Ten Year Anniversary
It's been ten years since I started blogging. I think the official day was yesterday, but I was working, soooo...no blog.
So when I started I was 25, and wanted to run triathlons like a boss. Then the blog morphed into something that I would just emotionally or spiritually vomit on once in a while. There are a lot of posts I have been tempted to delete. It's impossible to speak from your heart and then not look back and see that you were an idiot. That's the beauty of growing up, I guess.
So today, in the midst of all kinds of wonderful struggles most of a spiritual nature, I am drawn to what matters most. Hopefully, in a blog that will endure time and my surpass my own idiocy.
In serving and honoring God with my life it becomes an unclear, befuddled mess of where my responsibility ends and his begins. It seems so clear to me that I am incapable. Even the promises I've heard from others about God's ability to fix all that is broken and empower me to live as he would like still stings of my own disability in the light of constant failure. Even when I fail to land in the joy that he brings it's somehow my fault. All the answers to what pain me become my fault. Even doubt is my fault. And I know I bargain. I bargain with the rules in the places in me that remain dissatisfied, though I sometimes beg God to fill those places. I could fill them easily, though temporarily. But I'm supposed to wait for Him to, if He chooses to. But even if He doesn't, if I'm not happy, it's my fault.
That's the problem. I am faulted. Always faulted. Flawed and faulted. It's too heavy a burden to carry. The list of mandates are too big to uphold. Life would cease to be something I would want to live and I would be a holy list checker consumed with my own inadequacy. And when I get tired of judging myself I would find solace in judging you. That's my personality.
So I fall down. I fall and I think it's all just impossible. And I search for a simpler way. And over and over and over again I see it.
It is not about me being good or doing well. It's more about me mastering one concept: Love.
There were two commandments as Jesus expressed a few times in the gospels that we were to consider the greatest. The first was to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is equally as important; love our neighbor as our self. All the other commandments and all the commands of the prophets are based on these two.
They are all based on love.
And what is love?
Love is being patient when you would rather demand now. Change now. Deliver now. Supply now.
Love is being kind when you want to be offensive and push people's buttons; when you want to shock people, when you want to make demands or condemn.
Love means choosing to be happy for others when they have something you long for, instead of being jealous
Love also means quietly appreciating what you do have so that you don't hurt those left longing. Don't boast and brag.
Love means knowing that even though you might think you know it all, that you are flawed too. You are just as broken as the most broken and therefore are nothing to squawk about. You have nothing to be proud in. You do not have all the answers.
Love also means being as gentle as you can be, remembering that you don't know the inner thoughts and pain of others, don't be rude. Consider their heart. Be respectful.
Love allows for the paths and journeys of others, its ok when things don't work out as hoped. It does not demand it's own way.
Love looks at others to see God's image lovingly reflected in them, not a tattered list of the ways people fail. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Love stands the picket lines to see that people are treated fairly, all people. It is never glad about injustice. It rejoices when the truth finally wins.
Love never stops believing.
Love never quits on someone.
Love never relinquishes the happy ending.
Love is stronger than all things.
Love will still be around when all the wisdom and prophecy is gone.
We know very very little about what happens on this planet and in this universe. We understand a diminutive amount of what takes place around us. Yes, lots of people feel a great sense of pride for how much they know, but even those lofty things are as basic as a child learning to scribble out a single letter of the alphabet compared to all that surrounds us.
But someday, we'll understand things clearly.
Until then, and even after then, there are three things that should inspire and captivate us. Faith (feeling secure in our knowledge of the things we can't see) Hope (our inner awareness that things can work out, that healing and wholeness is possible) and love (see the definition above). But the greatest of these is love.
So when I started I was 25, and wanted to run triathlons like a boss. Then the blog morphed into something that I would just emotionally or spiritually vomit on once in a while. There are a lot of posts I have been tempted to delete. It's impossible to speak from your heart and then not look back and see that you were an idiot. That's the beauty of growing up, I guess.
So today, in the midst of all kinds of wonderful struggles most of a spiritual nature, I am drawn to what matters most. Hopefully, in a blog that will endure time and my surpass my own idiocy.
In serving and honoring God with my life it becomes an unclear, befuddled mess of where my responsibility ends and his begins. It seems so clear to me that I am incapable. Even the promises I've heard from others about God's ability to fix all that is broken and empower me to live as he would like still stings of my own disability in the light of constant failure. Even when I fail to land in the joy that he brings it's somehow my fault. All the answers to what pain me become my fault. Even doubt is my fault. And I know I bargain. I bargain with the rules in the places in me that remain dissatisfied, though I sometimes beg God to fill those places. I could fill them easily, though temporarily. But I'm supposed to wait for Him to, if He chooses to. But even if He doesn't, if I'm not happy, it's my fault.
That's the problem. I am faulted. Always faulted. Flawed and faulted. It's too heavy a burden to carry. The list of mandates are too big to uphold. Life would cease to be something I would want to live and I would be a holy list checker consumed with my own inadequacy. And when I get tired of judging myself I would find solace in judging you. That's my personality.
So I fall down. I fall and I think it's all just impossible. And I search for a simpler way. And over and over and over again I see it.
It is not about me being good or doing well. It's more about me mastering one concept: Love.
There were two commandments as Jesus expressed a few times in the gospels that we were to consider the greatest. The first was to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is equally as important; love our neighbor as our self. All the other commandments and all the commands of the prophets are based on these two.
They are all based on love.
And what is love?
Love is being patient when you would rather demand now. Change now. Deliver now. Supply now.
Love is being kind when you want to be offensive and push people's buttons; when you want to shock people, when you want to make demands or condemn.
Love means choosing to be happy for others when they have something you long for, instead of being jealous
Love also means quietly appreciating what you do have so that you don't hurt those left longing. Don't boast and brag.
Love means knowing that even though you might think you know it all, that you are flawed too. You are just as broken as the most broken and therefore are nothing to squawk about. You have nothing to be proud in. You do not have all the answers.
Love also means being as gentle as you can be, remembering that you don't know the inner thoughts and pain of others, don't be rude. Consider their heart. Be respectful.
Love allows for the paths and journeys of others, its ok when things don't work out as hoped. It does not demand it's own way.
Love looks at others to see God's image lovingly reflected in them, not a tattered list of the ways people fail. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Love stands the picket lines to see that people are treated fairly, all people. It is never glad about injustice. It rejoices when the truth finally wins.
Love never stops believing.
Love never quits on someone.
Love never relinquishes the happy ending.
Love is stronger than all things.
Love will still be around when all the wisdom and prophecy is gone.
We know very very little about what happens on this planet and in this universe. We understand a diminutive amount of what takes place around us. Yes, lots of people feel a great sense of pride for how much they know, but even those lofty things are as basic as a child learning to scribble out a single letter of the alphabet compared to all that surrounds us.
But someday, we'll understand things clearly.
Until then, and even after then, there are three things that should inspire and captivate us. Faith (feeling secure in our knowledge of the things we can't see) Hope (our inner awareness that things can work out, that healing and wholeness is possible) and love (see the definition above). But the greatest of these is love.
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