spirituality

Comparison Shopping

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cash register 3

You gotta love the new trend in internet shopping. I mean the one where you go to a website that helps you find the best deal on planet tickets, hotel rooms, or just about anything else you might want to buy. That’s where comparison is a good thing.

But I’ve found myself using comparison in a way that’s not so good. As in when I compare myself to some one else. I see someone who’s found true love and I wonder why I haven’t. I see someone who’s found a career that’s a perfect fit and who loves going to work every day and I wonder when that will happen for me.

I read somewhere that comparison is the thief of joy and contentment. Comparison either leads to pride when you think you’ve got something that the guy next to you doesn’t, or envy when the guy next to you has something that you don’t.

Comparison is always misleading because you never know the whole story. Appearances can be so very misleading. That man or woman you’re comparing yourself with may be happy in that one area, but struggling in another area that you don’t know about. He or she may actually envy you for something you have that he or she doesn’t.

If you have to compare yourself, compare yourself with where you used to be. Remember where you were and see where you are now. Look how far God has brought you. Look at what you’ve already overcome.

Rejoice for those who have what you don’t. Root for them and keep your eyes where they belong. And that’s on Jesus. He didn’t create you to live someone else’s life or be who he created them to be. He created you to live the life he custom-made only for you.

Your path is your own and no one else’s. Your timetable is your’s alone. You get where you need to be, not when everybody else does, but when in God’s perfect timing. Not a moment sooner and not a moment later.

Something Good to Remember on a Monday

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Matthew 5:1 says, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.”

I’ve read past that a thousand or more times. I’ve rushed past those words to get to the Sermon on the Mount, the good stuff. But I think I’ve done myself a disservice by not paying attention to this verse, particularly the first three words: “Seeing the crowds.”

Did you catch that? He saw the people who came to see him. He didn’t see bodies. He saw faces lined with pain. He saw heartaches and anxieties and unrest. He saw people just trying to get through the day.

Just as he sees you and he sees me.

Do you ever feel unnoticed? Do you ever post on facebook and no one responds? Do you ever comment on someone else’s post and he or she responds to everyone else but you?

Do you often feel invisible in a crowd? Has the thought ever crossed your mind that no one would miss you if you were suddenly not there? Or like George Bailey, do you think the world would be better off if you’d never been born?

You may not feel like anyone knows you or the secret shame and pain you carry. Jesus does.

You may think that you don’t matter to anyone. You matter to Jesus.

You are not alone. You have an advocate, someone who is on your side, who fights for you, who roots for you, who won’t abandon you in the dark or in the storms. His name is Jesus.

I didn’t come up with this, but it’s still true: if you had been the only one lost and in need of a Savior, Jesus still would have gone through every bit of the cross just for you. He loves you that much.

If your Monday’s been awesome, that’s great. God rejoices with you. But if your Monday was horrible and couldn’t end soon enough, this promise still holds true.

This is from a ragamuffin who needs daily reminders of the goodness of God as much as anyone else. God is faithful, even when it seems he is absent. He is good, always.

 

Borrowed Thoughts

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I think a part of me would very much like to sleep until noon every day. That part of me would love to gorge myself with chocolate as much as possible and only eat foods that while being extremely tasty, are extremely bad for me.

I remember what a pastor said once. He said that no one ever wakes up in them morning and thinks, “Hey, today I’m gonna screw my life up beyond all recognition.” It all starts with choices.

I’ve never woken up thinking, “Today I’d like a heaping helping of humility and trials and crappiness in my day. I want everything to go wrong and to feel like the day is never going to end.

Just like the Israelites probably never thought, “Gee, I’d like to wander around in a desert for 40 years, eating some strange pastry that falls from the sky and drinking water out of rocks. That sounds like my cup of tea.” But that’s what they got.

God doesn’t often give us what we want as much as he gives us what we need. I may want non-stop chocolate, but I need to be healthy and not weigh 800 pounds. I may want to sleep late every day of my life, but I need to spend time with God in the morning to get my bearings put right.

I heard that discipline is getting us to a place we would have never thought to go on our own. On my own, I’d never think to develop a constant prayer life and a complete dependence on God. But when I find myself in places where my way just doesn’t work and I have no more answers, I find myself praying to and depending on God a lot more.

I’m grateful now looking back that I didn’t get a lot of what I asked God for in prayer. I thought I knew what I needed, but it was only what I thought I wanted at the time.

A perfect illustration is looking at a 1-year old. He may think he knows what he needs and what is best for him, but he doesn’t. He has to be told what is and what is not good for him. The father may have to discipline him to get him to see what he wants and what is best for him aren’t always the same thing. I’m a lot like that little boy.

