Why learn from your mistakes?

If Seth is about to touch the hot stove, and I say no… There is a danger if he does not listen he is going to get burned. While I tend to say a lot of the time, well it will only happen once! That attitude of learn from your mistakes is not full of compassion, love and grace.

What I mean by that is, far to many of us have the attitude that people must learn from their own mistakes, rather than heed the guidance of others gone before them. SO we say stuff like its okay to experiment with that, or date that person, or have another drink. What we are saying is that they themselves are God, and they are in charge of their own lives, that they live for themselves. The problem with that is if you say you must learn for yourself, I ask you “have you ever been run over by a 18 wheeler truck? My mom once parked on my foot, but I don’t think that counts. How can you tell me getting hit by a truck is wrong and will cause pain if you have not experienced it?

It is based on the amount of physical damage we will incur, but when it comes to other things of this world we take lightly the implications of psychological hurt and emotional pain and baggage people incur. I am not saying we run out of church and go start telling people how to live, if you came into my house and started bossing me around about telling me how to raise my child, I will feed you too my pig. However, when my sister tells us things and helps us she is sharing her knowledge in love, and she has experience. We do not need to make the same mistakes. It is the relationship which we are called to develop and grow with the people around us that makes sharing in love and grace possible. My plea is that we don’t allow the people in our lives to live mistakes they don’t have to. That we will share with love and respect the works of God in our lives.

Your Grace really is enough

As human being do we ever get it right, we say things like “one day I will get it right” or “as soon as I get”, We assume in time we will natural become better like a fine bottle of wine! Or as soon as we get that bottle life will be okay…

The fact remains the only day we will get it right is the day we accept Christ, every other day we will still not get it right, but we will try, and for every day we fail we have grace…

Without grace we have nothing to hang our hats on, with grace we have the cross to hang our hats on…

With or without grace I am not going to get it right, with grace and faith, I am put right… 

Faithless Prayers

Phillip Yancey once wrote "If there is no room for doubt there is no room for faith"

I read verses like James 1: 7 saying I must not have doubts when I ask God things? obviously according to his will.

So the question then I suppose... is...

Do I need faith in my prayers if it is in line with what God wants for me?

My faith is in the person to whom the prayer is directed at! Not in my prayer at all...

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Is God Boring

If a man goes to church in the woods and there is no one else there is it still boring?

I struggle with the concept (while my son struggles to sleep) that God is boring, Fair enough he can come across a little arrogant, but if u made everything then by definition of being God you would just be God. Not a little arrogant!

Back to my thought though, Chesterton once said something along the lines of 'I pity the man that thinks himself God, that god can not even fix his own life, let alone the world" I think it is that man that in the church is boring!

The challenge is to get off Gods throne and let God be God! Chesterton again said that "Christianity has not been tried and left wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried"

My fear for so many of us is that we are too apathetic in our relationship with God, that we just sit and wallow in our own pity and lives instead of living in Jesus "life and life to the fullest"

I cannot sit idly by as Jesus calls us to action in love, no matter how comfortable my bed is.

JUST STOP IT

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Failed...

Have you ever had one of those moments where you know without a shadow of a doubt that God was prompting you to do something? The other day I was at the garage visiting friends that run the place! I ordered a cup of coffee and got two delicious muffins, (I know they where both delicious because I ate both instead of listening to GOD)

This great muffin coffee special is only R12 :) winner deal! So I was walking to the sitting area outside the garage deciding what muffin to eat first, Choc Chip or Caramel Chip. A very nice dilemma to have I might add.

SO continuing my work I noticed an individual that was not as fortunate as I to have two muffins and a warm cup of Coffee. Right away without question I knew I was meant to give my one muffin away! Sadly I quickly looked the other way, ducked out of sight in hopes my heart with follow my actions and hide.

I wish I could say I shared my muffins that day, but I didn't... why because I am selfish. I want the best for me and like to look out for me! I don't have a problem giving away my clothes or money or anything really, just not my chocolate and sweets!

