The Source of the Problem

                I don’t think I am the only Christian in the world who wishes that God would appear to them via burning bush. On most days I pray that God would come and tell me exactly what to do in my situations. At times I even become paralyzed because I am caught between two choices and I become terrified of making the wrong choice in the end. In the times of my life where I feel as though I need the most direction I find myself diving into God’s Word. I find myself watching more sermons, fasting, reading more of my Bible, journaling, and praying more often. I think most Christians would be able to truthfully say they do the same thing; when the going gets rough, we start going to God more often. I am a firm believer in saying that this does in fact work but not exactly for the reasons that one might believe that it works. We go to God in our tough situations because we want God to fix that situation; but I don’t believe that God is our own personal handy-man.

                In the times that I find myself trying to make a big decision I also find myself praying that God will grant me a sign. After I pray that God will grant me a sign I spend the whole day with my eyes peeled looking everywhere to find this sign. Soon enough I am praying for discernment to discern between signs and coincidences. Finally, I have discovered my “sign”, in which case I find myself praying to God asking Him to help me understand this “sign” so I can follow His will in my situations. It’s really stupid to actually think you can fully understand the ways of God. Who are you to think that you have that kind of intelligence? Who are you to think that your mind is on the same playing field with the creator of the universe?! I will never be able to fully understand God’s plan and asking for a sign is a desperate attempt to do exactly that, to understand. Instead of trying to understand God’s plan while it is occurring maybe it’s more valuable to our relationship with God if we just trust that He has a plan in the first place and it’s going to work. Here’s a thought,  if God wanted to tell us exactly what to do in a certain situation and He truly wanted us to know exactly what He needed from us, would He really make it that complicated? If God wanted us to do exactly what we should do maybe He would send a message in the form of some kind of burning bush.

I have also started to consider another possibility; what if God doesn’t want you to make the right decision? Not in a malicious manner or anything but perhaps God knows that there are certain lessons that you can only learn from screwing something up. God knows that sometimes you need to completely get things wrong in order to realize how to get things right the next time! If God didn’t want you to make mistakes, He wouldn’t allow it. If every mistake you made was a threat to God’s ultimate plan and His almighty design then His plan wouldn’t be that great. Sometimes I even go as far as to question my connection with God when I can’t understand these “signs” given to me. But here’s the thing, you’re not disconnected with God because you can’t seem to understand which path is right and which one is wrong. If anything, you’re a little bit disconnected with God because you’re trying to get him to fix these situations of yours and he’s trying to tell you to fix them yourself!

                Earlier I mentioned that God was not our own personal handy-man. I struggled to find just the right analogy for this however what I am trying to say is we cannot only go to God hoping he fixes our situations. There have been times when I have chosen to listen to a certain sermon because I believed the name of the sermon seemed to have some type of correlation with whatever kind of mess I was going through in my life. The whole time I watched that sermon I was comparing my situation to everything the preacher was talking about. Sometimes I noticed myself stretching the meanings of certain things that were said in a desperate attempt to relate to what the preacher was talking about. Looking back I can realize that I missed so much of the point of those sermons. I was constantly looking for one specific answer the entire time and I missed so much of the actual point! There’s a bigger picture and you’ll always miss it if you are just constantly trying to find out what kind of lens the photographer used in order to take the picture in the first place. I’m sure so many of us church goers have heard a pastor say something along the lines of,

“Stop trying to place these things on others and just focus on what God is trying to tell you right now. Look inward and examine your own heart!”

It’s so easy to dismiss the pastor in times like these and just think,

“Well he doesn’t know the situation I’m thinking about because what he is talking about totally applies to >insert name here< and it doesn’t apply to anything I’m going through at this point in my life.”

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have used that excuse, “It doesn’t apply to me and this point in my life.” But maybe one day it will, maybe God is trying to drill it into your head now so you can avoid some stupid mistake you’re going to make in your future.