May you and I come to embrace the hard days as well as the good ones, because they remind us of how much we really do need God every day. May Jesus use the trials and troubles we face to develop in us a constant faith and a undying hope and a love that won’t quit.

 

To Be Liked or To Not Be Liked. . . That Is the Question

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cameronincar1

I have given this a lot of thought. Probably too much, given my tendency to way overthink matters. But here goes.

I’ve decided that it is just too much work to hate anyone. To spend all that time concentrating negative emotions on one person and letting that person dictate your life is tiring. Just thinking about hating someone is enough to make me want to lie down until the feeling passes.

I also believe that life is too short to spend it disliking anyone. I know this opinion is probably one I hold by myself and I don’t ask you to agree with it, but I’m standing firm on this one. You may not get along with every single person, but you can choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them grace, because if you haven’t already needed it from someone else, you will one day. I guarantee it.

You have the perfect right not to like me. You don’t even have to have a valid reason for it. It’s your choice and right as an American. You may not like my personality. I may rub you the wrong way. I may occasionally say and do (without realizing it) really dumb stuff that turns you off.

It’s your privilege as a human. It is also my privilege to not return the dislike. It is my calling as a believer to show kindness and the love of Jesus to you. It’s my calling in Christ to pray for you daily and to wish you nothing but the very best.

Sometimes relationships go wrong, whether in the workplace or in social settings or anywhere else, and you will never be able to put them right again. You will always wonder what might have been. But just because that person has vanished from off your radar screen doesn’t mean they’ve vanished from God’s. He still knows where they are and what they’re going through.

So I have a list of people I’m praying for who will probably never know it. That’s okay. I only pray they find a true peace that passes understanding and a lasting joy that nothing can take away. I pray they find Jesus to be more desirable than anything else in this world.

And I wish them nothing but the very best.

Live Naked

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I need to preface this blog by emphatically stating that by “live naked,” I so do not mean join a nudist colony or walk around all day in your birthday suit. If you do, we will disavow all knowledge and pretend you don’t exist. This blog will self-destruct in 15 seconds. . . .

For real, I do think that we need to live naked. By that, I mean live transparently and honestly. You will always be a second-rate version of someone else, but a first-rate version of you, because God made you to be you, only you, and no one else.

That means you don’t have to force yourself to believe that everything is fine when it’s not. You can honestly admit that you’re having a bad day, that your brokenness is showing, and that you feel completely inadequate to handle what the day is throwing at you.

To like naked is to live a life that is 100% 24/7 completely and utterly dependent on God for every single moment and every single thing. You know you need God in the next moment to avoid a full-on falling apart mental and emotional meltdown. You need all of God’s strength to hold you together and you need all of his love to keep you sane.

To live naked is to live trusting without understanding, following without knowing the way, and believing without having all (or even most) of the answers.

That’s how I am choosing to live each day. That’s how I pray you choose to live. Because believers aren’t perfect, but forgiven. If anything, those who have given up everything to follow Jesus know that Jesus is all they have and that Jesus is all they need.

It’s a battle to trust when your emotions and thoughts are screaming at you that God won’t come through. It’s a lifelong struggle, but it’s so much more than worthwhile.

May we live naked starting today and every day.

Have You Ever. . . ?

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Just a hypothetical question or two for you to chew over.

Have you ever messed up a relationship at work so badly that you can’t see how it will ever be put right again? Where it just seems like the other person doesn’t like you at all and nothing you do makes it any better, but only makes it worse?

Maybe you’ve been there. You’ve thought to yourself, “I couldn’t have screwed this up any worse if I had done it on purpose.”

Isn’t it good to know that your self-worth doesn’t come from those relationships? Isn’t it good to know that you are not defined by your success at getting people to like you? Doesn’t it change everything when you fully and deeply grasp that the only opinion that truly matters comes from the God who already approved of you?

As far as that relationship goes, I can’t really help you. I’m not the world’s best at dealing with people who don’t like me. I’m far better than I used to be, but I do still have a ways to go.

But I do know that God is very fond of me. He’s very fond of you. And even if that relationship miraculously revived and grew into friendship, it would still pale in comparison with how much the God of the universe loves you. Is in love with you.

My suggestion is to be Jesus to those people. Treat them as you would want them to treat you and pray for them for God’s peace and joy and salvation. It’s really hard to hate someone you’re praying for.