The other day I did share my chocolate with a friend and I didn't feel good about it at all. I knew I was doing the right thing but it didnt feel right, do you ever have this feeling?

So my challenge to myself is to be more like Jesus in all aspects of my life. I always say if you are giving and its not costing you anything, then it does not count! I need to give over to God and his children that which is most precious to me... my chocolate...

My question for you then is this... what are you holding onto that you shouldn't...

I dated a girl...

I dated this girl when I was about 16 or so, we landed up dating for 4 years, it was one of those first love kind of things, or at least what we knew love to be and as far as that went, we loved each other. Her dad didn’t return that love at all and he really didn’t like me much and I wasn’t really allowed over at her house. The only two times I actually did crack an invite, was once to her Grandparents house for Sunday lunch. In those days I was wearing very low pants, and trying to find my way in the fashion world. I made it through most of the day, a little bit of small talk, I was super nervous the whole day. Some how it landed up with just the granddad, the dad and me in the lounge. I thought it would be a great time to get out of there, and the ladies had just started too do the dishes, so I thought “Let me jump up quick and go help them”. Little did I know my trust worthy belt had broken and as I jumped up in front of these two men my pants came falling down and not just to my knees all the way to my ankles. Needless to say looking back this is quite funny, but in the moment all I could do was grab my pants and run out. The other time I was over at her house during the day when her dad was suppose to be at work. He came home quick and I had to hide in the bathroom. But as fate would have it he needed to go to the bathroom and I got caught. He was trying to open the bathroom door and I was trying to push it shut. Was not a good day for me, but through it all we continued to date. It got really difficult the more and more we grew as Christians, because we knew we should be honouring her dads wishes but at the same time we loved each other and wanted to be together. I still remember the one-day we broke up because of the issues it was causing. The next day I felt as if I was Abraham. For those of you who don’t know who he is I will give you a quick run down else read the full story in Genesis 22. In a nutshell, God tells Abraham he is going to have a son, and it takes forever for the son too be born, everything in Gods time I suppose. When the son gets older, God decides Abraham must show his love for God by sacrificing his son on this mountain. So Abraham takes his son Isaac and leads him to the mountain, his son the ever inquisitive child is asking all sorts of questions like why am I carry all this wood if we don’t even have a lamb. Abraham reassures him that God will supply it. So up they go, they get to the spot where the sacrifice is going to take place, Abraham grabs Isaac and through tears and screaming ties him to the alter and picks up an axe to kill Isaac. As the axe is coming down to end him this angel calls out and says STOP! Now that is good timing, a little too close for Isaac I am sure, but Gods timing always has reasoning behind it. So anyway stuck in the bush is this little lamb that came out of nowhere, so Abraham and Isaac having a father son moment and kill the lamb, Isaac very happy about that. God was testing Abraham to see his commitment to him and how far he was willing to go. So this is who I felt like and needless to say by lunch time this girl and me where back together. We spoke to lots of people who all had different opinions and no matter how much we broke up because it was the right thing to do we never stayed apart. Looking back I think it was because although we had an idea of what was right we never really believed it for ourselves. We where living for each other and ourselves. Although we loved God and wanted to please him we felt the requirements were too much right then and there.

We never took ownership of our own faith; we just lived through the peoples around us faith. We where trying to be Christians but instead of worshipping Jesus we where worshipping each other. We did not take the call on our lives seriously. Instead we tried to feed off other people’s relationships with God and not develop our own.

The reason I think there is so many people that say they have tired Christianity and it didn’t work for them is that they tried someone else’s version of it. If Jesus is a personal God then we all should have our own relationship with him. In the same way if a friend and me dated the same girl, although she is the same, we are different and we will not share the same relationship with her. Just like in dating though there are things that will cross over for all relationships there is things that apply to all of us with our relationship with Jesus. There are black and whites, things that won’t change, but I think if we are honest and get into the bible and God’s calling for our lives there is a lot of grey. We must just be careful not to teach or preach grey as black and white, or to use grey as an excuse to get more grace! Taking ownership of your faith means asking questions about it and seeking out the answers.

