . for the first time in the history of the human race, we have the awareness, the access, and the ability to reach out to our most desperate neighbors around the world. The programs, tools, and technologies to virtually eliminate the most extreme kinds of poverty and suffering in our world are now available. This is truly good news for the poor – or is it?
Not really, because we are not doing our part.
Here is the bottom line: if we are aware of the suffering of our distant neighbors – and we are – if we have access to these neighbors, either personally or through aid organizations and charities – and we do – and if we have the ability to make a difference through programs and technologies that work – which is also the case – then we should no more turn our backs on these neighbors of ours than the priest and the Levite should have walked by the bleeding man.
Listen to the words of a modern-day prophet, and let them challenge you:
Fifteen thousand Africans are dying each day of preventable, treatable diseases – AIDS, malaria, TB – for lack of drugs that we take for granted.
This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening to Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern and questions our commitment to the whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not North America or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives – African lives – are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.
This is a prophetic voice, one of both passion and vision. I wish I could say that it belongs to one of the great Church leaders of our day, one who is leading the Church of Jesus Christ to the front lines of the battle against poverty and injustice in our world. But, no, this voice that should shake our churches to the core with its high call to moral responsibility is the voice of a rock star – one who may have done more to advance the cause of the poor in the last twenty-five years than anyone alive. His name is Bono, and he passionately answers the question, who is my neighbor? Then he bids us, as Jesus did, to go out and love them “as ourselves.” His impassioned plea gives voice to the moral responsibilities inherent between those who suffer needlessly and those who have the power to intervene.
Listen again to Bono’s call to our generation to make our mark on history:
We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses,mechanics, children. This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis.
President Carter identified a hole in our society, defined by poverty, human suffering, and inequality. He sees a world unraveling at an alarming rate as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, creating greater and greater social and international disparity and isolation. Bono sees a hole too – in our morality. He sees the world’s poor, beaten and bloody, lying at the wayside, while the majority of us pass by without stopping. Either way you look at it, there is a hole that needs to be repaired – and it’s getting deeper.
(104-105)
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. Flannery O’Connor
(106)
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Homosexuality and the church
Obviously, this is a challenging and controversial topic in the life of the church. I came across this blog posting, Sharing the Gospel in the Gay Village by Pastor John Bell at www.challies.com and found it helpful. Please be sure and read the comments - all of them - as you consider this difficult and important conversation. Please pray that men and women like us, who follow Jesus, would live out Christ's love for all people.
The beauty in the poor
The beauty is not in poverty but in the courage that the poor still smile and have hope, in spite of everyting. I do not admire hunger, damp or cold, but the disposition to face them, to smile and live on. I admire their love of life, the capacity to discover richness in the smaller things - like a piece of bread that I gave to a boy which he ate crumb by crumb, thinking it was better so. While the poorest of the poor are free, we are excessively worried about the house, money. The poor represent the greatest human richness this world possesses and yet we despise them, behave as if they were garbage.
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Losing my religion for equality - Jimmy Carter
I came across this article, Losing my religion for equality, by Jimmy Carter at Jim Herrington's blog. It is worth reading and it addresses the ongoing challenge of the role of women. What are your thoughts?
Where's the joy?
I was at a t-ball game the other night. There’s nothing like it. The stage is set for a great deal of entertainment when a group of 4-6 year olds get together to play an organized game of baseball. I was amazed at how interested they were in the unique material that makes up a baseball diamond. Every inning, most of the kids in the field were entertaining themselves with some form of investigation or projection of this material. A lot of kicking up dust. A lot of scooping and throwing. A lot of wiping it all over their freshly washed uniforms.
Then you watch the adults. Some were very distracted by the dust kicking of their child. Some were fairly unaware and uninterested in the game, except when their Jonny/Jenny was up to bat. Some felt that their child’s chances in the majors were dependent upon their play that evening. Some just were entertained watching 4-6 year olds act like 4-6 year olds.
