Mind Wanderings.

Entitlement. It's a word that I've been wondering a lot about these past few days. What makes a person entitled to something? What makes feeling entitled okay? WHEN is it okay? After coming home from Haiti, the fact that I saw so much selflessness, & so much love for OTHERS, I wonder is it EVER okay for me to feel entitled? I have so much. Literally everything I could ever hope to materially possess is right at my fingertips, waiting for me to buy it, revel in it, love it, enjoy it, & in two weeks, dispose of it. The people in Haiti have next to nothing, & yet they trust it ALL to God. Every. Last. Thing.
I've come to question so much of what I have been taught is socially acceptable, & "Christian". There are so many things that, after truly sitting down & thinking about them, I have realized aren't Biblical, & are actually quite the contrary. We have all been taught "Stranger Danger!" Which when used properly is a VERY good idea, but we have also been taught to take that to the extreme. When was the last time you said "Hi!" to a stranger while you WERE NOT working? Seriously. Tell me. Because before Haiti, I couldn't have told you. Proverbs 14:10 says "The Heart knows its own bitterness. & a stranger does not share its joy." We have become a nation, & generation, where we are all strangers. None of us share the joy of others, unless it is convenient for us to do so. We have become selfish in our way of thinking, & we only appear to not be so because of our deep desire to be accepted by everyone else & have them share in our own joys. We have all become so lost in the way of the world, so convinced that we are forever forgotten, we spend so much time thinking on our own "Insignificance" to others, we fail to see that everyone is feeling that way, that everyone thinks themselves insignificant to us, because we fail to pay attention to them, being busy feeling sorry for ourselves.
There are so many things that I now wish to change about myself, & the way I view not only the world, but its people therein, & how they live their lives. I've realized that I will generally look for the best way to make myself comfortable when doing things for others, so I can then say I'm being a "good" person, without too much inconvenience to myself, but like I said before, that is wrong, & (again) in Haiti, I learned & saw what the difference is. Here you are practically a saint if you hold the door open for someone, in Haiti a little 6 year old girl scraped the wet cement off of my hands, & wouldn't allow me to touch hers for fear of mine getting dirty again. She had cement on her hands, arms, face, on her pretty dress, & she was more concerned for my hands & work clothes than herself. Most of America was just shown up by a little girl who, to our standards, had nothing & every right to hate me.
The Haitian people have been used immensely by God in teaching me so many valuable lessons. & even though I am home, they are still being used daily, not only in my own life, but in the lives of everyone they meet.

well. all in all, I'd say this post has been all over the place, & so I will put an end to my ramblings for now. I do have one more thing to add though, just a quick little plea, Please don't ever forget that God has an amazing plan! Whether it be what you want, or whether it be the complete opposite, trust it, & Him, to know what's going on.

Thoughts.

Thoughts are a big part of my life. I think about everything. Whether I actually think things through though....who knows. The point is this; I am CONSTANTLY thinking about something, and how often is that something honoring to God, or even just not revolting to Him? Again who knows, but still. Its a thought that has really been tripping me out lately. There isn't much that I can do once I've thought of something, I can't just unthink it. I have to deal with that thought, and the consequences therein. That's why it is so important that we think only of good things. Chances of that actually happening. None. Chances of us trying? Pretty good if we are willing. So here goes 9). Unthink those thoughts that I haven't yet thought.

A Sad World

When I woke up this morning it was to my Mama asking if there was any way Jessi and my Grandma might've changed their minds and ended up going to the Aurora theater to see The Dark Knight Rises. I didn't know why she was asking, I just wanted to go back to sleep, but when she told me about the shooting my heart hurt. The one sentence that truly broke it though, was when it said the gunman "calmly" dropped his spent gun to grab his other one. Calmly. He wasn't worried, or at least he didn't show that he was. It said he "stalked" the aisles shooting at random. And the thing that truly hurt the most was thinking about WHY he did it, and I realize it's because he's a sinner, JUST. LIKE. ME. I think about how I look at this and I think "What a tragedy!"  "How sad!" and then I realize I'm in the same boat, I have sinned just as much as he has, and we both deserve Hell.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions....