Open my eyes God!!!

Once back when I was 18 I had borrow my moms car, she had just gotten it back from the garage where it had just had a major service. It cost loads of money and also gave issues so she was always a bit reluctant to let me or my brother use her car, but of course with our puppy dogs eyes and boyish charm we always got to use it. It also always broke down with one of us using it. More of a coincidence than anything else really, my car was this old black beetle. I loved the car because it was my first car and got it super cheap because my cousin owed my dad some money and was selling his car so I landed up getting the car. I was stoked and my friend Alan and I would spend endless hours working on the car and making it cool. Or at least what we thought was cool. One night we took the car out to the movies, it was the middle of winter and that’s when we figured out the vents in the car don’t close, we where freezing and our last resort was to put my girlfriends jersey (she left it in the car, this never happened again after that night). In the dashboard through where the radio should be. We had the radio in the cubby-hole, as it was easier to install there. So we shuffled the jersey in nice and tight and it was working well until it decided to rain. As it was raining we needed to use the windscreen wipers, it was only drizzling so nothing too bad. When we got to the movie place to meet everyone including my girlfriend, she sent me a message to say “please bring my jersey out the car. So I went to grab it only to find that the windscreen wipers had tangled up the jersey and it had gotten caught that I couldn’t get it out and it ended up getting ripped and broken. It is funny how we all have gaps in our lives that we try fill with whatever we find laying around and appealing? It always goes back to having a God space inside of each of us that we just try fill with whatever is around whether girls, booze, or even sports.

So this night it was raining and cold so I got to use my mom’s car for legitimate reasons. I cant remember where me and Alan where going, but we where going out none the less. When I got to his house the rain had stopped and the roads where slightly wet, just wet enough for some fun. So Alan gets into the car and we reverse out of his drive way, as we are going backwards I quickly throw the car into first and do a wheel spin, however the wheel spin is cut short because the car just cuts out. My heart starts to race and I start thinking up excuses to why the car just stopped working. We manage to get the car under some trees outside of Alan’s house. The rain starts to pour down again and Alan and me are just stuck there in silence. Rain is dripping through the trees and falling on the windscreen. Then it was almost simultaneously that we thought back to Sunday’s church service about prayer and how this guy prayed to God and he got a wife. We both thought wow, what we are asking for is way easier than that. So I prayed for us something along the lines of “Father God, we love you and just want you too fix the car, we wont wheel spin again and will try be better people”. I thought it was a good prayer, we where bargaining with God, giving him what he wanted to hear and in return we would get our small miracle. At that moment our faith was huge, I mean it was either faith or the wrath of mom. After the amen we tried to start the car and to our surprise it didn’t start. No what, we almost felt a little betrayed by the whole deal, we had done our part, had faith and prayed a sincere prey and nothing. We felt cheated out of a miracle and also new the trouble that awaited us because of the unanswered prayer. After a while it stopped raining and we figured that God would answer our prayers if we met him half way, so Alan jumps out the car and starts to push, we try a few times and Alan can’t feel his arms anymore. I just feel the sinking feeling of surrender coming over me. I have nothing left to try, its time to face the consequences and phone my mom. Just before I do that though I pop the bonnet in the hope I can see what the problem is. Even though I have no real clue, I thought 5 more minutes won’t hurt. The whole time everything is going on I am still praying in my head asking God for help. When I pop the bonnet and look inside I notice that the box for the airflow straight into the engine has come off. So I clip it back on and away we go. Turns out the guys that services the car didn’t put it on properly. Seems God did answer my prayers but the way he wanted to answer them not the way I wanted them answered. He gave me the insight into the problem and I had to go and fix it. I think a lot of times we sit by and want God to fix everything and do everything for us. But if God has answered our prayers the way we wanted him too. We would not have developed a dependence on him, we would have properly in all honestly developed big heads because God answered our prayers on our terms, instead he taught us everything in his time. Everything his way, we don’t always have to understand that but the more we know the easier it becomes.