I was torn. I am competitive and want my son to do well. It is hard for me to be quiet and not want to give some instruction. I also want him to have fun. I don’t want activities like this to become pressure-filled to the point he loses the fun in an activity he enjoys. But at this point, my son is much more interested in hugging the first baseman than he is in getting his buddy out who happens to play for the other team.
One thing I did see tonight was pure joy. The joy of a 5 year old hitting the ball. The joy of a 6 year old finding the ball in her glove when a grounder with some pace is hit her way. The joy of a dugout full of excited kids who just enjoy the excitement of the dugout without any need to win, compete, or be better than anyone else. The joy just of running. One of the common occurrences following a t-ball game is when our team goes out after the game and runs around the bases. There is no purpose other than they like doing it together and they like to run. Joy.
That’s what I’m looking for. Joy.
I thought I’d find it by getting you to think of me in a way I want to be thought of. Nope.
I thought I’d find it by being smarter than most. Nope.
I thought I’d find it by being a better basketball player than you. That’s not doing it either.
All of these fall far short of what I expect them to offer. In fact, all of them leave me feeling greatly disappointed.
I’ve found people who think of me the way I want to be thought of, but I haven’t found joy – just distance and falseness.
What is smarter anyway? It’s not like I take IQ tests or anything like that. I just like knowing more than most in the field I’m in. But yet that still leaves me filled with lots of information but not joy.
And the basketball part just feeds my competitive nature which leads me to be a jerk more often. Not joy there either.
Somehow, kids get the joy thing better than me. I need to learn from them.
"Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:15
Then you watch the adults. Some were very distracted by the dust kicking of their child. Some were fairly unaware and uninterested in the game, except when their Jonny/Jenny was up to bat. Some felt that their child’s chances in the majors were dependent upon their play that evening. Some just were entertained watching 4-6 year olds act like 4-6 year olds.
I was torn. I am competitive and want my son to do well. It is hard for me to be quiet and not want to give some instruction. I also want him to have fun. I don’t want activities like this to become pressure-filled to the point he loses the fun in an activity he enjoys. But at this point, my son is much more interested in hugging the first baseman than he is in getting his buddy out who happens to play for the other team.
One thing I did see tonight was pure joy. The joy of a 5 year old hitting the ball. The joy of a 6 year old finding the ball in her glove when a grounder with some pace is hit her way. The joy of a dugout full of excited kids who just enjoy the excitement of the dugout without any need to win, compete, or be better than anyone else. The joy just of running. One of the common occurrences following a t-ball game is when our team goes out after the game and runs around the bases. There is no purpose other than they like doing it together and they like to run. Joy.
That’s what I’m looking for. Joy.
I thought I’d find it by getting you to think of me in a way I want to be thought of. Nope.
I thought I’d find it by being smarter than most. Nope.
I thought I’d find it by being a better basketball player than you. That’s not doing it either.
All of these fall far short of what I expect them to offer. In fact, all of them leave me feeling greatly disappointed.
I’ve found people who think of me the way I want to be thought of, but I haven’t found joy – just distance and falseness.
What is smarter anyway? It’s not like I take IQ tests or anything like that. I just like knowing more than most in the field I’m in. But yet that still leaves me filled with lots of information but not joy.
And the basketball part just feeds my competitive nature which leads me to be a jerk more often. Not joy there either.
Somehow, kids get the joy thing better than me. I need to learn from them.
"Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:15
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Is God disappointed in you?
I read a lot of books.
It makes me feel smart, I guess. I feel like I can talk intelligently in certain circles because I read a lot of books. I also like the feeling of being someone who knows something, even though that something is a lot of regurgitation of what others know.
I think my pursuit has been fruitful yet distracted. I’ve learned a lot about me, about God, about how people put those two together, but I’m coming to a place where I am finding that my quest has been misdirected.
I’ve been looking for answers to questions I’ve had in my brain. But those answers are not what I need to find.
My pride and ego want me to keep searching, keep reading, keep talking with others because it makes me feel good about myself. But I just don’t seem to be getting much traction in finding THE ANSWER.
That’s it. I’ve been looking for the answer, and I guess I don’t even know the question. I just know that I haven’t found what I’m looking for.
