Changes

Just an FYI – I’ve changed some things in the sidebar on here and updated my woefully-out-of-date About pages…so…let me know what you think of the changes.

Planning Obsession

One of my jobs consists of sitting in the optometrist’s office for 3 hours waiting to see if maybe this week the phone will ring. (Seriously, Saturday mornings – the time I work – have like nothing going on.) That means that I have 3 hours to do whatever I choose. Recently, I’ve grabbed a piece of paper off the copy machine and, with the help of their calculator, I’ve once more run over my finances for the next year. If I happened to remember my flash drive, I’d do the calculations in Excel on their computer…but most times, it’s by hand.

I practically know the numbers by heart. If I work jobs A and B for the 54 weeks till I hope to graduate, then I’ll be about $2000 shy of where I want to be. If I work job C which has a commute and requires auto expenses, then I’ll earn more, spend more, and net about $500 different. If I take this financial assistance offer on campus, then I’ll be within a thousand dollars of where I want to be – just a few extra hours here and there. If my business takes off, I’ll be soaring; if it crashes, I’ll be tight. Etc etc etc…I know it all. Yet, when I have those precious 3 hours of nothing-to-do, I always turn back to planning this over again.

Some of you know the reasons behind some of these goals – the dreams that can be better fulfilled if I’ve met or exceeded these goals. I’ve heard since I was a tot that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, so since succeeding at these things is very important to me, I’ve taken that advice to heart and planned…planned…and planned. But recently, God convicted me in this area. He used Matthew 6 to show me how I was getting carried away:

24″No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other You cannot serve God and wealth.

25″For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

26″Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

27″And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?

28″And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,

29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.

30″But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!

31″Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’

32″For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

33″But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34″So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I am not really mercenary and tend to be very giving, so I had never considered that money could be trying to steal God’s place. Thinking about this passage, though, I realized that in some ways, it was taking God’s place. I should be seeking His kingdom first and foremost. I’m not saying all planning is wrong – it is true that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. God wants us to use our minds and intellects. However, having made me plan, I shouldn’t keep going over it time and time again to see if there’s some little piece I missed. Right now, my plan shows that without God making some things work out awesomely, I’ll be short of where I think He’d like me to be. So, if it’s His will for me to be in the financial position that I think He wants me in, He’s going to have to get me there. But, for now, I need to just do what I know to do today, and let Him worry about the details.

I might not be concerned about food and clothing for today or tomorrow, but I really think that passage applies. Even if I wasn’t planning money-related things, I think it still has application. When you spend more time planning and worrying about your plans than you spend seeking God and thanking Him for working His will in your life…well…that’s a problem. For me, those mornings at the office, I always have my Bible with me. I could sit there and read God’s Word and commune with Him as easily as I can sit there and fret about money and run the numbers over and over to find the missing link. I need to choose God.

Now I don’t want anyone to read this and think, “Oh, this means I don’t need to watch my money anymore at all, and I shouldn’t plan anything else ever.” Hopefully y’all know better than to believe me that far, anyway, but, that’s not what I’m meaning. Some planning is healthy; more planning isn’t.

Here’s the guideline I’m going to try to operate by: If I have made a plan and nothing has changed significantly since making it, then I need to leave it in God’s hands and seek His kingdom. If I have no plan or if things have changed drastically, then and only then may I go back and re-work my plans.

I think living that way will give God room to work and keep Him in the God-spot, while not simply being lazy.

Good vs Godly

I was thinking about this contrast this afternoon (can you tell I had too much time to think at work? ). There’s a difference between being good and being godly.

I have tried for awhile to be the best employee, best student, best whatever-role-I-fill…especially in the secular circles that I work/live in. I believed this would reflect well on God, but more than that, I wanted it to reflect well on me. I wanted to be asked to be in management early because I was just that awesome; I wanted to graduate Suma Cum Laude or Magna Cum Laude or whatever that highest-honors level was. I wanted to tutor seniors as a sophomore, partially ’cause it made me feel good. I wanted to put the bit of extra effort into the homework assignment so that my prof would still think I was an amazing marvel of genius.

But…I wasn’t trying to glorify God. It was all about me. What I was doing was good – studying hard and working hard are good things to do. However, what I was doing was all just my personality, the perfectionist in me, and the desire to be praised. If want to glorify God, then I’ve got to get the “me” out of it. It’s good to try to be a good employee, but, I need to stop doing it so that I can get promoted and start doing it so that God can be lifted up. My goal needs to be to show Christ to the people around me, not to make myself look good.

So all this made me think, what’s the difference between being good and being godly? I’ve known some very nice, friendly, good people who weren’t Christians. There can be folks that love people ’bout perfectly and live very morally…but…if they’re not doing it for God, I wouldn’t say they’re godly.