Fear of Praying

I don’t know about you but I have always been afraid to prayer out loud, and I have not even really been sure how to pray when I prayer by myself. I went to Sunday school a couple of times and all the prayers I heard literally made no sense to me. They people praying used big words, prayed for what felt like forever and left me feeling like I would never be able to prey due to the fact I can’t even think of the words they use, let alone pronounce them.

When I was in grade one, and they still allowed you to prey in schools, I had my first run in with the law so to speak, I was sent to the office in tears. I was sent not for punching anyone, or for back chatting. But rather when we closed in prayer and the teacher said AMEN, I promptly followed by saying AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN. To which the teacher jumped up, ripped me off the ground and threw me outside and sent me to the office. I was in tears, crying myself to the office, taking the long way around of course, I was distraught not stupid. I could not understand what I did wrong, and to this day I still don’t really know, I was honestly not being disrespectful, I just didn’t know any better. No one had taught me anything about prayer. AMEN AMEN AMEN was all I could do to express myself to God as a child.

Following on from that experience I became very weary of prayer, like if I did not do it properly I would get in trouble, and thrown out again, maybe even thrown out of heaven. I thought I would be better off taking my chances not praying at all than upsetting God through the wrong prayers.

Prayer becomes easier the more you do it, but what in our head stops us from praying.

Firstly I think it all ties up with our understand of who God is and who we are in him. It is easy to pour your heart out to someone you know without a shadow of a doubt that they love you no matter what. This is two fold because it means us taking the time to find out whom Jesus is.

The idea of prayer is that we as finite humans can communicate with an infinite being God, basically meaning we can chat with God that lives outside of time and space that we know. Our Motive is very important when we prayer, do we prayer so the people around us can hear and go WOW, that was great or do we prayer for an audience of one, Prayer is about God… not the people around us! We need to exclude others and ourselves as the reason for prayer…

We must not trust in the prayer but rather the person to whom we are praying… If you run to someone for help screaming, “help friend playing fell off roof” is the person going to say… hold on that was not the correct way to form that sentence. In the same way God wants to hear our hearts, not our intellect.

Prayer should be honest… it is an important thing that praying is sharing your heart and being honest with God about what is going on in your life! Psalms shows true prayer, we should prayer with our heart and not our heads.

We need to have faith that God will answer our prayers; it says in the word that God is gracious and generous and if we ask in accordance to his will for our lives we shall receive! Are we in line with Gods will??? Must remember sometimes God says no or answers in his own way or a way we didn’t want him to answer so we ignore it and say God never speaks to me… you know when God is speaking…

Faith that God hears us…

It is a dependence on God, submitting to him and his work in your life… our prayers should be in the impossible, praying in such a way that if God doesn’t step in our prayers will be useless!

Why am I Evil

I remember being around 19; I was a leader for a holiday bible club that was going on at our church. In the evenings we had sessions for all the leaders. There was this guest speaker who spoke on something. I'm not really sure what it was but it had something to do with Jesus and us as individuals; that no matter who is on this earth, if I was the only person on this whole planet Jesus would still have given his life for me. Up until this point I had been a Christian for a while. Fair enough, I didn’t burn my non-Christian music like all the other kids but I kept trying to win God's love though, kept trying to do things, be someone I was not just so God would be happy with me. I had all these images of myself from growing up; I didn’t even want to be with me, why would this God want to take me as I am?

Growing up I was not the smartest kid; I was kept back in pre-primary because I could not speak properly, well its wrong for me too say I could not speak properly, more I could not speak English properly or any other of the 11 official languages of South Africa. I had somehow along life’s path developed my own language that only my twin sister could understand. Unfortunately for her she was kept back too in order to help me out. The plus side was I never had to do my own homework for most of primary school I just copied my sisters. It might explain the A’s I was getting or I was just really good at maths. A friend of the family used to cut our hair for cheap. Basically my hair looked like the lady stuck a pot on my head and cut it. My dad after working for the man as a health inspector wearing suit and tie for 24 years semi-retired as a landscaper, who sold plants on weekends outside the local shopping centre. My brother and I used to help out. Needless to say I was a prime target to get picked on and made fun of at school. I started to believe what the world was telling me, rather than listening to my heart that was crying out, "There must be something more!"