                If you truly think about it, you wouldn’t want God to tell you exactly what to do. Let’s say your mom wanted a gift so she told you exactly what she wanted, she gave you the money for it, she told you when she wanted it, and where to get it. Because you’re such a good child you retrieve the gift for her and you give it to her exactly when she wanted it. How valuable is that gift to her really? If your mom gave you all the tools you needed in order to carry out a task for her then you aren’t really doing it out of love for her, you’re doing it because she told you to and you don’t want to get on her bad side. If God told us exactly what to do and gave us the means to do it that would mean nothing and it would also take away from the free will He has given us. What kind of love would we be showing to our creator if there wasn’t trust involved as well? God calls us to have faith and to trust him because those are characteristics of love.

                So if God isn’t speaking to our situations through sermons, prayer, fasting, Bible teachings, and devotionals, then what is God speaking to?  God is constantly just trying to speak to our hearts. God speaks to our beings. He speaks to our character. After God has spoken to our character, situations can come and we can make our own decisions based on our convictions, based on our personalities, and based on the person God formed us to be! Our biggest problem might be that we refuse to take responsibility for the situations that we place ourselves in. If we could just take responsibility and realize that we’re the ones that need to be change, not our situations, then we can fix the source of the problem! God does not necessarily want to cater to each of your life situations and tell you exactly what to do. He wants to speak to your character and the person that you are. Sermons, prayers, devotionals, and Bible readings are all different ways that God communicates with us not to help us in our situations but to change our hearts and mold us into who we should be as individuals in Christ. If God told us exactly what to do through the means of communication He has then that would take away from the gift of free will that He has given us. Instead God speaks to our being and we become someone new and we make life decisions based on what our newly God-infused hearts and minds tell us to do. So if you find that you're frustrated because you can't make a decision or you don't know which way to go, consider the fact that maybe you've been asking God the wrong questions. Stop asking Him what choice you should make and start asking Him how He wants to change your heart. If you're becoming frustrated because you can't figure out a certain situation, try looking at it with a different perspective. Stop asking for answers and start asking questions about yourself as an individual! We go to God in our tough situations because we want God to fix that situation; but instead we should go to God on a daily basis in hopes that He’ll fix us.

The Wisdom Workout

                I’ve always wanted to be wise. I study psychology, specifically counseling, and I feel as though to be successful in counseling others, you need to be wise. There are different kinds of wisdom of course; there is wisdom received from God, and there is wisdom received from the world. I think wisdom received from the world would promote advice such as, “In order to get over someone sometimes you need to get under someone else.” Personally, that isn’t the kind of wisdom I want to practice giving out in my daily life.  Godly wisdom would sound more like, “If you keep chasing a relationship your identity can only be found in that relationship, but if you keep chasing Christ your identity can be found in Christ.” One form of wisdom is a quick fix whereas another form of wisdom is an overflowing well that will never allow you to be thirsty again.

I heard a quote last night that was extremely simple and this quote made me think of wisdom and how to achieve it, “The saddest people smile the brightest, the loneliest people are the kindest, and the people who have hurt the most are the wisest.”  The saddest people smile the brightest because they can truly appreciate being happy because they know how awful it is to be truly sad. The loneliest people are the kindest because they value the company of others because they know what it feels like to not have others around. The people who have hurt the most are the wisest because they’ve experienced not only their mistakes but the mistakes of others around them as well and they know in order not to be hurt again they need to learn from those mistakes and not make the same ones again. So in order to be wise, sometimes you need to make mistakes and you need to get hurt.

I find that I am often frustrated because I view my life to be more difficult than the lives of others around me. I feel like for a twenty year old girl I have experienced more hurt than others my age. I’ve seen others who have actually admitted that they have not really experienced life knock them down yet and I get extremely jealous. At the end of the day I wouldn’t erase the times when I have hurt because they taught me a lot but I wish I could take the gain without the previous pain. So why is it that wisdom can’t be gained from books, or reading, or teachings in a classroom?

