Tuesday, May 12, 2009
volume, variety, velocity
This is something that we all tend to be deal with. It's one of the things that I'm dealing with right now. I get so caught up in the volume, variety and velocity of life. What I mean by that is when school, work, family, pets, and people come screaming at me all at once I have trouble concentrating on God and putting him at my center like I know that he should be. Instead I let myself get distracted by all that needs to get done and forget that if I just have trust in God and truly fall in line with him and his word then I won't have to worry about that anymore. For those of you that don't understand what that last statement ment, what I mean by that is when I am in line with God and everything he wants me to do everything starts to take care of it. I'm not getting angry, i'm not getting nervous, and i'm not taking on more than I can handle. This doesn't mean that God won't help me out with life when i'm not following Him. It will be harder yes, but like my friend said this morning, "If I follow Him with all my heart then he'll bless all I do." This doesn't mean that I can go out killing people and he'll bless me, but if i misread a sign or get tricked by satan then he won't make my life hell, he'll help me and pull me through it. The next thing that hits me is the variety in life. There is so much for me to do and for anyone to do it's rediculous. Right now i'm typing this blog, and listening to music. Some days I just get overwhelmed. With all the video games, websites, programs, tv shows, and all that other mess out there it's easy for me to get distracted. This can also be a major pull-away from God for me. The last one is the velocity of life. Let's be realistic, in a society when waiting, "Two whole minutes!!!" is too long to wait for dinner we've become impatient and have started to live at the speed at which the microwaves that cook our food move at. I deal with this alot too. Working, going to school, and church I end up thinking, 'where do I fit God in?' This I really have to be careful of because there are times when life is going so fast I completely forget about God. So I encourage you to take on the challenge that I will be and take a defferent bible verse each week that you get something out of and study it for an entire week. Pick it apart and see what didn't hit you when you initially read over. Spend the time to memorize it. This will come in handy when you are depressed, angry, or desperate or whatever other emotion you may feel. That's my spiel.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Confidence in Christ
Not too long ago I had a family member die. It was the most life changing thing that could’ve happened to me. One of the results of this was my coming to Christ, and when this happened I enjoyed an incredibly close relationship with the lord. During this time my life was completely changed around for the lord. Lately however there has been a major switch in my spiritual life and the rest of my life as well. Don’t mistake me, this isn’t a good change. I feel like there’s been a growing gap between me and the Lord.
This has been perplexing me for the longest time ever since it really began. Today the Lord revealed why I was doing this and why I was growing away from Him. It was because I’d been focusing and putting my confidence in myself and not in God like I had been doing. This is what has been going on in my spiritual life. Because of my putting my confidence in myself there has been a gap in my satisfaction in life. So that is something that I need to work on.
The reason that I write this blog about my personal revelation today is that I believe that we are doing this to much these days. We are putting ourselves up to fail. We look a lot to ourselves these days. We go home and we plop down on the couch and we wonder “What am I supposed to do?” instead we should be asking “God tell me what to do?” We do this day in and day out thinking that we are supposed to be doing everything and achieving everything on our own when that isn’t what God told us to do.
What God told us to do is to live for him and to trust Him. To have confidence in Him. By having confidence in Him we make our lives easier by going to God and having Him come and prepare us the way that we need to in order to slay our own personal giants. When we have confidence in God he gives us what we need. When we don’t though it’s like going into battle with a child’s sling-shot, and a t-shirt. When we go to God and have confidence in Him we are dressed in His armor that He gives us. Then we can defeat whatever is oppressing us.
So friends it’s time to stop leaning on ourselves and trying to put the world on our shoulders and lean into God and have confidence in Him. We must not simply believe in God, we must believe God.
This has been perplexing me for the longest time ever since it really began. Today the Lord revealed why I was doing this and why I was growing away from Him. It was because I’d been focusing and putting my confidence in myself and not in God like I had been doing. This is what has been going on in my spiritual life. Because of my putting my confidence in myself there has been a gap in my satisfaction in life. So that is something that I need to work on.
The reason that I write this blog about my personal revelation today is that I believe that we are doing this to much these days. We are putting ourselves up to fail. We look a lot to ourselves these days. We go home and we plop down on the couch and we wonder “What am I supposed to do?” instead we should be asking “God tell me what to do?” We do this day in and day out thinking that we are supposed to be doing everything and achieving everything on our own when that isn’t what God told us to do.
What God told us to do is to live for him and to trust Him. To have confidence in Him. By having confidence in Him we make our lives easier by going to God and having Him come and prepare us the way that we need to in order to slay our own personal giants. When we have confidence in God he gives us what we need. When we don’t though it’s like going into battle with a child’s sling-shot, and a t-shirt. When we go to God and have confidence in Him we are dressed in His armor that He gives us. Then we can defeat whatever is oppressing us.
So friends it’s time to stop leaning on ourselves and trying to put the world on our shoulders and lean into God and have confidence in Him. We must not simply believe in God, we must believe God.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Darkness of the century or the Light of Eternity?