The night of the holiday bible club, I realized something amazing: that God loves me for me, that I am good enough for Him; that in fact I did not need to do anything for that love, it was just there. And because of that love I wanted to do as much as I could for God. The same love that makes me not want to cheat on my wife is the same love that keeps me wanting to do the best for my relationship with God.

The fullness of a relationship with God can only be enjoyed when we start to act out of love and do things God wants us to do out of love. Just as I can enjoy a safe and love-filled marriage because I am faithful, the same applies to God and me. I can enjoy a full relationship with God. That does not mean I don’t mess up; it would be a lie to say that I don’t think other girls are hot. (Hot or not, another thing I don’t understand but will look at later; totally not the way God sees it). In the same way I don’t always do what God wants me to do. Does that mean I throw in the towel and go chasing after girls and forget God and my wife? Never. I refocus my eyes on the prize; the prize is coming home to my wife everyday, the prize is being who God wants me to be. I realize how I am made, where I was born are all part of God’s plan for my life. My parents might not have planned me, but God knew exactly when and where I was coming. He also knows where he wants me to be going. The question is: am I going to listen? I don’t have a problem understanding who Jesus was and is, the problem comes in asking who am I meant to be in response to this knowledge of Jesus. How is this supposed to impact my life? If I believe He is who He claimed to be, then I hold that as a belief. If my actions are not aligning themselves with what I believe, I am going to be a very sad individual. Chesterton once wrote that he feels pity for a man that thinks he is his own God, simply because what a miserable small god that is; it cannot even fix one life let alone a world.

Jesus came to restore our lives but the problem is some of us have good lives and don’t need Jesus; he will just mess up our lives, ask too much or something lame. Chesterton wrote “the ideals of Christianity have not been tried and found wanting, but rather found difficult and left untried”. We seem to live in a world where people are more spiritual than ever, but their spirituality is based more on what they want it too be than anything of any real substance.

If I think negatively then negative things will happen, so basically the church is not to be blamed for doing nothing during apartheid then; it is the peoples fault for thinking it into reality. Give me a break. Surely there has to be depth to spirituality that has an impact on our life’s. Is there not something inside us that pushes us towards doing good? A moral law embedded within us?

When I was younger, I had a friend called Peter; he is a really good guy who had a big heart for people and really wants to make a difference in this world. He is one of the most gifted people at serving others I know and really extends all he is towards others, a lot of time too the detriment of his petrol. Anyway, one day before we became good friends my brother and I walked down to his house to see the door slightly open. We then without hesitation ran through the door, looked around and decided to steal his Christmas tree. We got all the way to the top of the street before he even realized what was happening. We knew straight away we were wrong in our actions. No one had to tell us. He didn’t have to come running up the street screaming ‘STOP’ you are being “EVIL’ for us to realize that.

When kids are growing up, no one teaches them to steal cookies or to lie either though; we are born with this desire to do wrong according to these laws we find within us. Our spirits are literally torn inside us; doing wrong we know is wrong and we do it even if we don’t want to do it. When we do it, then this thing inside us makes us feel bad for doing it. It really feels like a lame deal if there is not something more in all of this. Spirituality has to impact our lives. If God is real he has to impact our lives. If not, let's rather figure out how to switch off this thing inside us that makes us feel guilty for doing wrong things and enjoy a selfish life.

