I decided that I don’t really use my tumblr, especially not the way other people use it, so I got a new blog.
Hindsight > Foresight
It’s been a while since I made my own post. I almost forgot about Tumblr, to be honest. This year, I had my first real job in like 3 years and made good grades in 18-20 credit hours. I also didn’t have internet at my apartment. Anyways, I just wanted to share that I’m headed to my third college since high school. It’s unbelievable to me how different my life is now than I thought it would be two years ago when I graduated. Not better or worse than I had planned, but different. I have more friends, more connections, less security it seems like, more uncertainty, but I’ve learned a lot. I’m still not a huge fan of change, but I’ve learned that God always has a plan. It’s not always the same as mine, but as long as I submit to his leading, I don’t have to worry. I’ve felt God’s had each place that I’ve been and gained things that I couldn’t anywhere else- spiritually, socially, educationally, musically, etc…. I’m a major planner. That’s just me. But I’ve come to learn that since hindsight is 20-20 and God is outside of time, he must have better than 20-20 planning ability. MY hindsight is better than my foresight, but God’s vision/knowledge is perfect. God may change my plans, but I’ve come to be okay with that.
(Source: lovequotesrus, via relativeminor)
I made this based off one of my poems. :)
Absolutely awesome article. Must read!
This really is a must read article. I think everyone can learn from it, especially musicians.
I love DC Talk. This isn’t my absolute favorite song of theirs, but it’s up there. One of my favorite things about this is track is the quote recited in the first 15 seconds. “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny Him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
This is such a great quote. I was thinking about this quote and the song not too long ago because it came on an ipod in the car of someone who was giving me a ride. I realized that I didn’t really know how this quote fit with the rest of the song. The rest of the song, as indicated by the title, is basically the wonderings of someone struggling with the fact the we all make mistakes. The parts of the song that answer the questions speak of how God loves us in spite of our mistakes.
My question, then, was this: How the two ideas fit together? 1.) Nominal Christians turn people away from God. 2.) We all mess up.
Looking at just these two points, I was confused. Since we all mess up, does that mean that we are all part of the cause of atheism? I don’t like that. Why would they write a song like that. I missed an important point of the song. Point 3.) God loves us in spite of our flaws.
I looked up the noun ‘Christian’ on merriam-webster.com and the first definition is this: one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ. If you’ve read the Gospels, you know that many of Christ’s teachings are in some way about love. I know that’s cliché, but it’s true. He also said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matt 9).
The people who deny Christ with their lifestyles are not always the people who mess up. It’s sometimes the people who put on the face of being perfect. This is what I mean: if we truly believe in the teachings of Christ, we would realize that all of us are in need of the Great Physician. We need to take off the “holier than thou” mask and love people for who they are, not hate them or judge them for what they do. Maybe what they do would change if they saw that someone loved them.
Now I’m not saying that we should be okay with over-indulging in alcohol or drugs every weekend or have pre-marital sex or anything. We want to stand out from the crowd or they won’t see anything different. We have to live in the balance of being in the world but not of it. (John 17:14, among others)
Little Children
I was at Nav night last night. It was the first Nav night of the year and my first Nav night at this school. In addition to all the college students, the leader’s wife and kids were there. His four children are all elementary school age or younger, I’m not sure of their exact ages. Anyways, during one of the prayers towards the beginning, one or two of the kids were being a little loud. It made me laugh a little bit inside.
Having the children there brought a passage to mind that is found in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18. People brought their kids to the place Jesus was teaching. Seeing them as a distraction, I’m sure, the disciples tried to keep the kids back, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them.”
Most people focus on the next part of the passage where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” They emphasize the fact that God is calling us to have a child-like faith. The “I believe in santa clause” faith. Children need little to no proof from the people they trust to believe what they are told. They are not afraid to ask questions, but the questions are of curiosity rather than questioning motives as adults often do. We need to come to God with questions, hoping for an answer but in the absence of one, having faith that God knows what He’s doing.
Another way we need to be like children is with confidence. A son can walk into Daddy’s study when he’s working, hop in his lap and just talk. A daughter can hop into bed with her parents when she has a bad dream and not worry about the fact that she interrupted their sleep. We need to stop worrying if God has time for us. As our Father, He wants us to come to him just to tell Him when we’re scared or angry or happy. Be confident when you approach God.