It seems that ever since the nineties rolled around that he world and especially the US trend has become chaos, panic, and outrage. It doesn’t matter which however there is always one in play either in our own lives or on the news. I am aware that this has been going on, however looking back through my AP US history class I begin to wonder if this is simply the by-product of a new and united news front and mass culture or the result of a rotten world falling on the ground between chaos panic and outrage.
To start with there is the continuing issue of the wars going on in the Middle East and the terrorism that is a result of such actions and beliefs held there. There is the Iraqi war, which by the way the first Bush did not help in any way whatsoever (I think we are on the verge of another pentagon papers incident with the Bush administrations.), which has been going on for some time now. Not only are we looking at the chaos and the panic that people are facing overseas and here on the domestic front however there are those that are outraged due to the lack of “progress” being made on the Iraqi front. However what they fail to realize is that we funded the Iraqi army by giving them their weapons in the 1990’s in order to fight Iran. However this seemed to have backfired on us.
On top of this we have the swine flu going on. Not only the first, but the third pandemic of this flu(http://timklean.blogspot.com/2009/05/h1n1-pandemic-of-influenza-or-epidemic.html). This flu is turning out to be a little more than just some by-the-by ordeal that will simply pass over, considering that a second life has been claimed by the flu thus far and has hundreds more cases popping around the US.
So here’s my question for those of you out there that are actually reading this. What are we doing in order to make this world a better place? We may not be able to go and win a battle, or go out into the medical field and make a ground breaking invention. However I firmly believe that we can care for those around us. Instead of getting into all this politically correct mumbo jumbo, let’s simply care for those that are around us. Not by “Random Acts of Kindness” , but by “Constant Acts of Kindness”.
Instead of being bogged down with the troubles of this world let’s be the light that Jesus Christ said that we were meant to be. Let’s no longer be the “Casual Christians” “Waiting on the world to change” instead let’s change the world, person by person, and let God do the rest.
To start with there is the continuing issue of the wars going on in the Middle East and the terrorism that is a result of such actions and beliefs held there. There is the Iraqi war, which by the way the first Bush did not help in any way whatsoever (I think we are on the verge of another pentagon papers incident with the Bush administrations.), which has been going on for some time now. Not only are we looking at the chaos and the panic that people are facing overseas and here on the domestic front however there are those that are outraged due to the lack of “progress” being made on the Iraqi front. However what they fail to realize is that we funded the Iraqi army by giving them their weapons in the 1990’s in order to fight Iran. However this seemed to have backfired on us.
On top of this we have the swine flu going on. Not only the first, but the third pandemic of this flu(http://timklean.blogspot.com/2009/05/h1n1-pandemic-of-influenza-or-epidemic.html). This flu is turning out to be a little more than just some by-the-by ordeal that will simply pass over, considering that a second life has been claimed by the flu thus far and has hundreds more cases popping around the US.
So here’s my question for those of you out there that are actually reading this. What are we doing in order to make this world a better place? We may not be able to go and win a battle, or go out into the medical field and make a ground breaking invention. However I firmly believe that we can care for those around us. Instead of getting into all this politically correct mumbo jumbo, let’s simply care for those that are around us. Not by “Random Acts of Kindness” , but by “Constant Acts of Kindness”.
Instead of being bogged down with the troubles of this world let’s be the light that Jesus Christ said that we were meant to be. Let’s no longer be the “Casual Christians” “Waiting on the world to change” instead let’s change the world, person by person, and let God do the rest.
Friday, May 1, 2009
H1N1: Pandemic of Influenza or Epidemic of Fear?
Though most people will claim that they have never heard of an outbreak of the swine influenza the recent research provided states that there was an outbreak (pandemic) in 1976 starting, in the US, at Fort Dix, New Jersey. While it was hazardess then it was really the immunizations that caused the most damage, 1976. (http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html) Another case farther back in time is the pandemic of 1918, This was the worst of them all.(http://www.haverford.edu/biology/edwards/disease/viral_essays/warnervirus.htm) However taking into consideration that this was a time when our medical capabilities were still in the crucible it is hard to determine wheather or not this is a fair comparison to now (2009) where our medical expertise is excellent and still growing.
For those of you who do not know how a virus runs it attaches itself to a host cell and uses it's organs in order to produce more viral cells. This makes getting rid of the virus a challange so inoculations are used. This is putting a weak version of the virus into your body and letting your body recognize the virus and find a way to combat it. There is also a vaccine floating around there now that will also combat this strand of the influenza.(more infromation here: http://www.haverford.edu/biology/edwards/disease/viral_essays/warnervirus.htm)
So because of this I am seriously begining to wonder if we as americans are over-reacting to this pandemic and making it out to be more than it really is.
For those of you who do not know how a virus runs it attaches itself to a host cell and uses it's organs in order to produce more viral cells. This makes getting rid of the virus a challange so inoculations are used. This is putting a weak version of the virus into your body and letting your body recognize the virus and find a way to combat it. There is also a vaccine floating around there now that will also combat this strand of the influenza.(more infromation here: http://www.haverford.edu/biology/edwards/disease/viral_essays/warnervirus.htm)
So because of this I am seriously begining to wonder if we as americans are over-reacting to this pandemic and making it out to be more than it really is.
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