Posts Tagged ‘Life’

I was thumbing through an old notebook of mine and figured I would post some stuff… these will pop up randomly. (And may or may not be coherent thoughts.)

“For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity¹ and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.”

- 2 Corinthians 1:12

Something I took note of here is the footnote my bible had on the word simplicity. Some manuscripts had the word ‘holiness’ in it’s place.

I found this to be pretty interesting that the characteristics of simplicity and holiness might be interchanged there…

It makes me wonder if the two could be transposed, or, that simplicity is a characteristic of holiness… which to me makes sense.

To over-complicate your life is an attempt of sorts to take some control from God. If we are too complicated, then we are not skilled at the things we are doing. By keeping things simple we are able to focus more on God, and what He wants us to be doing…

The less clutter we have in our lives, the more capable we are of seeing what that is.

So… to really get down to it; Love God, Love others. It doesn’t get much more simple than that. Work on those two things, that will take a lifetime… and the other little things will work themselves out along the way – if you find yourself doing just those two.

Just quick thought on Easter.

I don’t intend to take any validity from Easter so don’t flip out on me; just trying to convey a thought I had today.

What would we say the purpose of Easter is?

I’ve always heard/thought that it was a day to reflect on the death and resurrection of Christ, and the sacrifice He made for us.

This isn’t bad, by any means – however – I was thinking today that maybe we should be doing that every day. Okay, not maybe, I think every single day we should be tied into the fact that Christ made a sacrifice for us. We should consider it every moment we can, this is our hope – why would we not?

We should be waking up every morning and dying to ourselves and our own desires and giving our life up to God.

I fail at this all the time.

Anyway, just consider – maybe on Easter we should be more excited about the fact that someone out there is just now returning to God, or just now beginning to follow God. That’s exciting.

The other stuff, focusing on His sacrifice, let’s work on doing that every day.

Goodnight & Happy Easter.

I enjoy movies. Simple as that, I enjoy movies, and I watch a lot of them. It doesn’t mater the genre as long as it is decently made and keeps me entertained for a while. Admittedly they can be a bit of an escape from the real world for me (which isn’t so great but, a conversation for another time).

So, I watch movies. Tonight I was over at a friend’s house and we watched the oldie but goodie Say Anything, starring John Cusack and an actress who I’m pretty sure went on to do very little but, that’s irrelevant. So, admittedly, I watch what some might call chick flicks – it’s my guilty pleasure.

In every chick flick you can count on a few things. One of these things is that inevitably there will be that part in the movie where things aren’t happy. The girl or guy will find out something about their counterpart that they weren’t entirely truthful about and all the happiness goes to pot. They break up (if they were together) and go out and do stupid or say stupid things and so on. People are upset.

I always hate this part in the movie, it makes me mad, not sad, mad. I get upset because it’s usually some sort of ridiculous thing that they are upset about or, the party who called it off is equally at fault. Regardless, in any good chick flick they will invariably get back together anyway, so I feel like this part of the movie exists simply to make it meet the 90 minute chick flick quota, no more and certainly no less.

Another part you can count on, in most but not all, is the open ending. It will end on a happy note, however you are left wondering exactly what happens after. Do they run away and live happily ever after? Do they buy the boat, the puppy, the house, adopt the kid, save the day, break out of jail – Who knows, I guess it all depends on if you are a glass half full or a glass half empty type of person.

So, there are more formulas to the chick flick, but those two are the two that stuck out to me tonight. Out of the two I’m just going to elaborate on one of them – the fact that very often, we are left hanging as to what happens. Yes, perhaps we are left on a happy note (except for The Break Up but, we won’t go into that) albeit a very open ended happy note but, one nonetheless.

This kills me, why can’t they just give a little tid bit of what happens? Maybe one of those little titles that come up at the end like on Remember the Titans where it goes through and says what happened to everyone – something like that. Or, a newer fad, something at the end of the credits like the couple in the delivery room – making way for a very funny family comedy in which they dive into the struggles of raising a child in the midst of their zany lives. Something, anything, I just want some resolution.

Really though, I love movies with very resolute endings. At the end of the movie I’m left sitting there going, well – so it is. You may not be happy with the ending but at least it ties things up, that’s okay, as long as I’m not left hanging. Maybe they lived happily every after, maybe they were killed by a mugger – together – and in love, either way it’s an ending.

Am I alone here? I don’t think I am. I think most people like to have some sort of wrap up. Most people do, it’s a semi-standard thing, I’ve met very few people who prefer to be in the dark all the time. So, what is it about us that makes us have to know what’s next? I think it’s something more deeply rooted than a high budget formula written movie.

I mean, if you think about it, this isn’t the only aspect of our lives that we try to know the ending of. The desire goes far beyond movies, a lot of people plan out every detail of their life. We just have this longing to know what is next. The next home, the next promotion, the next day’s plans – we think about what is next all of the time. In fact, I would say that a lot of the time the hope of what is next is overshadowing what is here and now.

Why is that we can’t just let go of things? I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t plan but, sometimes you just have to realize that God, in his sovereignty, at any moment, could entirely alter what is next – and all of our planning becomes rather silly, and useless. At the time it may seem all “Woe is me, I thought I was going to get the poodle but now I don’t know if I can get any dog,” but in reality we’re more than likely better off. Really, believe it or not, God always has your best interest at heart. Scripture is full of references to letting God take control and not worrying yourself over the things of this world [Luke 12:22-34] or planning out everything [James 4:13-17].

Now, don’t get me wrong – there is value in planning ahead. We are called to be good stewards of what is given to us, this is true, however what I am trying to say is sometimes we get so caught up in the stewardship of what we are given that we neglect the most important thing that has been given to us – life. We were pulled up from a most certain death and given life and so often we just sit and think about… tomorrow? What about today? What have you done today to show the love of God to someone? What have you done today that has had a positive effect on the kingdom?

You could walk outside and get hit by a Mack Truck tomorrow and your plans will have been for nothing. I’m guilty of this too, I plan all the time, I plan ahead and daydream all day long about what my life will be like in 10 years. This is so pointless I can’t even begin to talk about it… 10 years from now? I haven’t the slightest idea of what I’ll be doing in 10 years. One thing that I want to make sure I am doing, is living where God wants me.

To wrap it up I’m going to quote a line from a song I like, “we must rip out all the epilogues from the books that we have read…”

I know it sounds sort of corny when it’s pulled out of the song but I think it’s a great point. Sometimes we are so caught up in what is happening next that we miss out on it happening.

How much better is it to be a part of what happens next than to read about it later?