Today I had a very thought provoking conversation about choice, and how God gave me my choice, and how I want to use that gift of choice to make the RIGHT choice. (Wow. That's a lot of "choice".) It got me thinking about what making a choice means to me, and I can honestly say that making my own choice means a lot, especially because I've been given the opportunity to do just that by an All-Powerful God. It's a simple choice really, but a choice that doesn't end when we make our decision, we have to continually make the decision each and every day to talk to God, to do what He has called us to do, and to see what He has to say to us. We are blessed beyond reason with just that one gift, and I don't see how when we decide to reject that gift it's helping our circumstances.
I don't know about you, but I would rather not get to Heaven and be talking to Paul, or Peter, or John, or any of the other Martyrs, and Die-Hard followers of Christ and say "Oh yeah! I did a car wash once!" No. I want to be able to say "I made the choice to 'Go unto ALL the world' and share the Gospel and the LOVE of Christ. All too often we say we are given one choice, and ultimately we have one truly remarkable choice to make, but there are so many decisions to be made every day! We don't realize how much each one should mean to us, because all too often, we don't realize we have them.
8). Think about the choices I have.


I know I already have a post about choices, but this one is a little bit different. Not the wrong ones I've made, but the ones still waiting.

We Praise Him

I've been thinking-Imagine that!-about worship, and what it does, and what it SHOULD mean to me. And of course that got me to thinking about HOW I worship, WHEN I worship, and of course the all important, WHO I worship.
For the most part ask me what worship is and I will immediately say "It's when we sing our praises to God!" but in reality, we can worship more than just God, and much too often, we are all found doing just that. It saddens me to think about the fact that all includes me. I much too often, sometimes without realizing, find myself worshiping someone or something other than God. No, I don't sit there and sing them my praises and adoration, but there are many ways we worship, especially when it comes to God. We can worship simply by smiling at someone, sharing the gospel, being kind instead of rude to the incompetent driver in front of you on the freeway, but in the end it's all about heart, and where ours is at with God, or rather NOT with God.
Our heart is a big part of worship. If you are mad at someone and they apologize, but they don't mean it with their heart, I'm pretty sure it doesn't make you happy, it makes you mad. How much moreso do you think it angers God when we use worshiping Him to "show" how sorry we are? I for one need to work on actually worshiping God with my heart, not my show. So, 7). Worship God with my whole being.

Just Five.

"Just $5?" "Two for $5" In today's society when we see something for "Just $5!" we feel as though we just found a steal! We are so caught up in the "$5!" we don't even realize how hypocritical we are acting. Think about it. Five. Just Five. Wow! What a deal, that is until it comes to spending time, not money. 5 extra minutes in traffic, 5 minutes to wait for food in the drive-thru, 5 minutes to just load the dishwasher, and get this, 5 minutes to sit down and read The Bible? The Holy, All-Powerful God's book of "Cheat-codes" for life? Heck No! That's MY five minutes! I have to(I'd rather!) load the dishwasher. I have to go sit in traffic in order to get to the store, They're having a sale, Just $5!
When you really sit down and think about it, didn't God Make, Create, DESIGN Time? He knows how much time you actually have to spend. He has the power to take that time from us, and yet, He allows us to choose how WE want to spend it. And get this, you don't have to give Him ALL of your time, but the more give Him, the more we realize what a good deal "Just 5 Minutes" really is, the more we will desire to spend "Just 5 more minutes!" With Him. 6). Give "Just 5 Minutes" Everyday.

Uniquely Like Him.

The Bible calls us to be like Christ, but the world dares us to be unique. So, How do you choose? How do you decide? How do you  get the best of both worlds? Well. That's just it. You don't get the best of both worlds. You don't conform to the world's wishes, because in the end, what they call unique, is just like everybody else. You will be "Uniquely like everybody else." So let's make an effort to be unique, to make the choice, our own choice, to be different. To choose God. And to, honestly, be more unique than everybody else, because, well, who else do you know who can be as unique as Christ? 5) Be uniquely like Christ.