All right, so apparently for some reason I promised a decent update sometime this weekend…. and this my friends… this is my attempt to deliver.
I have had a lot of things on the mind this past week or so, and so I am not really sure exactly what direction I am going to go with this post… I may ramble on about completely unrelated things…. or I might tie a few things together… or have enough to go on on one thing that I will tire of writing before I get onto anything else…. so that being said.. consider yourself warned ;).
“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”
-Romans 8:6-7
I read that last night just prior to going to sleep. I have been thinking about how so much of the time I don’t trust God. And the issue I think is a total lack of any real faith. And I don’t think I am alone in that at all. I think there are so many people in the church who have little to no faith at all. What we have is just a cheap substitute….
What is the secret to faith? I don’t know. But I do know that there is faith to be had, and that I desire it and long for it more then anything else. I want the faith of a cripples and blind men, who we may think have so many reasons to be angry at God, and yet they have absolute trust in Him. In my thinking… I was thinking… what do I want people to think when they think of me? what do I want people to remember me for? and if I could choose anything, then that would be, for my faith.
And it is from there that I think everything else comes together. It is then that we are able to be distinctively different from the people around us. And it is then that they will be willing to listen. It is then that we stop making excuses for doing what WE want to do, and instead follow God’s leading through faith. Who cares what happens in life so long as we serve God’s purpose and ultimately end up with Him? Have you ever sat and thought how little room you really have to complain, etc? And every is different, some people who read this may have some serious health issue, or whatever. Most of us do not. Most of us here in America live relatively great lives. So so what if you don’t have a girlfriend, or that girl that you like(d) is dating someone else? Does it really matter? God will supply what you need.
I think that it also has a lot to do with where your focus is. You can have a postitive focus, or a negative focus. I have for a very long time been terrible about focusing on the negative. 100 things can go right in a day, and 1 thing go wrong and i end up obsessing over the thing that went wrong and being bummed out. I think that a person could be living the most blessed life ever and be depressed because of a negative focus, and that a person could be living an absolutely miserable life and be perfectly content and at peace if they focus on the positive. And of course, to focus on the things of God brings us even further.
I also think of friends. Sometimes, you end up hardly ever seeing certain people. Why that is, I don’t know. I guess they get caught up in their own lives, and kind of forget about you. And it always seems like people always say it’s stupid when people do that, until something happens where they end up doing it themselves. And I’m not going to say that I won’t be that way, because I probably will, you know? But I hate it, and I will try not to. But the thing is this… though all your friends forget you, God will not forget you. He is always there, even when you don’t want Him to be.
I don’t know. This is the kind of stuff I have been thinking about. And hopefully that all kind of followed a theme and made sense to you… and wasn’t just a bunch of incoherent rambling.
Tomorrow I have class, and it’s getting pretty late, though. so I am going to go to sleep now.
Be blessed.
[Edit: So there is forgotten, and then there is blown off, which I believe I may have just crossed the boundaries of. Fun times. That’s ok, I’ll go do something awesome later. Once I get this stupid class out of the way… ;)]
i think this is the bestest thing i’ve read in awhile. it makes me very very happy… esp. after the great conversation we had the other night. you really make me think. i like that.
i think my most favorite thing you wrote and what sums up all i’ve been continously thinking about is this:
“What we have is just a cheap substitute…. “
Hi, you don’t know me, but I just wanted to say that I think you are right about everyone feeling the need for true faith. It’s a tough thing when you live in such a comfortable country, and lead such extravagant lives. (compared to the rest of the world) I know that I have really grown to trust God a lot more through trials I have gone through in the past year or two. It’s been hard at times, but so worth it, because while I’m still far, far from perfect, I feel like I CAN trust God so much more than I was able to before. But I think that the best way to grow in your faith is to keep doing what you’re doing. Read the Bible and keep asking God for help–He’ll give it to you. –rachel