I haven’t figured out totally what the difference is between “good” and “godly”. I’m thinking that motive and who gets the praise would be big differences. Whatever the differences, though, I’m going to try to pursue godly instead of good.

Who’s to blame?

Last school year, I got two “B”s. Guess whose fault they were? Not mine; my professor’s. This semester, it seems that I’ll be getting one “B” and I’m annoyed…and whose fault is it? Dear darling silly professor. That speech I really messed up today was totally not my fault, either – the professor’s weird rules were responsible.

At work, I didn’t get my cleaning list done today…but it wasn’t my fault…the store was too busy to get it done! Until a week or so ago, I was doing my bathroom cleaning incorrectly at work, but again, not my fault – definitely the coworkers who didn’t tell me when I started that I should do it differently. I don’t mis-ring-up a customer’s register because I did something wrong; it’s because the machine is acting up. Oh, and that stuff I didn’t get done over the summer…those emails I didn’t reply to…the time I failed my driving test…and all those other things I didn’t do perfect…I can tell you who is to blame, and it’s definitely not me!

Are you noticing a pattern here? I can’t believe how long it took me to see this pattern, but I finally have. Those of you who know me well might’ve seen this pattern long long ago…so it’s your fault I didn’t see it before, since you didn’t tell me. Err, wait, that’s not what I’m supposed to be saying…

God’s been showing me recently that I have a huge pride problem, and I’m going to try to work on that…but just today, I saw this big piece of it. I find someone else to blame for everything that I do wrong. If I can’t find someone else to blame, then I find an excuse. This is annoying for the folks I’m around and there’s lots of people who have had to deal with it…wish I could apologize to them all…but worse than that, it really isn’t good for my relationship with God. How can you repent of sin if you are unwilling to recognize any error in your ways?

So yeah…folks…I’m to blame. I can give you some good stories about all those (like, the driving test thing, I wasn’t unsafe or anything…I can explain…. ), but, at the end of the day, usually I could’ve done something different and avoided the problem. Granted, some things are more expected than others; sometimes what I did was OK, though not all that I could’ve done. However, I need to buck up and take the blame.

Busy vs Productive

Some people are just born busy, it seems. No matter how much they’re doing, they’re happy to get one more job, sign up for one more ministry at church, or take one more class. These people thrive on busyness. In the past year or so, I have found myself being the same way. I want to do something worthwhile; I want to make an impact on people’s lives; I want God’s ways to shine out through me. I want to be productive, useful, etc. When I am busy, I seem to be these things.

Yet…does busyness really produce productivity? I am finally beginning to get busy here at Union College. These past couple days have been spent going from one place to another and feeling important; the next 3 days will be much the same. My schedule is full and on the surface, I feel productive. Is this accurate, though?

I’ve done no great deep studies into this, but I would propose that when we are our busiest, we often aren’t productive. In my own life, I have found that I perform best with some level of busyness (sitting around all day doesn’t get anything done ), but not with extreme busyness. I love to be productive, but, trying to work 80 hours a week (work, school, independent projects to potentially earn money…) may mean being less productive than working 40-60. Why? Partially because it removes the time and space for God to work.

I’m going to be looking over my own schedule for the next year or so and re-evaluating it. I was pleased a week ago to fill up all the slots and be “busy”, but I wonder now, am I productive? There is an art to balancing doing enough things (being busy) and performing well enough at them (being productive). We can’t forget either. (Somehow, that last sentence gave me a mental image of a kid spending all day making their bed to perfection, and then arguing with their mom that that’s why they couldn’t clean their room…. )

All this makes me think, too, of what some fellow said (I think it was Luther) – that he couldn’t hope to get done everything he had to do in a day if he didn’t first start with 3 hours of prayer. If we get our time with God first, then I think the busyness will subside and the productivity will emerge.

What is chosen?

At my job, we often get people through who have spent all their food stamps money and by the end of the month are counting out pennies to buy what they want. (Now, before you start feeling too bad for them – most of these folks start out with a $600 or so food stamps budget…then spend lots of it on soda, and the rest on expensive premade foods…)

Yesterday I had a lady through who had one $10 bill, and that’s all that she had with which to buy her groceries. She bought milk ($2.99), three 2-liters of soda ($1/each), coffee ($3.50 or so), and bread ($2.50)…then when we rang up the purchase, it cost more than she had to pay for it with. So…she went back and changed out breads, but it was still slightly more than she had. She’s needing food for the next little while, so, what does she choose to keep and what get rid of? She gets rid of the bread. The milk has nutritional value, so I can see keeping that…but the soda and coffee both have no nutritional value! The soda is bad for ya. If she’d gotten rid of just one of the sodas, she could’ve gotten the bread. If she’d gotten rid of the coffee, she could’ve gotten the bread and a second gallon of milk (which she’d wanted, but knew she wouldn’t have enough money for). I was quite surprised by her choice…a bit of flavor and instant enjoyment was chosen over bread. She bought entirely beverages and no “real” food…and that spent her last dollar (she had about 40 cents left, so, I can’t say her last cent ).

