03.24.09
Posted in love, relationship at 1:49 pm by Administrator
How do you look at love? I think too many of us look at love as something we give to other and expect something in return. When the person we gave our love to doesn’t respond back in the way that we want, we get resentful and mad. Most of us know we should show love towards others but often we attach conditions and stipulations on the love that we share. We loan out our love expect it to be repaid with interest. We justify this by saying if I give of myself, then I should get something in return.
Did Jesus do this when he was called to give of himself? He gave everything, expecting nothing in return. His love was a gift with no strings attached. It wasn’t a loan because we didn’t have to do anything to deserve it.
I have messed this up so many times in my life, I have lost count. I learn every day that it is so much better to love people, just because. I have found that when I place expectations on how people should react to my generosity, loving act or words, it truly leads me down a path to resentment and sorrow. So if we give our love to people expecting nothing in return, life becomes such a joy when people do respond in kind.
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02.25.09
Posted in God Centered, community, love at 12:45 am by Administrator
Who are the people you feel closest to? What makes these people unique in your life? In many ways, we are shaped by those people that are around us both for our betterment and our detriment.
Coming through the ordeals I have had to face over the past weeks, I find that often the most intense level of community comes through a sharing of intense experiences. I have formed significant friendships with several of the people I recently was in the hospital with. Many of these people, I share very little common cultural or social bonds with as we are completely different in many ways. We aren’t the same ethnicity, socio-economic status, lifestyle, religious background and hang out in the same social circles. Yet, there is an intense bond I have with these people because of our intense shared experience of our hospital stays. It makes me understand it when they say the most intense friendships or relationships are between those who have fought in war together. They have the same intense experiences that forced them together and forced them to interact with each other.
Interacting with these people has been so refreshing to me. I find myself seeing things about myself that I don’t think I would have ever been able to discover if I wasn’t seen through eyes that looked from quite a different perspective. Before coming to a relationship with Jesus, I probably would have ignored these people if I came across them on the street. But now I have a love for these people that I can’t describe and I gain so much from my interaction with them. When I first got to the hospital I viewed myself as different, yet when we were forced together through an intense experience, I realized that these were people too despite whatever condition got them there. They were deserving of love, patience and acceptance just as much as I was. So for me, I have to thank God for the junk I had to go through because through it I was able to meet these people who have opened my eyes even more to what God’s kingdom here on earth really should be.
What prompted me to write this was my reading of Jonathan Brink’s blog and his work at acheiving authentic Godly community at Thrive Ministries . To read more on his view of what authentic Godly community is, read a recent post he wrote called Elusive Authentic Community
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02.19.09
Posted in God in general, love, relationship at 7:18 pm by Administrator
How often do we find ourselves saying I would love more if only fill in the blank? Most of us view love so conditionally. It’s a if you rub my back then I will rub yours kind of a scenario. But that’s not the kind of love that God and Jesus call us to. Jesus tells us what kind of love we are to engage in. We must choose to love even when it isn’t the easy thing to do.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:32-36
Recently I saw the movie Fireproof and the basis of this verse was the whole premise of the film. How do you love someone that doesn’t love you back? How do you love when the result is rejection? But we find that the kind of love that many engage in is expecting to be repaid. As this verse tells us that love is given freely without any expectations. The greek term for this is agape love. It’s love just because you are there. It’s the love that is given despite the circumstances or conditions.
Recent events has shown me that I need to aspire to this kind of love more. The funny thing is the less you expect in return when giving out love, the more love seems to come your way.
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Posted in God in general, community, love, relationship at 12:23 am by Administrator
It’s funny how we try to control things. We see something that we don’t like or that offends us or that hurts us in some way and we try to change it. This is something that I have discovered about myself over the past couple of weeks. It’s ironic that I have named my website Left of Self Center because in many ways I have been acting in a very self centered way. In many ways, we try to play God with the situations in our lives. We try to take control over things because we want to control them or manipulate them in some way. Often we claim it is because we have a “right”, or we have been hurt or offended.
