Foundations

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Mathew 7:24-27

A couple of years ago a friend of mine started talking about a book that would go on to change my life. The book opened a new chapter of my life and changed my life and my perspective on who I am as a person forever. I was never going to be the same again. I read the book and found out more about myself than I thought was possible. It was called "Wild at Heart".

The book may not be very relevant to what I'm about to write, but it is in some ways connected. The paths that we take in our spiritual journeys are various and different. I'm excited to hear about these, what makes God so beautiful is that He makes everything different, nothing is ever the same. He prefers not to be boring, He likes to be different. 

Even though the roads that we take are different and should be rightfully so, the REASON shouldn't. 

Most people pursue God because of social pressures, they want to fit in, their parents are Christian, they have nowhere else to go, they want to impress that guy or girl in church. That can't be your foundation. Or your spiritual house will come crashing down. No matter what you do there can't be any other REASON other than Christ that you are pursuing your spiritual journey.

God is that solid foundation. 

There is no other.

I at times pursued spirituality for reasons that weren't completely Godly. And I have learnt my lessons. God loves us none the less, we're still learning. But our reason must be Christ. 

Performance

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." -1 John 1:8

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8

The world that we're living in right now, is all about outdoing everyone. Not just in these corporate jungles that most of us are making our way through, but even in our personal lives its always about outdoing each other. Even in serving God, sometimes, I feel like I must outdo everyone. But the truth is that sometimes we fall short, I especially have been falling short quite a bit lately and if you read my previous posts, God has been teaching me about grace and has been continually refining me.

God is continually working on his art and the most beautiful thing about art is it never remains the same.

Being so focused on our performance we feel that we need to hit that level in order to be pleasing to Christ, but the matter of fact is in our brokenness Jesus came to make us whole again. And He continues to do that every single day. Every morning that I wake up broken from last night, Jesus comes save me again.

It's not about performance, the points we've scored, the good deeds we've done for the day, those come by themselves once we have a relationship with God.

Falling in love with God and who He is has helped me do things I wouldn't ordinarily do and see things.

Glimpses

Patience.

Key to everything we are doing right now. There is chaos all around us, most of which is created by people, but the key is to be patient and patience only comes from love. Unconditional, funny, strange, clumsy love that comes through, when nothing else is coming through.

That kind of love used to confuse me and I thought maybe didn’t exist. I heard about it and fascinated me, but then I started to see glimpses.

The glimpses started increasing to the point where a picture was starting to form. The picture has overtime become very clear. That picture is the love of God, that we experience through Christ.

Give

There are a few billion people roaming our planet, everyone with a story, with a gift. Every talent different than the other, every story more unique than the first. But the truth is that your gift may not reach every ear, or may not be seen by every eye, or may not be experienced by every individual. That does not make it any less significant. All of our gifts, everything that you have to offer, at this moment is worth something. We as people are more than we know, our potential is enormous. The surface of what we can do has not even been scratched.

I believe that there is good, I believe, that good still exists. Wonderful, pure, clear. And even though I find myself struggling with perfection more often than I would like. The truth is that love has all the answers and disqualifies all the errors of our ways.

Your gift has the power to spread love around you. Don’t keep it hidden. Your are more than just an ordinary individual. You are the hero of this world.

Untitled poem 1

The smoky winter slowly begins to settle in the dark,

Moonlight shines as a mocking spark,

The birds in the distance begin to fade away,

As we sit in the middle of nowhere.

Screams heard as my strings begin to break,

Written in stone our stories begin to shake,

Embedded in my head are memories,

Of long ago, no longer exist.

Falling, falling continuously from grace,

Drops of water they seem to pass me by,

Far from anything else I can’t see the signs,

But broken wings we will rise again and again we shall fly…

Rise despite

“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Mathew 22:14

The truth is some days I wake up and feel like crap (pardon my french). Yes, I'm at a constant battle with things of the flesh.

I get annoyed, I lose my temper, I say things I wish I hadn't. I'm constantly in a place where I need to be better, need to be a better person because I feel like my level of "goodness" isn't up there. I want to do things that would be pleasing to God's heart but somehow feel like I'm failing God. I feel like I'm not the people person I should be, I mean a Godly person should love people right? Yet I somehow I feel like I can't trust others, I feel like I can't be friendly, that I can't reach out.

The truth is that I didn't always feel this way. There are so many things that contribute us to acting this way. The heartaches, the betrayals, the fights, the arguments. They tend to hurt us so much that we forget the fact that there is something much greater. Someone much greater. Who had all these things hit in His face and rose above because He loved God's people, His own people. God's love is so deep it makes us fall in love with people.

God's love is changing me, it's changing all of us. His Word is challenging us, the broken people to rise and love others. The verse above talks about everybody being called to be part of the great feast, but not everyone wanting to be part of it. It's challenging for us to be part of it.

Be a part of God's love, His joy, His celebration.

Also grace has this funny way of transforming us. 

Make me Move

There are days where I just sit here on my desk, wondering whether there is anything to live for. The truth is most days I feel the force of the world around me eroding parts of me little by little. Some days I feel like I can't carry my cross. Some days I feel like I just want to throw it down and go back and live in solitude. I think we expect this sudden surge of perfection all around us.

Perfection not in just ourselves but in our stories.

But a big part of what makes our stories beautiful is the struggle. The truth is that the blood, sweat and pain color our pictures, contrasting with the eventual joy, glory and triumph. There would be no triumph if there was no fall. The matter of the fact is that we are all living the underdog story. None of us was supposed to make it this far, but grace has intervened on our behalf.

The realization that I am not just a nobody, but a somebody, gives me the confidence to take that leap of faith. Yeah, that leap of faith I took as a child and no longer had the confidence to take as an adult. The fact that someone made the effort to come from worlds apart to save Me? How was I worthy?
That changes my entire world, my entire perspective. It gives me strength, hope and will to make a difference.