Speed of Lifeo

It has been more than two week since I last blogged.  Amazing how much I miss it when I realize I have neglected it.  This is like therapy for me.  I also love the comments I get from people!
This has been a rough few weeks for me, nothing major, just life.  I have continued to read my Bible nearly every day since January 10.  The last few weeks have just been reading though,  I have not allowed it to really sink in.  It has felt so shallow.  As I look back, the last few weeks have been about me.  I have kept myself so busy that I have not allowed myself to really spend time with God.  You know what I really noticed, it became easier and easier to slip back into old habits.  Complacency, that is exactly my problem right now.  I think that is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a Christian.  If you just say once that "I will study later" or "I'm tired, I'm going to sleep in this week and I'll get to church next week."  Later becomes "I'll read extra tomorrow" and next week turns into "I really need to get some work done, I'll go to church next week.  I swear."  By the time you know it, so many things have crept into your life that God is a distant memory.  Is that how it is supposed to work.  I think I read something somewhere about first fruits.  We are to give God the best of what we have.  That means that it begins with our time and our heart.  I truly believe that if we do that, the rest will follow.  If I give Him the first fruits of my heart, it would only be natural for Him to get the first fruits of everything else in my life.  I'm trying God.  I just keep letting life creep in and become more important than death.  Your death.  I was always on your mind.  When your life got busy, you thought of me. When you were wrongfully accused, you thought of me.  When they spit on you, I was on your mind.  When you were beaten, it was me that passed through your mind.  When you were hung on a cross, You thought about me.  Right before you took your last breath, it was me that you thought about.
Why is it that I allow the speed of life to cause me to forget about you.  Forgive me.

Dead Weight

Have you ever worked with someone that you feel just didn't pull their weight?  I think we all have.  Even my kids complain when I tell them to clean up, "I didn't make that mess!"  My response is always the same.  "Well then, thank you for not making the mess but I need for you to clean it up."  Fair?  Probably not but, how many times in life to we have to clean up other people's messes.  How often do people clean up our messes for us.  The courts are full of people that are there because they can't clean up their own mess and need a judge to do it for them.  Criminals are there because they choose not to live by society's rules.  So we have to clean up their mess.  Couples are divorcing at alarming rates because they don't want to clean up their own mess and they need a judge to clean it up for them and tell them where their kids will live ( I am convicted by my own words.)  Everywhere you look, people want to make a mess and then wait for someone else to clean it up.  Who?  Who is going to clean up this mess.  I think that is a question that God looks down and asks every day.  After all, He tells us in Matthew 9:37 that "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."  This morning I was reading in James 2.  I have been reading in James for about a month now and this morning there were a couple verses that just jumped off the page at me.  The first was chapter 2, verse19 "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder."  The next verse was just above it.  in 16-17 it says "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed"  but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead."  Almost everyone I know (myself included) believes in God; but very few people I know (myself included) act on that knowledge as often as we could or should.  We all know someone who is dead weight at work or in society.  Are you dead weight in God's kingdom?

How Do You See Me

Have you ever wondered how people see you?  Has anyone told you honestly how they see you.?  Would you even want to know?  Someone recently told me how they really see me and I didn't like it much.  They did not do it to be mean, but I still was not hapy with their evaluation.  Now, my first reaction was to tell them everything that was wrong with them.  I wanted to make sure that they saw things my way and how wrong they really were.  Instead, I accepted it and started what turned out t be a week long self evaluation.  Although, I don't believe that this person was corect in their evaluation, I must be living in such a manner that they see me in a different light than I have intended to present.  How is that?  Why do I want to live one way, but always seem to fall into traps thatI set out to avoid.  One of the things that I like about myelf is my sense of humor.  One of the things that causes me to stumble in my walk with God more than anything else is......you guessed it, my sense of humor.  Too many times I choose laughter and acceptance over what is right.  Don't get me wrong; it never starts out as my intention, but I let it happen.  What is it that keeps a person from doing what they know they should?  Is it acceptance by their peers?  Is it procrastination?  Is it ignorance?  

The Apostle Paul himself, writes in Romans "For the good I want to do, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  

Wouldn't life be easier if we could just behave all the time?