These are a couple great points to remember, but I think there’s another point to get out of this. “The kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as…” the little rowdy children in the back of the room. We are called to come to Jesus like the little children. They run to their parents covered in mud, blood, grass stains, scrapes and bruises. They rebel against their parents in various ways. For instance, last night, the leader’s wife was trying to coax one of their children down the stairs because he had decided he didn’t want to go down them. However, no matter how dirty, rowdy or just bad the kids are, the parents (the good ones at least) are there to clean/bandage them up and teach them right from wrong.
Parents love their children in spite of the trouble they get into. They discipline them in love so that the children can learn what’s best for them. They also try to answer the many questions their children throw at them, some simple and others more difficult than they can answer. However, even when the parents can’t or choose not to answer the questions of the child, the child listens to their parents (or suffer the consequences), trusting (or learning) that they want nothing but the best for them.
Since God is our Heavenly Father, why would he not fulfill all of the characteristics of a good parent? Certainly, he disciplines us to teach us. He answers many of our questions through the Bible and through those He brings into our lives. Is there any reason that He would not accept us when we come to him dirty and scraped or are being bad or rowdy? Sure, He’s not okay with us staying dirty and scraped up. He’s going to bleach whites and clean cuts. Sometimes that hurts, but it’s for out good. If we don’t let our Heavenly Father clean our spiritual cuts, they can get infected and made worse. If we don’t let him bleach our spiritual stains when they first appear, they become harder to get rid of.
Another thing that I thought of that we can learn from this comes from Jesus’ reaction to the disciples when they tried to stop the children. He was speaking to them when he said, “Let the little children come to me.” He wasn’t speaking to the people, he was speaking to the disciples, His chosen followers. As Christians in the world today, we are Christ’s disciples as well. Not only is he saying that it’s okay if we come to him as rowdy but as open as children, I think He’s telling us that we should not hinder other people who come as curious, dirty, rowdy children to the lap of Jesus. They want to learn who He is and we should not hinder them.
There are a few blogs that I make a point to read every so often because they post things that I find really encouraging. I just found this post from a week ago and it really spoke to me. I wanted to share it and hope you will not just think about what it is saying, but apply it to your life.
Change
I changed my tumblr theme earlier today. I was just thinking about why I did it. At the time, all I was thinking about was the fact that I was bored. There was nothing wrong with my old theme, I was just changing because…. because…… Why?
I just figured out the answer and it kind of goes along with everything that’s been going on recently. First off: the goings on of my life.
1) I was asked earlier what school I went to and shared that I am transferring schools.
2) In changing schools, I’ll also be living in an apartment for the first time. Having lived away from home for about 9 months now, being home for a lot of the summer has been kind of hard. I don’t have the freedom that I’ve been used to nor do I have the acces to people my own age to talk to.
There was nothing wrong with the school I had been going to (or where I lived or am living now), but changing has its advantages. It has its disadvantages too, like the fact that I’m going to miss everyone that I just spent a year getting to know. However, changing is what God was calling me to do. I know that it’s going to be better in the long run.
Now I’m not saying I changed themes because I felt God was calling me to change it, it just seemed the right thing to do. What makes the changes similar is that there was nothing wrong with the way things were. My old theme was fine (at least in my opinion); but I know that if I never changed it, I would get bored and so (perhaps) would anyone who looks at my page. It is better in my mind to change.
When I was in the process of changing, I was having trouble finding a theme I liked as much as the first theme. I think the reason I was dissatisfied is because I was comparing every option to the theme I was leaving. I really liked the color scheme, so I was trying to fit the color scheme onto every theme I tried. It wasn’t working very well and I was tempted a few times to revert back to the theme that I was already comfortable with.
That was when I decided that it was silly to try to change the themes to fit what I knew I already liked. Nothing can ever fully live up to your expectations if you’re comparing it to something you already liked. There’s always going to be something that is missing, something to improve on. When I started evaluating the themes on their own, without comparing them to my old theme, I started to like a lot more of them.
Life works the same way. I think I’ve been having trouble being comfortable here at home because I’ve been comparing it to where I was before. I’ve been dissatisfied with the things that home lacks that I loved at college instead of enjoying the things that I have at home that I lived without at college.
I’m glad I realized this now. When I move for my new school in about a week, I need to remember that everything is not going to be the same as it was at Nebraska. Some things may be better and some worse; but if I go in to school NOT comparing things to how they were at Nebraska, I will be a lot happier with the new things I encounter.
