recently my single cousin went to breakfast with her mom and our grandparents.
papa, always looking for an opportunity to create mischief, leaned over the breakfast table and whispered:
“somebody told me that you are getting married in january.”
my cousin, who doesn’t have anyone really “on the horizon,” leaned over the table right back at him and replied,
“i hope it was God!”
😀
(no kidding, cuz, no kidding . . . 😉 )
read this a few minutes ago.
“i write because i’m afraid to say some things outloud.”
when we write because of “fear,” we keep the writings for ourselves alone.
or we create characters with settings to say it for us.
then again, maybe that’s just me . . .
the other day, i was saying to a guy friend of mine that i seem to be touched emotionally more than i used to be. i heaved a sigh and said, “i hate it when i act girlie!”
his response: “really, it’s okay if you act girlie . . . you are a girl, you know.”
his obvious point was that i act like a girl because i am. and there is nothing wrong with that. (although i think there is something disturbing about the women that sob at the drop of a hat. sometimes the heart is better under the sleeve instead of on . . .)
but to broaden the point . . . a lot:
if i am a christian, i can’t help but act a certain way. if i am living my life in the knowledge that grace is ensuring my justification, my sanctification, and my glorification, i cannot help but display the characteristics that all Christians are supposed to possess . . . namely, the fruit of the Spirit.
i could be wrong–i’m still piecing this through– but i think the Christian fruit can be hindered in mainly 2 ways. 1) by ignoring Jesus as my Savior as Justifier and 2) by ignoring Jesus as my Savior as Sanctifier. instead of living my life for the soul purpose of glorifying God, i continue to live in my strength for my sanctification. talk about frustration! i ignore the grace given to me to “grow” this fruit. instead, i’m leaning on myself to grow my own fruit in soil too barren to produce anything.
instead of acting like we have God’s grace because we actually have God’s grace, i think we have a tendency to ignore this grace. however, we still feel burdened to produce this fruit. so what do we do? we teach ourselves (and others) methods of acting. never filled (or ignoring the filling), we try and play the part of grace. we act the way we think “peace” is supposed to be. we put on a stinky impersonation of “longsuffering.”
frankly, we are terrible actors.
my dad and i were talking about this: i mentioned that i was disheartened by the fact that, in a jr high sunday school class that i heard of, they actually have the kids raise their hands and tell how many times they have devotions that week. i told him this method is only leading to problems. 1) the kids end up doing their devotions out of pressure, shame, or to impress man or 2) the kids end up lying because of pressure, shame, or to impress man. it seems to me that it is propagating the idea of the fear of man. i said that i think the kids need to be taught the character of God and how God is relating to them–learning about how Awesome He is and how He still wants to have a relationship with us propells them to pursue this relationship by searching for Him themselves. the love of God is the motivator instead of the fear of man. dad said that the “devotion count” might make them do that until the love comes. that’s some vicious chicken before the egg. still thinking on this.
we end up beating ourselves up when we do our devotions at night instead of the morning, etc. in reality, does God really care? is a father picky about what exact time of day his children want to talk with him?
my father isn’t. (unless he’s sleeping . . . but God doesn’t sleep, so that doesn’t count. 😉 )
you know, i’m a lousy gardener when i try and grow my own fruit.
thank God He grows my fruit for me.
seeminglyrandom 