|
FreemanSwitch
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Freeman
Gender: Male
Interests: Were my eyes set as they should I'd have but One interest...God still dominates. There is also a gender that threatens my lonliness. Pen and paper, guitar and voice, or book and coffee threaten my boredom.
Expertise: Forgetting Who should be in control of my life.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Freeman Switch
Member Since:
8/12/2004
|
|
| Do you ever wonder what your past has done to you? What kind of "skeletons" you are hiding that make you who you are today? What happened that you could still have an exquisite moment among all the rotten ones? This past week I visited a home, a home that is plagued after three years with the death of the father figure. Of the members of this home, the plague centers on one member. One person in this home makes this place a living hell for all who might enter. It is not in explicit torture or causation of physical suffering that they inflict this hell, but in the cynical, sarcastic, and demeaning air in which they do and say all things. Even in giving this member is sure to inflict this air. In this one person lies the majority of conflict and suffering that happens in this home, and though inflicted by this person, it could never be their fault. Is this person bad? I would say not. Then what is it that makes them so rancid? It's the focus, the center, the power of their life that brings forth such fruits. Think of it, what else would a person plagued by the loss of a loved one look like? All the support they had was ripped from their lives by this force called Death, and they worship Death now in their pitiful living. We seem to disillusion ourselves too, saying "Death is just a part of life." But how silly, life is to be lived, it is to move, it is to dance, sway, beat, run. It is to center existence on God. How can death-the ceasing of all of what life is- be part of life? It is absurd to identify death as anything but a powerless deception. Why else is this person's life so pithy? It is because they refuse to look to the future, God's Kingdom, that is life, a life in which death can have no part. They refuse to hope and live into that hope, bringing about the Kingdom instead of death. May you find yourself for once being self-reflective in how you are bringing the Kingdom into the present, instead of death. May you find yourself defining all things by the future that is God's Kingdom, juxtaposed to the past that is death. | | |
| It seems there are differences in the opinions of prayer and how to approach conversing with God. A few examples come to mind, the first being Hannah, Samuel's mother in 1 Sam. Eli, the priest, mistakes her for being drunk. I'm not one to add too much to the text, but last time I saw a drunk he was nonsensical. 2 Sam. 7 tells of David praying "Who am I, O Sovereign LORD..." Obviously Matt 6 comes to mind with Jesus' teaching on how to pray. Romans 8 reminds of the Spirit interceding for us when we don't know the words. And James 5 offers the popular view of a righteous man's prayer being powerful and effective. In the NIV there are 365 occurences of some form of the word "pray." The majority are not concerned with HOW, but WHAT and WHO the prayer is for and to. Take this insight into God and His character, those who trust in Him are heard. Those who cry to Him out of oppression are known. It becomes painfully clear throughout the Scripture, OT especially, that God is not concerned as much about how we approach Him, but that we do, in prayer. Deuteronomy 4:7 reads "what other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?" I am not about to engage in a discussion of how ugly humanity can be, but be assured, what we say and do day to day goes up before God as an offering. Read about Cornelius in Acts 10. He is not part of God's people, but his generosity to people and prayers (how did he know to pray?) went up before God. I am challenged when it comes to people because a quick read of 1 John shows me to be obedient to God is to love my brother, who is just as human as anyone. Where does all of this leave us in understanding prayer and our daily conversations? It leaves us here: Love God and Love One Another...without one the other will not happen. God is not concerned with whether I make sure I use His title (not to mention His proper name), He IS concerned that I come to Him on others' behalf. What strikes me most often about David in his prayers is not that he is formal, even though he uses poetry which is considered formal, but that he is honest and readily available to stand naked before God. I would submit we must make ourselves available to stand naked, in our shame, before God, no matter how profane or crass that will be and allow His holiness to cleanse us...remember, holiness will not be shamed, but will turn shame to beauty. | | |
| You. You sit there reading this on your computer screen, and no matter how you read, I suspect you will get the jist of what I'm saying. Read on and find yourself questioning whether I really have a point to this entry or if I finally felt like rambling, perhaps I've been rambling all along and have finally ran out of references to the Scripture. So why do you continue reading? What's your purpose in it? Have I supplied you some edifying truth before that makes you realize how short you fall of the existence you're called to? What do you read apart from xanga entries and what do you listen to as you sit at your computer? How is your room decorated and when was the last time you made your bed? Have you given up on a point to all these questions? When you open your collection of clothes, what colors do you find and what's your favorite pair of pants or shirt? What movies do you own and what was the last movie you have seen? Did they curse in it? Were you offended by it? When was the last time you were offended because someone didn't live up to your standards? Will you continue on asking these questions for the sake of finding the truth about who you are and who you should be? When people look at you, what and who do they see? Have you answered all the questions I've brought up? There. A snapshot of you. | | |
| There was once a man who came into town. He was ordinary I suppose, but he carried a blind man's stick. The town eye doctor said his eyes worked, but that he didn't use them to see. We were most interested to ask him about his home town. He told us stories of a great persecution that his parents lived through and in response to it his parents along with others like them formed a colony. They left alot of things, including family and spouses to become part of this colony. Soon there was a new generation being raised in this colony and when the man had become old enough to talk with a concept of what he was talking about, he showed signs of being like those who had persecuted his parents and like those they had left behind to come to the colony. The leaders came to the conclusion that he would have to leave as soon as he was old enough to make a living on his own. When he was told this he immediately began trying to change himself. He succeeded in changing himself, yet the elders of the colony would not hear of it and he was exiled from the colony when the time came. Since then he said he had been wandering from town to town looking for shelter or random jobs. No one believed he couldn't recognize things by what he saw. I don't know what to make of the man. He left a while ago, but the one time I got to talk to him alone we were walking on the same sidewalk. We talked freely and he was pleasant, so I asked him, "What's the one thing I could do for you?" I expected him to request money or a job, so when he immediately responded, "Teach me to see." I didn't know what to say. Never have I felt so helpless. I'm not sure what became of him, but since I met that man, I've met many like him and my only wish has become that someone would teach me to teach others to see. | | |
| Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." There is a appalling truth about our world that I am saddened by and yet am a slave to it myself. With the creation of humans, God gave him an identity, and since Abraham God's people have had a specific name by which they could identify themselves. We find in Acts that the disciples (of Christ and His Apostles) were named Christians in Antioch. There is a sense of identity in Christ that they find beyond themselves and in one another. It goes deeper than race, deeper than status and deeper than gender. This identity is deeper than your very DNA and affects your entire existence. This is the God "I AM", He is the "IS-ing" or the very reason you can exist in the first place and He identifies Himself by His relationship with man (Exodus 3) and wants man to do the same! Recently I was in a group of people who were to identify themselves by name and then describe themselves. As the majority went before me, I realized that they were identifying themselves by what they enjoy or where they were from. As I began to pay attention to issues going on all around me, I realized that everyone, whether on a soapbox or in the crowd, suffered from mistaken identity. And many times those who 'seek' equality, keep predjudice alive by making sure everyone knows their identity. This is seen in the women's equality quarrel, most any racial discussion, and in a debate with 'oppressed' peoples. If I was to identify myself as anything other than who Christ makes me to be, I find myself in all manners of debate and argument, with little of no ground to be gained. I become a self-identified creature that forces others to identify me even though I scream for them to treat me as equal, I also claim ultimate individuality. In other words, if my identity does not come from Christ, I am a contradiction to my own existence, which comes from God. | | |
|