I was thinking about this story while getting ready for work today and I had a thought. How often are we like this lady in the store yesterday? There’s all sorts of things that we enjoy – things that are to us soda and coffee. Those beverages make water taste good, but don’t help us any, and sometimes even harm us. We sometimes choose these beverages over the “bread of life”:

35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. (John 6:35)

Milk was a good choice though:

1Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
2like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
3if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. (1 Peter 2:1-3)

Yet, we can’t have the milk and forget the Bread of Life who makes that milk important. Nor can we be content to just ingest this milk for the rest of our lives:

12For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
13For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
14But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14)

It seems from this passage that the solid food for the mature is to put into practice what we’ve read…however, we can’t put into practice if we are not learning.

Let’s make sure we get the solid, untainted milk of the word of God, and that we keep the Bread of Life in mind as we do so. Then, let’s put it into practice – we need “meat” or “solid food”, too. I choose soda too often…I take my 24 hours and want to use it to get lots of milk, bread, and meat…but then when it comes down to planning out the hours, soda and coffee don’t leave room for milk, bread, and meat. I’ve had “soda” for my main sustenance for many years…but I’ve had enough. I want some real food. Just like I’m not going to go have a soda for breakfast, I’m not going to continue having sodas for spiritual breakfasts, either.

Challenging Verse

A Facebook friend of mine posted this as her status:
Titus 1:15+16 “To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their consciene are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” So where does YOUR heart fall in this scramble of words??

Wow. Interesting verse! To one who is pure, everything is pure… How true this is. When I was more purely-minded, everything that was said was “pure”. Now, I hear the “naughty” in things more often. You all probably can identify with this to some extent. Once upon a time, you didn’t know why folks laughed reading the word “ass” in the KJV – now you do know…and many other things that are worse, but we won’t go into those here.

Let this challenge us to keep our minds pure that all may be pure! James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” It’s not easy, but it’s worth it!

Forgiveness

I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness recently. A discussion came up with my forum-friends that turned to the topic of forgiving people. As I reflected on the comments made by the various girls, I came up with a hypothesis. You don’t know how to forgive until you need to be forgiven. It seems that the more aware we each are of our own depravity apart from God, and the more we realize our need of forgiveness from God and people, the more able we are to extend forgiveness to others.

The famous “Lord’s Prayer” says “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. The parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 illustrates this same concept from another angle, that we should forgive as we have been forgiven.

I’m not going to say these passages prove my point, ’cause they don’t directly and it really annoys me when people take a passage and stretch it farther than it goes. However, I will say that they are consistent with my point. The servant needed to be aware of his own forgiven state in considering what to demand of the one who owed him. Matthew 18:35 (the conclusion of the parable) and Matthew 6:15 both state that we must forgive if we are to be forgiven.

I think we all would do well to be able to view our “debt” to God through His eyes and see how much we have been forgiven. When someone around us falls – even “big time” – we should be both willing and able to forgive them. We have been forgiven so much!

—————-

Several months ago, a friend of mine forwarded on some e-mails to a different friend and one part of them really struck me. He took some verses, and where they said “all people” or “every person”, he changed them to his own name. When I read through those putting in my own name, it opened my eyes anew to how evil I was apart of God, and would be again if it weren’t for Him. I’d like to post them here in case any of you others would be willing to read them with your name. It really helps me to forgive everyone I know when I remember how much I have been forgiven.

For if Elisabeth keeps the whole law but fails in one point, she has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If Elisabeth does not commit adultery but does murder, she has become a transgressor of the law. (James 2:10-11)

For Elisabeth knows that nothing good dwells in her, that is, in her flesh. For Elisabeth has the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

And Elisabeth was dead in the trespasses and sins in which she once walked, following the course of this world … Elisabeth once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of her body and her mind, and was by nature a child of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

None is righteous, no, not Elisabeth. Elisabeth doesn’t understand. Elisabeth doesn’t seek God. Elisabeth has turned aside; Elisabeth has become worthless; no one does good, not even Elisabeth. Elisabeth’s throat is an open grave; she uses her tongue to deceive. The venom of wasps is under Elisabeth’s lips. Elisabeth’s mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Elisabeth’s feet are swift to shed blood; in Elisabeth’s paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace Elisabeth has not known. There is no fear of God before Elisabeth’s eyes. (Romans 3:10-18)

I think it is easy to read these verses and go “Oh, people are so evil, but I am holy.” We need to remember that we were so evil – even if we were raised in a Christian home and saved when we were wee little ones, we still were evil. Don’t forget the warning in James – “Don’t hold your salvation with an attitude of personal favoritism.” It’s not that we’re so good; we’re just as evil and undeserving, but God has graciously changed our ways.