Who are we

“I can live for two months on a good compliment”

I must have been about 12 years old when I got my first compliment, or at least the first one I can remember. Where else should it come from but my mom? I grew up in a family with 3 other siblings. It was fun most days; we could play teenage mutant ninja turtles and not be short any turtles. With so many mouths to feed, clothing was more a "wear what’s going" option, rather than a label option. I remember two clothes shopping trips; the first one was to MR PRICE (it has since become much more acceptable to wear clothes from there now, perhaps after our modelling of it). Anyway, they had a range of cloths called Powerhouse, which was basically an overgrown bulldog with arms and legs doing gym stuff. Of course, with such a great idea for clothing came the great price; we landed up getting matching green and grey tracksuits. Funny, though, the place I got most mocked for my sleek gym attire was youth group and namely from the leaders who had this rock star persona that everyone who was deemed worthy aspired too; this just added to my inner turmoil about being good enough for people, especially the holier-than-thou church folk.

The second shopping excursion was purely a gift from above. We were all out grocery shopping one day when we came across this table in the middle of the shop sky high with t-shirts. The cost was literally a few rands. My dad is the type of guy who loves to find deals and bargains; I am very much my father’s child. So he went mad and bought about 30 shirts for us. The problem was they were all white, with American football teams on the front and fitted the exact opposite of Egyptian cotton. Needless to say, I wore what looked to be the same top for the next 5 years of my life. Due to it being such a great deal, my parents even bought them going up in sizes so we would be okay for the next while. Looking back I am thankful for the deal and the love of my parents. I don’t wish the clothes where different but rather that people would have responded differently too them. Maybe I am just too idealistic in my approach to humanity, but hope is all we have sometimes. My hope and dream is that we will one day have a world in which appearance doesn’t matter, especially in the church. I have a friend who is on a year of your life program through this church. The church is doing such an amazing job in the community and really such a Christian witness and presence. However, my friend was told that in order for people to take him seriously he would need to look the part. Some random in the church actually booked him a hair appointment and said if he cuts his hair they would buy him some clothes too. While this makes me laugh out loud it also breaks my heart. We live in a world with all types of people, who cares what we look like? Its fine to dress nice and have a neat hair cut if that is what you want to do. But don’t enforce that on someone and don’t link appearance with acceptance; especially not in church.

Back to my compliment: I found a pair of my dad’s old jeans, they were a light, almost white blue, with a high waist and tight around my buttocks area! They felt very uncomfortable, but when I showed my mom she said these exact words: “It makes your bum look nice.” They instantly became my favourite pants, even if nobody else liked them.

People love compliments, but mostly superficial compliments. "You look nice today", or "I love that dress!" Boys don’t really like to be complimented on their dresses, but you get the point!

It’s the compliments that reflect on our character that we find hard to accept; it almost makes us feel uneasy! I have sat in many a team building exercise where people go around and encourage and say positive stuff about the other people in the room. To me, this always seems to take forever; more because of the awkwardness of everyone. When we hear positive things about us we struggle to accept them because we know the real us, we know the true us that tries to sleep at night, rather than this great person everyone is talking about. Character compliments reflect how people see us, not how we see ourselves. Perhaps that is the problem.

Self-image is a big thing to most people; we inherently don’t feel good enough about who we are, we wish we could change things about us, where we were born, and even sometimes our parents. Society has a unique way of putting people down in order to elevate themselves. The only way we can feel better is to rip off our friends, but truthfully they feel the same as we do inside, so it’s a vicious circle that never seems to end. If we are honest we seem to have a desire in us that wants us to be better than others. Our parents push us to be the best we can be in sports and academics, teaches reward the smarter kids with treats, it seems all of society push to separate us into classes. The thing is though there is nothing wrong with someone being better than you at something or smarter. That is part of being an individual and how God made you for his plan and purpose on earth. However because our abilities are different does not make us any less or any more important. We are all equals at heart. God is calling us to equality. This creates a type of battle within us that makes us develop a head strong Christianity that is apart form our hearts and what God is requiring of us.