Because being wise requires empathy, empathy requires life experience, and wisdom without empathy is just intelligence. How much would it mean to you if someone gave you advice but all the while you knew they had never experienced anything to the same magnitude of your current situation? How much would it mean to you if someone gave you advice but they would never willingly accept and apply that advice for their own life? I’ve found that personally when others are experiencing something that I have no experience in all I can really say is “I’ll pray for you” and after that I can’t seem to find words that will suffice! There are situations in which I don’t have any expertise or experience in and in the times when I am asked to give advice for those situations my advice becomes sub-par at best. Luke 6:46-49 surprised me in a new way when I read it with this concept in mind.

“Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Usually when I read this exert my focus is on the different types of foundations laid, rock and ground. However, it’s also about life experience. It says “the man who places God’s Word into practice” and we each are given opportunities to do exactly that! If we all build our foundation on God’s Word, the rock, then we are all off to a good start and our houses will not be blown over that is true. But let’s be completely honest, we have all met people who seem to have a stronger foundation than ours even though we are all Christians. We’re all using rock instead of ground so what’s the difference?! The difference is this: those people have had more experience. Those people have had more hard times that they can look back on and praise God for getting them through! Their foundation is stronger because they have laid more rocks than you! But that doesn’t mean each rock wasn’t heavier than the last!  

I believe that in my own life I am doing just fine when it comes to gaining experience through hurting. I have been piling my rocks for a while despite how heavy they can be at times. However, if that’s all that it took to be wise then every hobo would be speaking at conferences around the world. Being wise isn’t just a trait, it’s a way you carry yourself. You demand respect. You’re not necessarily old but everyone can see you’re well-spoken. I lack this trait; no, I extremely lack this trait. Being wise also implies being poised and graceful. Being wise means you know when to open your mouth and when to keep it shut. Being wise takes a new level of discernment. A vast majority of people only mention discernment when discussing major life decisions but we use discernment in our daily lives. We have the ability to discern between what we find to be appropriate and what we define as inappropriate. I have found that some of the most poised, well-spoken, and graceful people I know also filter what they take into their lives. This mature type of filter enables some people to possess the half of wisdom that I try so desperately to grow into achieving. Luke6: 43-45 is a perfect example of the point I am trying to make.

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

No person with a good heart pours out evil onto others through their words or actions. No person with a bad heart pours out genuine kindness onto others through their words or actions. Your intentions are your fruit and your intentions are who you are. Others’ perceptions of those intentions will frame who you are in their own mind. But if you are able to continually fill yourself with goodness upon goodness, kindness upon kindness, and humility upon humility, those are the traits that will pour out of you.  If you continue to practice those traits then you’ll be carrying those rocks to place on your foundation along with the rocks from all your struggles.  Be warned though just as the rocks of experience from hurt are heavy rocks of goodness, kindness, and humility are heavy as well.  And there’s a reason those rocks are heavy. We are all sinners! Those traits, goodness, kindness, humility, etc, those traits are just as difficult in the same way that going through hurt is difficult! It hurts to let go of pride! It’s scary to start carrying those rocks because we worry that eventually in the middle of carrying a rock of humility we’ll drop it on someone’s foot the moment it gets too heavy for us! And that’s why we need God to help us carry these rocks to place on our foundation.

                If all of these rocks carry so much weight it’s a good thing we don’t have to carry the load alone. Personally I only enjoy exercising if I feel sore the next day.  That soreness lets you know that the work you put in was worth it because you grew and you became stronger in some way.  So are you a person who would like to carry the lightest rocks and just finish the job without growing, becoming stronger, or improving? Or would you prefer to be sore the next day? I want to be sore. I want to know I didn’t waste my time. I want to know it was all worth it. Each rock taught me something. I couldn’t have carried any of those rocks alone so each rock is also a reminder of God’s presence in my life. Gaining wisdom is a workout. Each rock is going to be heavy but maybe because you have already carried some rocks, you can help others carry their rocks too.

Super Christian

                For a while now in my life I've known a good handful of non-believers.  I’m around people who don’t believe in Jesus almost just as often as I’m around people who do. The other night I was out for ice cream with some people and we were talking about another group of people. I was talking with three atheists and one agnostic girl; all four of these people understand that I am a Christian. Soon enough the other group we were talking about was referred to as the “super Christian” group.  In a sentence that term would be used as such: “Oh…they’re like super Christians aren't they?”