I have this blog. It’s a place where I regurgitate the information I’ve collected, lessons I’m learning, thoughts in my brain. Not many people come to read my blog. I wonder why I care so much that no one seems interested in my blog. It contains great information, but yet I care more about people acknowledging me than finding good information.
It sure seems, doesn’t it, that I care a lot about what others think of me. Yep, it’s true. That’s me, already wondering what you think about me.
Do you appreciate my honesty? Enjoy my conversational style of writing? Find me incredibly self-absorbed? Wonder if there is a point to all of these ramblings?
So I carry this psychosis into my relationship with God. I’m not sure what you believe about God or not, but I am one who believes in God. I wonder what he thinks of me.
In fact, I’ve lived a good part of my life trying to prove to God that I am worthy of his attention and even love. Yet, in that pursuit I’ve constantly felt inadequate and, pretty much, a failure.
I haven’t ever been able to make time consistently to spend with God.
I can’t believe the selfishness I see so often in me.
How can I possibly think some of the repulsive things I think?
Why do I do good – so others think more highly of me? That doesn’t count does it?
I read about Mother Teresa (that’s good, right?) and see no comparison between her faith and mine.
I spent some time with some people who believe in God last night. For most of the time, we just admitted to each other how we were failing God. “I could do this better.” “I don’t ever do this.” “I know there is so much more that I should be doing.”
I started thinking, “What kind of a God do I believe in?” Would he be one to point out all of my deficiencies, which I happen to be very adept at doing? Is that what he would spend his time talking about with me?
Yet each of us in that room, seemed convinced we were failing God and his perspective toward each of us would be disappointment. Is that how you feel? Do you think that is how God feels when he looks at you? Disappointed?
It makes me feel smart, I guess. I feel like I can talk intelligently in certain circles because I read a lot of books. I also like the feeling of being someone who knows something, even though that something is a lot of regurgitation of what others know.
I think my pursuit has been fruitful yet distracted. I’ve learned a lot about me, about God, about how people put those two together, but I’m coming to a place where I am finding that my quest has been misdirected.
I’ve been looking for answers to questions I’ve had in my brain. But those answers are not what I need to find.
My pride and ego want me to keep searching, keep reading, keep talking with others because it makes me feel good about myself. But I just don’t seem to be getting much traction in finding THE ANSWER.
That’s it. I’ve been looking for the answer, and I guess I don’t even know the question. I just know that I haven’t found what I’m looking for.
I have this blog. It’s a place where I regurgitate the information I’ve collected, lessons I’m learning, thoughts in my brain. Not many people come to read my blog. I wonder why I care so much that no one seems interested in my blog. It contains great information, but yet I care more about people acknowledging me than finding good information.
It sure seems, doesn’t it, that I care a lot about what others think of me. Yep, it’s true. That’s me, already wondering what you think about me.
Do you appreciate my honesty? Enjoy my conversational style of writing? Find me incredibly self-absorbed? Wonder if there is a point to all of these ramblings?
So I carry this psychosis into my relationship with God. I’m not sure what you believe about God or not, but I am one who believes in God. I wonder what he thinks of me.
In fact, I’ve lived a good part of my life trying to prove to God that I am worthy of his attention and even love. Yet, in that pursuit I’ve constantly felt inadequate and, pretty much, a failure.
I haven’t ever been able to make time consistently to spend with God.
I can’t believe the selfishness I see so often in me.
How can I possibly think some of the repulsive things I think?
Why do I do good – so others think more highly of me? That doesn’t count does it?
I read about Mother Teresa (that’s good, right?) and see no comparison between her faith and mine.
I spent some time with some people who believe in God last night. For most of the time, we just admitted to each other how we were failing God. “I could do this better.” “I don’t ever do this.” “I know there is so much more that I should be doing.”
I started thinking, “What kind of a God do I believe in?” Would he be one to point out all of my deficiencies, which I happen to be very adept at doing? Is that what he would spend his time talking about with me?
Yet each of us in that room, seemed convinced we were failing God and his perspective toward each of us would be disappointment. Is that how you feel? Do you think that is how God feels when he looks at you? Disappointed?
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