It’s as if when others don’t meet our expectations, we try to make them fit the mold. A friend showed me a passage from the Alcoholic’s Anonymous handbook that really illustrates the point of giving up trying to control things.
“I have to discard my “rights,” as well as my expectations, by asking myself, How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety?….
Acceptance is the key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that’s God’s will for me. Alcoholic’s Anonymous Handbook p 420
So how often are we emotional “drunk” because we are so consumed pushing our “rights” and our expectations upon other people in a self centered way? It is one thing to stand up for oneself or protect oneself, it is another to try to control or manipulate another to one’s own way of thinking. So given our weakness to this, I have included the Serenity Prayer here. If you have issues with this like I do, please pray along.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
Amen.
–Reinhold Niebuhr
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02.11.09
Posted in Communication, Pain, love, relationship at 11:43 am by Administrator
I have been going through a very difficult time in my life. The difficulties came to a head last Thursday in an event that took me to a place I never dreamed I would ever go. Yet despite the traumatic event in a rather hard episode in my life, I found God’s hand everywhere I went.
To put it bluntly, I was diagnosed with suffering from Major Depression and ended up in a mental health facility where I was literally locked down for almost a week. Despite the sadness, anger and frustration I was feeling, I was comforted by the strangest of people and found myself talking about God with people I never in my life would have dreamed I ever would. The experience really brought Matthew 25: 34-46 to life.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
My first thought was that I was locked up with a bunch of crazy people. After all, i was quite normal. I found myself surrounded with people struggling with voices in their heads, those that claimed they had demons in them, bi-polar disorders, addictions, anger management issues, and a myriad of emotional problems. I felt like the sober person at a party full of drunks. But I found I was struggling with many of the same things that they were. A wonderful counselor told us that all of these problems that many of us were dealing with centered around how self centered we really were. We didn’t want to do what needed to be done so we lashed out in our own selfish ways.
Yet many in there were so selfless in so many ways. I was conforted by a lady singing gospel songs who was brought in due to hearing voices and walking down the middle of the freeway. When I was at my lowest, I was conforted by a lady who had nearly overdosed because she felt overwhelmed by the problems of her son, and another who had come in feeling like she was worthless and without hope. I found that all these people were people who wanted and needed love just like you or I. God allowed me to help a young man with anger issues to accept Jesus for the first time in his life and he and I prayed together during most of my stay.
Towards the end, my conversations turned to a man named Mark, who had called in a bomb threat and kept telling me his life was over, I realized that all these people were human and worthy of God’s love. Mark kept saying his life was over and there was nothing left. He was truly hopeless. I shared with him the plight of Jonah in Jonah 2 and he could relate. Yet somehow I knew I needed to tell him that he was a person of worth in my eyes. That he was a person who was loved. He was upset when I left and he came up to me and asked a question that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
“Will you remember me? Will you pray for me like you said you would?”
I told him I would and I would ask anyone reading this blog to also pray for Mark who is in a very dark place. I thank God that I had my issue if only to be that small beacon of light that reached Mark.
So how many of us ask God, “Will you remember me?” “Am I worthy to be remembered?” We ask if our God will come and save us and i believe he does, just not always in the way we expect. I just think it is awesome that in the hardest times, God is there walking with us.
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02.03.09
Posted in community, love, relationship at 12:11 am by Administrator
Have you ever gone round and round with someone trying to show them how you are right? Yet how many times have we struggled to assert our correctness only to find we have lost in the end. Romans 2 really addresses this by asking who are we to judge? Who are we to determine who is right and who is wrong? Does God convinces us to turn away from our sins by judgement alone? If we take the Scriptures into consideration on this, we find that judgment is usually at the end of a long road of God trying to get us to come back to relationship with Him. Paul states:
You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? (Romans 2:1-4 NLT)
So if we are trying to reach someone how should we do it? I think we are given the answer above. We do so with kindness, love, tolerance and patience as God himself shows us. It’s kind of a radical thought that God intends to turn us away from our sins by using His kindness. After all, wasn’t Jesus an ultimate gift of kindness to a cruel world? How can we take that sentiment and apply it to our own lives, our own families, our own communities and the world around us?
