full of joy

RIght Living and Right Speaking

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Occasionally, the creative well runs dry and I end up “borrowing” from other great writers. One of my favorites that I’ve quoted many times in the past is Henri Nouwen (who along with Brennan Manning are probably my two favorite authors).

Here’s what he wrote that again struck me so powerfully:

“To be a witness for God is to be a living sign of God’s presence in the world.  What we live is more important than what we say, because the right way of living always leads to the right way of speaking.   When we forgive our neighbours from our hearts, our hearts will speak forgiving words.  When we are grateful, we will speak grateful words, and when we are hopeful and joyful, we will speak hopeful and joyful words.

When our words come too soon and we are not yet living what we are saying, we easily give double messages.  Giving double messages – one with our words and another with our actions – makes us hypocrites.   May our lives give us the right words and may our words lead us to the right life.”

Right speaking comes out of right living. People will sense the authenticity of your words when they see what you say lived out. Your faith will be more caught than taught, and if your words don’t match your actions, then people will dismiss the words and not the actions.

If I speak and act out of a need to be liked or thought well of, then what I say and do won’t be as effective as if I speak and act as one who knows who he is and who knows that he is the Beloved of God. My identity informs my authenticity.

I hope and pray that from this point on I will speak only what I live, and I will live only what God has already spoken about me.

 

How to lose friends and influence nobody (my attempt at satire)

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 4 Comments

I seem to have a rare spiritual gift. In fact, I am the only one I know who possesses this fine gift. I seem to have the ability to lose friends. How do I do it, you ask? Here’s how. In 5 easy to learn steps. Actually, there is only one step.

That one step is to do and say really stupid stuff. Or to try way too hard to be funny or witty. Or in my case, to just be me.

I tend to run off friends (most of those being of the female persuasion). I am such an overwhelming personality that they can’t stand me for long periods of time. I think the magnets in my magnetic personality are set the wrong way, as I tend to repel rather than attract.

The end is always the same. Silence. They just vanish. They won’t talk to me or return my posts or texts. I simply cease to exist in their world. Which makes me think that another blog on my magical abilities might be in order.

Here’s the real point. The actual serious point. God loves me. I can’t run him off, no matter how I try. And I have tried. He’s there, loving me the same whether I am full of joy and fervor and my faith is on fire, or whether I am ice-cold and callous and could care less. My God will never ever ever ever stop loving me. The nights when I am curled up in the fetal position, buying the lie that no one loves me because I am unlovable, my Abba is cradling me in His arms.

The point is not for people to like me. The point is to be faithful. The point is for me to be a friend who loves at all times and never gives up on his friends. Never. Because that’s what I’d want people to do for me. And thank you to my friends who have seen the best and worst of me and still stick around.