ASKING QUESTIONS

When I think of growing up, we where told like any children what to do by our parents, whenever questioned they would respond with one of the following, and I am sure you can relate, either from hearing it or even putting it in your very own parents quick response handbook. The phrases being “because I said so” or “as long as you live under my roof you will do as I say” or some other variation of that. While that is all part of growing up it almost instills within us a fear of asking questions, or challenging the status quo. I think back to math’s class and it was not a very welcomed thing to ask questions if you did not understand, either you where ridiculed by your peers or the teacher. If you didn’t get it the first time you had to just pretend like you knew what you where doing.

From growing up and heading into church, we tend to take that mentality with us, that it is wrong to ask questions, if you don’t understand, then the problem is with you, not the preachers or the bible. As like in math’s class you land up failing. Failing to fulfill the purpose God has for you, this is just one of the reasons I am putting forward and by no means am I shifting the blame to someone else, but rather helping you understand perhaps why we are so afraid to come to God with questions. Sometimes we fail at school because we are just plain old lazy.

The church has grown up in an era where children are seen and not heard, they are not meant to ask questions. We have taken that attitude with our relationship with God the father and have just taken everything at face value instead of asking questions for the fear it is not allowed.

In the bible Jesus gets asked lots of questions, in the book of Mark Jesus speaks of his death for the third time. But his close followers called the disciples do nothing. Makes me wonder exactly what the disciples did with these insights to the future? I mean if I told you the winning number of the lotto would you go and get the ticket? But in Luke we get a special insight that they did not understand any of these things; the meaning of the words where hidden, like if I just went 7 21 36 87 and walked out you would not know those are the winning lotto numbers. The words where hidden from them. Perhaps because they would have tied Jesus up and stopped him from going to Jerusalem? Or maybe Jesus wanted the disciples to start to take ownership of things and ask him more questions, instead they start worrying and arguing about who is going to be the most. Who is going to be the greatest after Jesus, totally missing the point of what Jesus was trying to teach them. If we look at the majority of Jesus stories he told, they didn’t make sense out right. A lot of times the disciples had to come to Jesus and seek him and ask more questions about what it is he meant or to get a deeper understanding. It also says in Mark 9: 33 that they where afraid to ask him? How many times do our fears stop us from coming closer to God? From asking questions?

If we are all honest we all have questions for God, and I think a lot of the time we are told its wrong to questions God. That we must just believe everything hook line and sinker without actually taking ownership of it. If we stand for nothing we will fall for anything. That means if I don’t know why I believe something, it I haven’t wrestled with it I am properly not going to risk anything for it. In the Old Testament there is a story about a guy called Jacob, in short one night he has a wresting match with an angel, some people say it could have actually been God he wrested with. Either way Jacob has questions for God and wrestled all through the night. As a result from seeking God his hip was thrown out of joint and he was left with a limp. This is not too say that it was wrong of Jacob to ask thinks of God, but rather when we start to ask God questions it will start to have an impact on how we live. Martin Luther once said that there is nothing worth killing for but plenty worth dying for. That statement can only come out of knowing what you believe. I can tell people why I think drinking coke is bad, but when it comes down to it and there is choice is coke or water they will go with the coke. Not because they hate me, least I hope not, but rather because they don’t believe what I believe. They have not asked the questions that I have asked to bring about my dislike for coke.

There is another story in the Old Testament of a guy called Job, he basically looses everything and has warts and boils and is not a happy guy at all. He calls out to God with questions but his friends tell him too shut up, as if asking God questions are wrong. God goes on not really to answer Job’s questions but rather to ask Job a few questions. Do we realize that if God is a personal God and if we can ask Him questions, then he can ask us questions? When we ask questions and get an answer, regardless of what that answer is we then become accountable for the answer, in the same way as if I get study and go for lessons to get my drivers license I then become accountable by law for how I drive. We become accountable for the answers we receive to act them out, and we are also accountable for the answers we give back to God.

Asking questions is cool if its asked for the right reasons, but if we can ask God stuff, he can ask us stuff…

Silent Screams

Falling on my knees in anger

Calling out for help

But I heard no answer

My screams deafened me to it all

Flat on my face at the thoughts of all

I have lost and gained

Unworthy of it all but not worthless in it

I called but heard no answer

Silenced by my own stupidity 

Where is the answer i want, 

Is it different to the answer i need?

