A Selection of Back-logs

"He didn't even know he was destroying her life. In fact, if he had known the effect of it all, he would never have continued." Most human beings will not consciously hurt each other, but do, and deceive themselves in thinking they do not. They would rather consider their own lives than those of others. Family and friends are pushed to the side when one is consumed by selfishness. It is a sickness. A silent, slow killer.

(Friday)
This morning is a late morning. In bed this morning I dreamed Opp. J and I were trying to get to work using a shortcut. We ended up being lost. I left the house a few minutes late and got behind a school bus on the way to work. The bus stopped twice. At both stops a kid ended up running to the bus because of being late. At work, I'm now surrounded by all the parts that I have to run. Every day the pile gets bigger, and I get farther behind. Sometimes somebody helps me catch up, sometimes not.
Opp. J is late.

2 Timothy
As Christians (Christ-followers) we are to be strong. We're not called to be side liners, but rather are compared to soldiers in active service. As soldiers we are not to participate in civilian life. We have duty to attend to.

(A confession)
I feel like its time to do some soul searching. I feel... guilty all the time, distracted, and my eyes have wandered off the goal. I have no current purpose driving my life. I lie and cheat. I can't keep anything I say to God. I claim Him as Father but don't act like His Son. I've been adopted into His family but still act like an outsider. It means something to be a part of this family, but I've been ignoring those who love me most. I have a guilty conscious even though the one who took me in said I was accepted just as I am. "In my house there is no condemnation," he said, "You are free." I don't act like I know this though. I continue to follow my flesh. I am selfish, and didn't realize how much it was hurting these people that care about me. What can I do or say to make Him trust me? How can he trust me when I don't even trust myself? I should come with a warning: "This man cannot be trusted."

It scares me that the more I learn about people the more anti-social I become. The more I learn about them, the more I observe, the less I seem to understand. People are not formulaic. Not in any sense of the word. How can I build characters? There's just so much complexity. Too many reasons why people do the things they do, and think the things they think. Some people are just too simple. I don't understand how they can be so easy. I can't tack down their motivations. All this is purely from observation though. It's hard enough to be yourself much less try to be someone else.

There are things I need to define, like what I want out of life. You can't just spend all your time walking around purposeless, waiting for goo d things to happen to you, and angry when bad things do.

(Notes from Church, please comment on questions asked, if you feel you have a good answer.)
"The Power of the Cross"--->frequently used metaphor. What does it mean? The stone was rolled away not to let Jesus out, but to show us He wasn't there--->"The Glory of God." What does it mean to accept Jesus as your Savior? What does one have to do? What does one not have to do? The command from God--->"Let your body die so you can rise again in three days." How does Jesus meeting and feasting with His disciples show the "Glory of God? "Jesus got up so you and I could get in." Priests would die if they had sin in their life upon entering the Holy of Holies, now we can access God without dying. Still, this can only happen if we are sinless. That, is what He did. Why continue to use the KJV? Somber faces. We need powerful Christians, not sideliners. Not "churchy" Christians. Don't hide what we know--->The Great Commission.

Password Hack?

I could not get into my google account earlier, and of course my natural reaction is to think someone hacked my account. I'd like to think there's nobody out there that really cares that much, but I get the feeling it doesn't matter who you are to these agents of chaos.

I'm not just spouting out some nonsense with this "agents of chaos" stuff either. I've known people that seem to thrive uncreating (Newspeak word). I used to work with a guy, when I worked campus safety back in college, who would turn the nameplates on classroom doors upside down. I also seem to currently work with a few of them.

There are other agents of chaos in our lives, especially besides people, that excel in creating havoc in how we perceive our world. The Bible actually says, and we seem to forget this all the time, that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the principalities of darkness. Somehow though, it's easier to blame other people for our problems. Easier to see their problems written all over the place. Easier to push our problems to the background in favor of this practice, and choosing any other distraction when the time comes to sit quietly thinking about who we are, and what we need to do for improvement.

There's a couple things that are on my mind tonight. A) We only have today. We cannot bend the future or past to do our bidding. We cannot change either, and therefore are charged with the great responsibility of doing the best we can with our present circumstances. Much of how we enjoy our day, for instance, is tied into how we perceive others, our circumstances, and whether we allow either to control how we react to life. Those two things are something we have little control over. Other people will (count on these words) fail you, and end up saying something that could potentially hurt you in the long term, or simply ruin your day. Also, circumstances are unstable. They have the ability to spin out of control in a matter of seconds and minutes. The sooner we can come to terms with how little we can control the world around us, the sooner we can concentrate on the important thing: How we react to these things, and even before that, how we head off the tailspins within us before they start.

The other thing I've been thinking about is something I wrote at work yesterday:

We care too much, as followers of Christ, about what other people think and care concerning us. There are a few things to think of in this area: A) Unlike Jesus, we can't read people's minds to know what they think of us. Even when He knew, though, did He take offense at what they were thinking concerning Him? Did He get defensive? B) Jesus let people ensnare Him and use false witnesses against Him, but through it all did not take a stand for Himself. Even when Pilot asked Him if He was the Son of God, His only answer was "I am what you say I am." The case I am referring to was a time when He chose to remain silent, accepting the blame for things He didn't do so prophecy could be fulfilled, but the crucifixion wasn't the only time when He chose to live this way. I'm going to investigate this further, but I know there is an important lesson within that we need to learn. Namely: Stop taking offense at things people say to, and about you. Bear your cross, and take your pain to God, and the faithful friends and family who love you. Don't react to what is thrown at you until you've given it thought and prayer. Learn how to let the Holy Spirit be your guide.

Upon reading through those words again, I now remember something Paul said, and would like to paraphrase it a bit: "I take joy in being ridiculed, persecuted, despised, and spat upon for his name's sake."

We are God's children. We're not beaten down, defeated nobody's. We have natural talents, but above all we've been given the ability to love those around us, through whatever they do to us. We need to live every day like it is the only day we've been given.

I know we've all heard it before, but it's something somebody needs to keep reminding us. What say we begin to remind ourselves of these things, and live up to our namesake.