Love Is Still a Worthy Cause

I was listening to a song today called, “Does anybody Hear Her”.

Allow me to quote the chorus and bridge for you respectively. (Please see the link on my FB page for the full lyrics and video.)

“Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
Or does anybody even know she's going down today
Under the shadow of our steeple
With all the lost and lonely people
Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?”

“If judgment looms under every steeple
If lofty glances from lofty people
Can't see past her scarlet letter
And we've never even met her”

Ok... so if there is hope living in you and me... yes I mean you christian... why is the world so hopeless?

Why do we think that standing up for what we believe means looking down our noses at people that we perceive as sinners? Have we forgotten that 'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us?'

We forget that the reason for Christ doing this is that it was a demonstration of how much He loves us.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Somehow... we seem to have forgotten love.

We focus so much on what we think is righteousness that we forget that Love was a greater, motivation on the part of God. Even in His righteousness and our depravity... He loved us so much... more than enough to cause Him to step down from the lofty place that He actually is in to love us.

Shouldn't we then step down from the high places that we think we are in and love others?

How do we love others? Good question.

I reckon that there is no easy answer to that one.

For a start, I think, chose not to judge people. Judge their actions sure. At some point no matter how liberal we are, we need to make decisions about right and wrong. However, because a person's actions offend me... should that person offend me? (Ok child molestation and rape is another category altogether but even then.)

When we learn to separate people from their actions maybe then we will be able to take the steps towards them to help them heal, change, grow.

Another way is to chose not to make assumptions about people. We are all guilty of this one... I do it all the time.

We decide that because of how they are dressed, where they are from, their speech, their B.O, their teeth, their car, the school that they attended or what their parents do for a living, that we know who they are. Shall we make efforts to get to know people for who they really are, so that we may love them?

Shall we choose to love people even with their... peculiarities.

Shall we decide not to attach scarlet letters (see the 'bridge' of the song and note at the end) to people in our minds?
Shall we decide to hold to our beliefs and morals in and with love?

The “Scarlet letter” is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

In the book a young woman, named Hester Prynne falls pregnant while her husband is out of the country and refuses to reveal the identity of the baby’s father. For her, crime, she is forced to wear a scarlet coloured cloth in the shape of the letter ‘A’.

Relational Relitivity

Life is interesting isn't it?The way that people do things and think now is so... different from how things were done in the past.One huge example is in relation to jobs, employment. 
My mother's generation in this lovely island seems to be the generation where a huge section of society pulled themselves out of poverty.Many people in my mom's generation became teachers and nurses and civil servants etc. They were more educated than their parents and would eventually have better, higher paying jobs than their parents. My mom's generation tried their best to achieve some kind of educational qualification after secondary school so that they could have a profession. They would find a job in this profession and many stayed in that job until mandatory retirement. The thought of changing professions would not even occur to many of them. That was just how it was.
My generation is a bit different. My generation also tended to aim for some nice qualification to lead to a nice, hopefully nice paying job. However some of us have discovered after a few years that the job that we have wasn't... fulfilling, so some of us tried to find something more rewarding to do with our lives. I suspect that this happens alot in western countries.
 My generation is crying out for fulfillment in their employment. People long to find something that gives their lives meaning as well as brings home a paycheck. One of the growing trends is to discover who you are, especially among christians. It seems that as more believers find out that God has created them for a purpose, they want to figure out what that purpose is (in the specific sense. , lol)So we do the wonderful personality trait tests, and the how we learn tests, the love languages tests and the strengths test, and all sorts of other tests. We are pleasantly pleased to find out there are reasons why we think and do things the way that we do. (HURRAY) We find out that we really aren't that strange because there are others who think and act like we do, and so we set out on a quest to live the abundant life that Christ died for. (wonderful)
 Here is the thing... why do we only apply our individuality in who we are to what we do?What I mean is, we take what we have learnt in all these test and try to figure out what work we should do. Why don't we apply the test to our relationship with God.
 Confused?? Good. 
 We have ideas of what it looks like when a person is a good christian. Well dressed, tidy, prays for 15 minutes every morning and before each meal. They are excellent and instinctive at managing their money. Their children are the most intelligent and most talented 2.5 kids around. They have the coolest jobs and always seem to have life in control. They have no problems, quote scripture on a dime, and lead the most disciplined lives around. They have daily quiet times, and always seem to have a bible near to them. They tell everyone that they know that they are believers and run from the mere thought of every sin. Many of these people do exist and are wonderful people... but what about the rest of us who aren't like them.Seriously, I forget to read the Bible sometimes... often. No, developing a routine won't help. Yes, maybe I am indisciplined... but then maybe, I am just me. Perhaps I need time to process the things in the Bible that I have read for a while. Maybe I am the kind of person who is much better at open conversation with God than at praying for selected amounts of time in specific places. Maybe if we teach people in discipleship how to figure out THEIR relationship with God, it would be better than trying to teach people what A relationship with God looks like.Are we like the woman who thinks that her husband doesn't love her because he doesn't say it that often, even though he comes home to her every night and always helps her with chores and spends time with her? True that husband will need to learn to say the words to her, but she also needs to develop a relationship with him that is based on who the two of them are, not what Hollywood says they should be.

 
Yes we should read our bibles and pray regularly as well as doing other things. However, should we beat ourselves over the head because we aren't as excited about some things in our relationship as some people are.
 Maybe we need to develop our own relationship with God based on who we are, and who He is, not what someone else's relationship looks like.
 Just a thought....

