Saturday, July 27, 2013

Peace of Mind



Friday night I was home, and I was okay with that.  I sat there feeling as though I should be upset or unhappy that everyone else was probably having a blast, but I wasn’t upset at all. I was more thankful I didn’t have to turn anyone down to go out.  This made me think back to a few years ago and how I had a totally different perspective back then. 

If it was 7pm on a Friday night a few years ago and I didn’t have plans  I would have been devastated, wondering why I didn’t have any friends and thinking about what a loser I was.  It didn’t matter whether or not I actually wanted to go out. There were some nights I wanted to do nothing but sit at home and watch a movie, but I was always worried about missing out and all my friends having so much fun without me.

This is where that feeling of Earthly peace would come in.  I was so overwhelmed with feeling like a dork because that’s what the world told me I would be if I stayed home one night.  My feelings were all based on what other people would think and how I would be viewed.  I felt a sense of peace as soon as that first text would come in with plans for the evening and I would rush to say yes, even if I wanted to do nothing but stay at home or if I didn’t really like what I was about to go do.  It was all about making sure I wasn’t missing out.  Half the time I wouldn’t even have that much fun and just be counting down until it was acceptable for me to head home.  I didn’t feel true peace, what I felt was this “peaceful” sense of living up to the standards of the world. 

Last night at around 7pm I was thinking to myself, “Hmm, I’m 21 I should be wanting to go down town, but I don’t, I would rather be at home spending time with my parents.”  I only have three weeks left of summer, so why would it be a bad thing to spend time with the people that I love the most.  I had no anxiety of worrying about how people would view me. I think this has come with knowing my priorities and learning how much I am loved by God.

 Before knowing this love I was always trying to fill a feeling of emptiness with the acceptance of the world.  Life is so much simpler and peaceful knowing that I don’t have to live up to the standards of the world, because lets be honest, most of them aren’t good standards anyways.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

India- The Poor in Spirit


I get so easily distracted and know what it means to lack the gift of being poor in spirit. I think that if someone were to say ‘give up your life for Jesus’ I would say yes instantly, but yet on a daily basis I fail at this.  Every time I feel the urge to pray, but don’t because of my phone or the TV or something similar, I am
showing God what I think is truly important. Having spiritual poverty (being poor in spirit) means I am willing to drop everything for Jesus, nothing would tie me down or make me say ‘hold on Jesus, be with you in a minute.’  This may be why the material poor are closer to Jesus’ heart, because they don’t have material things that they have made into their own gods and put them before Christ.  They run to embrace the fullness of the Lord when He calls because they can see how much greater He is than anything here on earth, while I often have to respond to a text or finish a quick task before I turn my full attention to God. While in Goa, we saw the people give way more honor and thanksgiving to God in one day than many Americans give in their whole lives.


I think a lot of this comes from all of the things we have and the technology that makes us so self efficient that we don’t think we have to rely on God daily and do things like pray for freshwater because it’s right in our homes, we don’t have to pray for good weather because we can predict it days ahead of times, and we know we will always have more than enough for our next meal.  We have turned from thanking God to thanking ourselves because we think everything is in our control with the touch of a button.  In India, many didn’t know if they would eat their next meal or have clean water, and when they did, they gave great thanks to God for providing it for them.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be glad for all the technology; it is a wonderful thing (when used in the right way).  What I am saying is that we still need to thank The One who gave us the brains to invent such technology and for the ability to have food on our table because of the jobs that we have due to the skills we were given .  God doesn’t want us to have nothing, but he is God, the Creator, the Father, we should depend fully on Him, giving Him the honor and the thanksgiving He deserves for all that He has given us. 



‘Nothing is appreciated more than appreciation’