The Company You Keep

The folks that you spend time around affect how you both view and live life. I made a long post related to this on another blog several months ago highlighting verses like 1 Cor 15:33 which says that “bad company corrupts good morals”, and Proverbs 12:26 that says the righteous man guides even his neighbor as well as many other verses relating to those whom we choose to spend time with.

I recently got the opportunity to laugh at myself as I was reminded of this principle. I have known for as long as I can remember that who you’re around affects how you act, but I didn’t realize how much it affected how I think until I lived the past year of my life. Most recent evidence of this fact was at work last week…

I was standing at my register, wishing we had customers (I hate standing around on the clock…) and could hear two of my female coworkers talking about two of the male stockers who had just walked by. My coworker’s conversation was something like this:
Gal1: “He looks like such a geek…”
Gal2: “Yeah, just needs the glasses.”
Gal1: “Mm-hmm. Like couldn’t you totally picture him sitting playing video games for 2 hours straight?”
Gal2: *laughs* “Oh yeah.”
The whole conversation seemed rather senseless to me, but my first thought about what they were saying was something like, “Don’t most kids play video games for hours on end…?” Then I had to laugh at myself. Most of my friends are computer geeks. At college last year, I did most of my homework sitting with the computer science students, all of whom loved video games (seriously, out of all of them, I was the only non-gamer). Here, I only know a couple students and the one I talk to most (since I’m sorta a tutor, so we spend hours working on code together) is a gamer. Even in other realms, I know several gamers. So, in my mind, gaming was normal. I might not sit and play video games for hours (no thanks), but almost everyone else around me does, so I see it as normal.

Once I finished laughing at myself, I started thinking about the principle behind this. If we are around people who think, believe, or act a certain way, we’re likely to start thinking of that as the “normal” whether we change our behavior to match it or not. I’ve hung around with gamers and haven’t become one myself, but hanging out with them made me consider their behavior normal and socially acceptable.

It won’t harm me in life to consider gaming normal, but it is harmful when we come to accept immoral behaviors just because they’re normal in our group of friends. Conversely, if we hang out with people who have high moral standards, we will consider those high standards to be “normal” and we will, then, strive to attain those higher standards.

I could give examples of the same thinking-change as it relates to matters that affect our life – physical and spiritual – a lot more directly, but instead, I’d like to ask a couple questions. Who are you hanging out with? What are they teaching you is “normal”? Evaluate your companions and make sure that the “normal” they promote is one which draws you closer to God, not farther away from Him.

Fear and Greed || Part 2

Monday I posted about fear and greed, how they play into decisions we make in life, and somewhat how they relate to some decisions that are currently facing me. Today God’s helped me see a “Part 2″ to answering the questions that were in my head.

If I got paid for every time I linked to Mark Batterson’s “Evotional” blog, I think I could be a millionaire in a short time. All I really know about him is that I saw someone link to his blog once, but still, that’s the blog I was reading when a post about fear and fearlessness caught my eye. If I try to quote what stood out to me in his post, I’ll quote almost the whole post, so just go read it if you like – it’s short. In short, his post talks about how perfect love casts out fear, so if we are walking in the perfect love of our Lord, then we need to be able to make decisions without deciding based on fear.

So, if my stock-market teacher from my previous post is correct, and all decisions are a balance of fear and greed…and if Mark Batterson is correct and we should live fear-free…then all decisions should be based on greed. Therefore, I am now a mercenary. Err wait…maybe the God-factor should come into this somewhere…

Of course, seriously, I don’t think that we should base all of our decisions on greed. Really, greed shouldn’t be any part of a Christian’s decision. My previous post was based on a false premise, because in reality, if I follow Christ my decisions should be based on neither fear nor greed. I should be seeking God and seeking godly counsel and letting those determine which path I take.

Oh, and little note – when you do seek God, He’ll (eventually, at His perfect time) answer you. I told God I wanted to know what He wanted with this job-question before me, and He didn’t seem to answer…at least not immediately. God speaks through so many different mediums, but this time, He spoke through mother-love (my mom was concerned that the late hours in a stressful work environment would kill my spirit) and some random blogger who I know practically nothing about. The only thing holding me back, really, from the route I’d like to take is the fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m somewhat afraid it will fail. Mark concludes his post with a concept that I have seen shown in my life repeatedly and that is showing itself again in this situation:

Here’s another lesson learned: few things are as liberating as what you fear actually happening. You realize that God is still there and life goes on.