Again, this doesn’t come down from the mountain of some great person who’s figured it all out and has decided to let you in on his awesome wisdom. This comes from a fellow traveler on the road who’s learned far more from failing and falling down than from success.

Let the love of God tell you who you are, not the judgments of other people. Love is definitely the better way.

 

 

How Fit Is Your Faith?

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If I had my way, everyone would like me. Everything would always go my way and my teams would always win every game. All those teams I didn’t like would cease to exist. Everything I owned would work properly and every road I drove down would be sunny and traffic jam-free.

I’d also have the weakest faith ever.

Most of the things that have strengthened my faith have been unwanted, uncomfortable and (sometimes painful). Given a choice, I probably would have said no to most of them. But my faith wouldn’t be nearly what it is now.

So here’s some questions to gauge how fit your faith is:

1) What do you do when your “dream mate” falls in love with someone else?

2) What happens when someone at work doesn’t like you, no matter how nice and friendly you are or how you go out of your way to treat him or her with kindness?

3) What happens when your circumstances never seem to get any better and hope gets harder and harder to find?

4) What happens when your children act out or continuously behave in ways that run contrary to how you taught them to act or behave?

5) What happens when you run out of answers?

I think that faith grows in the dark. It’s in those times when you can’t see God and can’t find any answers that you find a stronger faith than ever before. It’s when you come to the end of your self-reliance and have no other choice but to fall on the grace of God that you really find out how strong it is to save.

It’s not about great faith in God, but faith in a great God that counts. That’s what I cling to in the dark days when not much makes sense. I hope you do, too.

 

Spontaneous, Joyful Uncertainty and Expectancy

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“If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, “. . . believe also in Me” (John 14:1), not, “Believe certain things about Me”. Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in—but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from life, is that almost nothing ever turns out according to my expectations. No conversation ever goes like I planned it in my head, no holiday plays out quite like I planned, and no day ever seems to be what I thought it would be.

I think my only expectations from 2013 are of God. Specifically, I expect him to show up in 2013. How? I have no idea. I only know that when I need him most, he’ll be there.

I’ve had unexpected relationships that I never saw coming. I’ve had friendships with people I never thought would even talk to me. I’ve also had friends move on and seemingly drop off the planet (or at least off my radar). For those of you who have moved on to the next phase of life, the friendship is still on and always will be. Count on it.

That doesn’t mean I sit back and do nothing. I think this year I have to prepared and ready for whatever God brings. As one of my favorite lines from a movie goes, I have to have my fields ready to receive the rain when it comes.

I know that whenever God has shown up in my life, it has never been exactly in the way that I expected, but it has always been better. It has never been when I expected, but it has always been at the perfect moment when I needed him most. God’s gifts to me haven’t been what I asked for; many times, they’ve what I needed and longed for but didn’t know it.

I know that whatever I go through in 2013, God is good. I know whatever the day turns out to be, God is faithful. And I expect that to be the same in 2014 and beyond.

A New Year’s Psalm

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“It seemed like a dream, too good to be true,

when God returned Zion’s exiles.
We laughed, we sang,
we couldn’t believe our good fortune.
We were the talk of the nations—
“God was wonderful to them!”
God was wonderful to us;
we are one happy people.

And now, God, do it again—
bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.” (Psalm 126)

What Does God Look Like?

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As a child, I read about the hand of God and I wondered what that must have looked like. I thought surely God had big, strong hands to carry the world and everything and everyone in it. Plus, he’d have to have good aim for throwing all that lightning around. I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine what size shoe he would wear.

As I’ve grown older, I realize that God’s hands look much different than I used to think. God’s hands are calloused with scars and dirt under the fingernails. God’s hands. His hands look a lot like mine. In fact, my hands are his hands in a way. So are yours. God has chosen to work through and reach out with your hands and my hands.

As for his feet, they’ve seen a lot of wear and tear. They know that hurting people aren’t just next door or across the globe. They’re in both places and everywhere in between. I believe my God wears a size 8 1/2, because my feet are his feet going out to reach the hopeless and broken. It’s just a matter of if I choose to walk in his footsteps.

Our job as believers is to show God to the world. They see us and how we work and live and play and see God through what we say and what we do. How we reflect the image of God determines what view of God those around us will have.

So for me, that changes the way I look at myself. If I am created in God’s likeness and his image-bearer, then I look exactly like he wanted me to look. It changes the way I act. It changes me.

I pray that as we are being transformed more and more into the image and glory of God, we will in turn reflect that likeness and image on to those around us so that they can also see the goodness and the greatness of the God we serve.

Maybe that’s a good mindset to have for 2013.