N.B This was originally posted on my FB page as a note.

Polarity Of Life

Marcus Buckingham, who is a motivational speaker, loves to talk about 'maximising our strengths' and 'playing to our strengths'. He says that less than 2 out of 10 people get to play to their strengths at work.

After investigating the idea of strengths I realised what a negative world we live in. We always focus on the subjects that we hate and are terrible in and become mediocre in the ones that we are good at. In fact we don't even like to say that we are good at something.

For a while, I assumed that this way of thinking only really applied to our working lives.

Today it occurred to me, how much this applies to our spiritual lives.

I am not talking at this point about playing to our strengths in our spiritual lives... that comes later.
What I am speaking of here is our negativity... and our love of it.

When we first heard about God and about Jesus... we heard about Jesus dying and suffering for our sins.
How many of us, first heard about God's love for us? Even if we heard about it... maybe the focus was His dying and suffering.
How many of us, when we think about God, think about an angry old man, who is going to be quite displeased if we mess up?
When we think about living, how often do we focus on sin... and the fear of sinning, instead of good works?
In fact when we look at our own lives... how often do we measure ourselves in terms of our sins, faults and failures instead of our strengths, and inner beauty?
When a christian er 'falls'... how often does our impression of that person become based on their sin, forgetting all the God glorifying things that they have done?
Why is it that the people who have the most hope in the world are often the most negative?

While I do think that 'calling a spade a spade' is important... we often call a spade a backhoe and dig up the garden!
While is it important for a person to acknowledge their sin and repent, do we need to make those sins the most important thing about the person? Do we need to make our sins the most important thing about ourselves? Of course not, but we do!
On a good day most of us are fine... on a bad day however, where does our mind go? To all our mistakes and failures. To all that is wrong with us. To what we don't like about ourselves. To what we don't have and can't be.
Perhaps the words of the fake shrink in the MAD TV sketch drama is most appropriate now. 'STOP IT”

Maybe we need to make a conscious decision to use the backhoe to bury our negativity, and change our perspective on life.
 When we sin, repent quickly and honestly with God. Maybe even with a trusted friend.
Ask Him to help us identify the problem that keeps leading us to this sin cycle.
Hold on tightly to Him... i.e develop our relationship with Him to a deeper level.
 Make lifestyle changes to take us out of the path of unrighteousness.
 Turn the sin on its ear and make it into something positive (stop stealing and give to the poor as Paul suggested; stop looking for love in all the wrong places and seek out ways to give love to those who desperately need it like the poor and those who have no hope.)
Realise that we are imperfect, but God still loves us... and forgive ourselves for our imperfection.
Live life abundantly.



N.B This was originally  posted on my FB page as a note.

PAIN

'Why is it, those we love the most, are the ones capable of hurting us the most? Our greatest wounds rarely come from strangers. They probably come from an ex-fiance, a former friend, a roommate, a sister, a business partner.
Even in healthy relationships an offhanded comment or rolling of the eyes can cripple us for days or years or even a life time This is because the more we open ourselves up the more vulnerable we are. The most exposed we are the more it hurts. The more we let someone in the greater the risk. Surprise, anger, shock, betrayal helplessness, it call gets mixed in together. How does a person find their way out?'   taken from Sex God by Rob Bell


We live in a society that seems to try its best to avoid pain. Have you notice?
Painkillers are probably the most readily available and most advertised pharmaceuticals, (except for for cold and flu medicines which may contain some kind of pain killer)
We accept that pain can induce strength, (no pain no gain) but for some reason it is only acceptable if we can control it.
We don't mind the pain of working out and of giving our all in a sport, because there is some greater glory available.
e.g. How many times was that video of Kerry Strug in the 1996 Olympic games played during that year. Strug, chose to take her final vault with a seriously strained ankle... she stuck the landing... got her points, won the gold for herself and her team... and then collapsed on the floor in pain.

We laud those able to withstand large amounts of physical pain.

However, emotional pain... that we run from.
We would rather pretend that we are fine, than to work out an issue with a friend. We would rather walk away from that friendship than work through the incidences and troubles. In fact, don't we often write off that person as being impossible because they can't read our minds and understand what we are OBVIOUSLY (not) hinting at?

Why do some spouses opt for separation and divorce rather than working things out. Granted some people are deliberately difficult... but wouldn't biting the bullet when it is quite a small offense and dealing with it then be better?

Are we really such cowards? I tend to be I think... I dislike pain... live with too much of it daily... I would rather avoid the unnecessary kind... but...

I think, sometimes... we need to embrace it in order to have deeper and greater satisfaction in life... 

N.B  This was originally posted as a note on Facebook

New Year's resolution

So this is Christmas, and what have we done? another year over, and a new one just begun.

so 2011 has started...
2010 was a crazy year. All sorts of things happened that were weird (post more on that later)

What are we looking forward to in the new year.

I personally am making efforts to work smarter, live healthier, love better, praise God and have tonnes of fun doing it.

Way too many times, we work ourselves into oblivion. We think that the harder we work the more God loves us, or the better people we are.
What alot of nonesense.
God loves us because He love us!
Perhaps it is time that we love ourselves.

I resolve to love myself, others and God more openly, with more abandon in 2011.

What about you?