I will go on to trust in you

I cant carry this anymore

I give it all to you, hatred and love

When I call I will listen

You hold the answers to the questions

I haven't asked yet

My purpose found in your heart 

Why do we believe we believe what we believe?

One night in London a friend and I headed down to Covent Gardens for skate, or to scout for girls or just to get out, cant really remember. I do however remember that my friend was telling me stories about how if you can to a place just before closing they sometimes gave you free stuff. Like any normal individual how could I believe him without actually experiencing it for myself? And further more free stuff was at hand. So we looked around for a possible target and ended up going to this pizza place, the fact that is was pizza was  a bonus. The real reason we went there was because there was a cute girl working behind the till. 

My friend was quite the charmer and landed up speaking to her for a while, needless to say we got two slices of pizza for free. Maybe because it was the policy maybe because it was because my friend was a hotty, either way free stuff. 

As we walked out of the pizza place with our new found treasures this guy came up to us. He could not have been much older than us. Asking for some money or food, as from the above story and us hassling for food, we had no money but we did have food. After some conviction and sadness we decided to part with our pizza, after all it didn’t really cost us anything anyway. As my friend was handing his pizza over to the guy he mentioned it was a bacon and banana pizza, still not sure why. But the guy responded by say “I don’t eat meat” but before he could finish his sentence he stopped half way and took the pizza and began to pick the meat off. I don’t know if you have even had meat on something and tried to take it off, you cant really get it all off. Why was this guy a vegetarian? 

Personally I think as a society we just believe things because they are the in things to believe, we don’t know why we believe things. If we stand for nothing we will fall for anything. I not picking on vegetarians here, I am asking a serious question, what makes a man go against what he believes and even practices to some extent? Some may say hunger; I would rather like to suggest that rather not knowing why we believe things is the leading cause for us giving up and not standing up for what we believe. If I believe in Jesus and don’t know why, I will be willing to call myself a Christian but when it comes down to acting out Jesus in everyday life I will rather give up, because I haven’t dealt with the questions as to why I believe in Jesus. 

Does God want us to be happy

A friend of mine recently wrote that "God is more concerned with our Character than he is with our Happiness" I have not stopped thinking about it since I read it! 

First read leaves you going wow, yes God wants me to be the best little Jesus I can be and because of that I need to go through hardship to develop me! I need to shout along side James and rejoice when I face trails and tribulations because my faith will see me through! My faith in God, my faith that requires me to believe God has my best intentions at heart! Even if what is best is not always fun!

An example will be school, very few people enjoy studying for test! So it is fair to say in general studying is not fun (unless you have a hot study partner :) ), It is in your best interest for your own future that you study hard and get good marks! 

However, perhaps God does care for our happiness and that happiness is directly tied into our character and relationship with him! It is a happiness that transcends understanding and general happiness! it is an inner joy that comes from trials and tribulations knowing that you are becoming more like the person Jesus wants you to be! 

Thomas could have been Jesus

The other day I was in church and there was this black guy at the back on the side, looking homeless and dirty! (The church I was in is mostly white middle class people) so he did stick out quite a bit! However no one seemed to think much of him or give him a second look! I could not help this stirring inside me that "what you did to the least of them you did unto me" So after much debating of what could happen if I go speak to the guy, after the service I went and said hi, His name was Thomas, and was interested in church and God! I didn't really chat long, but I found out he has been coming for a few weeks! Made me think though if anyone had ever spoken to him, or what if it was really Jesus! What if everyday we drive past Jesus on the side of the road and do nothing about it, just drive straight on by, you just never say hello to him... 

However the other day I drove past an elderly lady in the rain and just continued driving... so I guess I back to square one... but the cool thing is I am more aware about people around me... the question is what will I do about it? Don't think you are off the hook, what are you doing to do about it???