                To be honest I was immediately insulted. Why were these other people super Christians and I somehow wasn't? I started worrying if I’m a bad example of Christ in other’s lives. I wondered if I wasn’t doing enough to show people that I was a Christian too. I am more than willing to be the Christian I believe Christ is calling me to be so why did it feel to me as though I was being classified as just an every-day Christian whereas others seemed to possess super evangelical powers?

                As I craved to belong to this group I realized the possibility that perhaps being super Christian means something entirely different to nonbelievers. I tried to revert my mind back to when I didn’t believe and after doing so I felt more and more like I didn’t want to be that type of Christian. I don’t want to be super if that means I can’t be friends with someone who is gay because they’re a sinner going to hell. I don’t want to be super if that means constantly insulting others based on a difference of political views. I don’t want to be super if it means I have to start thinking I’m not a sinner because my sins aren’t as severe or public. I think when nonbelievers use the phrase Super Christian those are the types of connotations paired with it and if nonbelievers stick up their nose and don’t want to be around a “Super Christian” then that prevents us from being Christ-like in the first place!

                When I hear the phrase Super Christian I hear something entirely different. I want to be super if that means everyone can see I have faith. I want to be super if that means I can rub elbows with other sinners just like me. I want to be super if that means the love I show to others is always evident and genuine. I want to be super if that means displaying any political views with grace and correct timing. I want to be super if it truly does mean being super Christ-like. I want to be super if that means I’m a Christian who is loved by believers and nonbelievers alike. I could go on for days about what a super Christian would sound like to me because a super Christian would possess all the qualities I try to practice having daily; patience, humility, grace, love, wisdom, righteousness, maturity, etc. By my own standards being called a super Christian could possibly be one of the best compliments of all time.

What is our motive to show genuine love to all people?

                I found this to be an interesting question.  My life group spoke about this in a discussion a couple weeks back and we tried to find our own answers. From a young age we are told that loving everyone is what’s right or Jesus loved everyone and we need to be like Jesus. Both of these answers are 100% true. We should love everyone because Jesus did and we’re constantly working to be more Christ-like and because it’s the right thing to do. Our other answer seemed to be something a little more in depth. As Christians we have found this better way to live, we need to love others in hopes that doing so will show them a glimpse of the better life that they can have through Christ. I also found that answer to be true and I agreed. However, later that night I began to realize that a lot of people who I have seemed to have trouble loving are Christians already. Whether or not someone is a Christian does not correlate with their kindness or character. I have trouble loving Christians and non-Christians alike!

                There will always be people in our lives who drag us to a new level of frustration and test our patience. There will be people who push our buttons and defy our moral standards. There have been plenty of times when this thought has crossed my mind, “they don’t deserve ____” or “God’s judgment should/will fall upon them for their wrongdoings.” Regardless of whether or not those thoughts are wrong or not I have trouble preventing my mind from thinking them entirely. As humans, we cannot possess that perfect balance of grace and truth the way God does and sometimes our inner judge pounces for the jugular. So what is our motive for genuinely loving people when love is the farthest thing from our mind; when saying “it’s the right thing to do” or saying “Jesus did it” isn't reason enough for us to love what else drives us?

                I examined my own heart and found my own personal motive to show genuine love. I think this can be different for a lot of people but I would like to share what idea worked for me.

I show genuine love to people because I want to be closer to God’s presence; I want to see Him work in not just my life but in the lives of others. I want to see broken people find triumphant victories. I want God to use me.

How is a broken person going to come to you when they’re in need unless you've been showing love to them all along? One of my new favorite verses says everything just right and it’s the same verse that is written on the top of this blog, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.

“…the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

We show this comfort through genuine love, we get the opportunity to comfort others by showing genuine love in the first place, and in doing so we are used by God in His great design. In doing so our lives gain purpose through God’s will, and in doing so we are an active piece of the Body of Christ. So in simpler terms, why do I love others? Because I want to be the one those people come to when they’re broken. I want to be used by God.