The Best of What's Around

Not to say that everything that I'm thinking right now is profound, and the clearest thing that I've ever thought before, but I'm sure most of you would agree that when our room/house is clean we can begin to not feel as anxious just by walking into the place that should provide a  bit of comfort to a long day of work.  I've been able to clear my head, and sit on the freshly vacuumed floor in order to let some wisdom come into my head and hopefully try to retain it.

I would like to start off with a quote from our pastor, Matt Chandler, during his Colossians  series yesterday.  He said, "When we are inwardly focused, we become overly guilty."  Now, I have been trying to see the full meaning of this, and have been bouncing it off others to see what they think.  What I feel like it is saying here is that when we get so narrow minded on ourselves, we tend to miss the global purpose of Jesus Christ's ministry.  We think only of our own wickedness, which can sometimes, somehow lead us to not actually believe in the saving grace of Jesus.  I know from experience that I often think, man I must be the most wicked person to ever walk this earth.  Those times usually come when I'm not reading about those before me that were wicked but received His grace.  I am often tricked into believing that everything that He taught, while here on earth, wasn't true.  He came to save the sick, not the healthy.  I'd love to hear some discussion on this one.

Next, I started reading "Tally Ho The Fox," by Herb Hodges, recommended by the one and only Rob "Black Rob Marteezy" Martino.  Chyea Rob.  The tagline to the book reads, "The Foundation for Building World-Visionary, World-Impacting, Reproducing Disciples."  As I began this book today, I started to see a little bit more of why it is important to make disciples.  Hodges points out some differences in the churches in Acts, and from the churches seen today.  One very important difference was:

Their Strategy showed an apparent disregard for building institutions and majored almost exclusively on building individuals.  Their strategy was one of explosion (outward) instead of implosion (inward). 

Something else that this book is showing me is how common sense doesn't actually carry as much weight as I usually think it does.  One of my pet peeves is dealing with people who lack common sense.  However, I suppose if we relied on nothing but common sense then we wouldn't really need help from anyone else, since we rely on our own thinking anyways.  To quote Hodges again:

It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment.  but if once you truly hear the full commission of Jesus Christ, the awareness of what God wants will be your goal from that point on, and you will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.

This completely shatters my way of thinking that things have to make sense.  I'm working on getting the phrase out of my head that goes something like this, "Common sense would tell you..."  Instead, I hope to become more patient and quiet, and trying to tune my focus on what He has to say to me, even when it doesn't make sense to me.  Going off this, we discussed this morning in bible study why God would allow things to happen like the Holocaust and the earthquake in Haiti.  Why would He stand "idly by" and not do anything?  That just doesn't make sense...heh.  Here are my thoughts, I am thankful for these times I can look back at tragic events in my life and see that God doesn't always give good things to good people.  He doesn't always show immediate justice to those that are evil.  I am thankful because naturally I like to think that if I do good in life, then I will receive a good reward (karma).  However, God has proven time after time that there is suffering on this earth, and we should long for it, even though wanting suffering doesn't make sense, so that we can draw closer to Him.