significance

Fun quiz

 

***How to tell if you or your friends are Arrogant!***
Fun, brand new quiz!

Since it has been the over-whelming trend in politics to say whatever idiotic thing is on your mind...
today I will offer the world a great service and only say part of what I'm thinking. ;-)

Something I don't understand and will never understand is why people love arrogant people so darn much!

Why would you love/respect/admire someone whose care and concern is only for their own pathetic self?! I just don't get it. Plus arrogant people are not exactly a barrel of fun to be around anyways.
Society feeds the lie that the Ego is great and to be worshiped... the "put yourself first" braggart mentality abounds... so common even among believers. I like what Einstein said better:

God, save our country. Save us from ourselves. Keep us from being wise fools.    

I can't help but echo the words of a man nearly forty years ago... convicts me every time I hear it... "And I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me."

More of you, less of me.

In honor of Valentine's Day...

"The argument is this, that the differences between a man and a woman are at the best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest.  To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot.  Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman.  But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast”.  Every man has to find out that his wife is cross — that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard.  But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity."  --G.K. Chesterton: The Common Man

context

Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? --Job 6:6 

i remember pulling that verse out for a spin one time at a family dinner.... "supposedly 'proving' that are eggs are gross and the Bible even says so". haha yep. that didn't go so well...

i can't help but think of one other memorable verse i had to memorize in my childhood: "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." --Proverbs 17:17

frankly, i didn't know how this painfully honest verse was supposed to help me... my friends were nice and loved me at all times, but man oh man brothers are just put in my life just for causing adversity! ;p

i was reading proverbs 17-27 the other day and i guess i was amazed how many references to friendship i kept seeing:

Proverbs 18:24 There are friends who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 20:6 Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful friend who can find?

Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. 

i was walking outside in the cold frozen tundra we call the midwest and slipped quite dramatically on some ice, and a friend grabbed my arm to help me through the rest of the path. to me that is a friend.
my nasty bruise the next morning was good for one thing though, reminding me of this verse:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Ecclesiastes 4:10

thankful for a few true friends and the best Friend of all. 

down in the valley

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

stubborn love

...and no, i don't mean the song by the same name. but... let's just put it in there, because i love it. ;)

i think it's interesting that the ancient greeks made all their gods imperfect and irrational. every single one of them. they got angry over little insults; they let their lusts carry them away (zeus; aphrodite and ares); they would steal from each other (hermes); they got into petty feuds with one another (zeus and hera). 

it's interesting to me how even in our much more modern development of powerful "superheroes"~ all still have their fatal flaws. it's like someone out there was saying "we can't make them tooo perfect, or no one will believe it." and there you have it, boom: #relatable was born. ;)

but, i mean i get it. i actually really appreciate some of the stories in the bible for instance, that really showed people in their humanness... and how God worked though that anyway.

i mean you have moses who couldn't speak,gideon who was totally afraid,peter who was an idiot hothead,david who was an adulturous murder,and lazarus who was dead, for heaven's sake.

don't tell me that God can't use flawed people, cause i know he can.

i couldn't agree more with the 18th century hymn writers... and echo their "prone to wander Lord I feel it". i may or may not have a reputation of being 'difficult' especially with the people that love me. spiritually, i often feel like who am i for God to use me. i've been timid, i've been hot-headed, i've been hateful, i've been all flaws combined at one time or another.  

i am so thankful i have a God that runs after me with that boundless measure of stubborn love when i am just being stupid.

what better allegory of our Father's love than the story of the prodigal son from luke 15:


20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

God, thanks for not giving up on me. ❤ 

thoughts on the last mile

"why am i doing this???" ever had this feeling? 

...maybe the realization hits when staring at an endless assortment of liquid detergent options in the grocery store, or downing that umpteenth cup of coffee to make it through the day... or the 3rd time in an hour G.D.F.R. comes on your hip-hop workout station (okay, that was oddly specific). 

in all seriousness though, i guess when i think about it, i've had many instances at different memorable points throughout my life that i'm like: "hold up, wait.... what!?" 

want to know the weird thing? i haven't had that feeling very recently. for the most part, life has generally been looking up... i've been looking up a lot. lol :)

anyways, probably the "why am i doing this" moment of late that i've been having usually transpires on the last mile of my training runs. i'm hot, i'm sweaty, i'm dying, and the manager keeps walking by (probably to make sure i'm not, in fact, actually dying). yeah, i just want to stop.  why am i doing this? oh yeah, some kind of race, wasn't it... or means of self-torture, one of the two! ;)    

one of the things i was thinking about yesterday is how it's kind of surprising how many verses in the Bible compare the Christian life to a race.

i mean of all comparisons, i get the whole 'life is a battle' comparison... with real physical & spiritual warfare etc. i even understand the various farming comparisons... that there is a lot of planting and waiting for things to grow. it makes sense to me that a lot examples would be centered around aspects vital to survival.

hmm but running a race? doesn't that seem a little odd to you? it's a little too sportsy isn't it? ;) i mean that would be like the Bible using [whatever that ancient greek basketball game is called] as an analogy.

anyways that being said: just initially, four things stood out to me about this comparison:

PACE-- spiritual life is like a race where moving is important. some people are jogging, some are walking, and some are sitting on the sidelines as spectators. Hebrews 12 does a good job emphasizing it is important to run with perseverance. it seems to me like the half-hearted approach is really not what God is looking for.

ENCOURAGEMENT-- spiritual life also needs some motivation, some "fuel" if you will, for the race. often this fuel comes from God as well as from other people. we need a reason for doing what we are doing. Hebrews 12 mentions being surrounded "by so great a cloud of witnesses", it is considerably easier to "keep on keepin on" with good people in your life.

DIFFICULTIES-- spiritual life is not without its many difficulties. there are a lot of things that "hinder us". sometimes it's sin, sometimes unbelief, sometimes just cares of the world weighing us down...

PRIZES-- spiritual life does have an end goal. after all, if there wasn't something positive at the end, something important to look forward to, why would one bother running? 1 Corinthians 9 and Philippians 3 talk a lot about the 'prize' in sight.


anyway, i would write more...  but i'm getting really really reeeeaaaallly tired.


that's all folks.