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02.02.09
Posted in Communication, God in general, community, love, relationship at 10:13 am by Administrator
Recently I read a post by my friend Jonathan Brink called With Great Patience . I found myself profoundly touched by this piece as it really struck home with some situations that I have been dealing with. I would suggest that if you haven’t read Jonathan Brink’s blog before, that you should check it out.
My friend Jonathan runs a ministry call Thrive Ministries . It is focused on bringing people back into relationship with one another as God truly intends it. He refers to it by the term communitas. In a way, many of my recent posts have been focused on my own struggles to come into communitas with several people around me. His post reminds me of how we can get caught up in being worried about “defending” ourselves instead of reaching out in love. His comments about how we build fortresses and walls that we think will protect us but in truth really isolate us and keep us away from what we are truly searching for. Relationship.
There was one phrase he used that really struck me and I think this is where many of us fail in this pursuit of communitas or relationship with others.
When someone reveals their brokenness in a way that affects the rest of the community, the natural impulse is to correct and to rebuke, even in love. We get the first half of Paul’s words. They’re empowering and important. But do we also include the words, “With great patience.”
I realized today that when someone doesn’t get it, it requires us to love even more. And we don’t like that, do we? We want relationships to be easy and fun. But grace has no end. God isn’t sitting up there wondering if He should break trust with us. He’s not wondering, “When are these people going to get it already?” His love is this insane ability to stay in trust with us even in our brokenness, even when we don’t get it.
I was stunned as I read that when someone doesn’t get it, it requires us to love even more. I knew this to be true but I wondered how I personally got so off track. I know I don’t like that. I want to be right. I want to win. I want to be heard. Yet that isn’t the example that God gives us.
Isn’t that what Christianity is really about? Relationships… both with our God and with others fostered by our love and service to one another.
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01.27.09
Posted in love, relationship at 8:18 pm by Administrator
What keeps you from just letting go? What are you holding onto that keeps you from making a leap of faith? When I used to teach swimming, in order for a kid to truly learn to swim, they had to let go of the side and go out into the deep water. There comes a time when we experience a chasm that cannot be crossed by just easing across. We can’t just ease ourselves across. Coming into a relationship of God is kind of like that. Often we never let go of things that we wish to hold onto. Often these are those selfish or self-centered things that we just don’t want to give up. There is a certain amount of fear to letting go those things that we are familiar with and making the leap into the unknown.
In essence, we have to commit to the relationship in order to get where we want to go. Many hang out paralyzed by their fears of letting things go. They never come to the place where they are trusting fully in God. So they never make the leap. We see that in Romans 4:5:
But people cannot do any work that will make them right with God. So they must trust in him, who makes even evil people right in his sight. Then God accepts their faith, and that makes them right with him.
So what is keeping you from making that leap of trust?
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01.23.09
Posted in God Centered, Pain, love, relationship at 11:12 am by Administrator
We hear a lot of ministering to the whole person. There is a desire to feel complete in our pursuit of life. Yet many of us feel that sense of something that is missing. These kinds of voids are felt in our lives. They nag at us and tear at the joy in our lives.
I am experiencing a time in my life where I am facing a tremendous amount of change in my life. So of these changes have been self imposed or self inflicted and others have been thrust upon me. It is in this condition, I feel the anxiety of life pressing in upon me. Yet how I react to these things is reflective of how well I am dealing with these stressors in my life. I wish I could tell you that I am having no problems dealing with these things, but inevitably I cannot.
Into this situation, I came across the work and ministry of Jonathan Brink and Thrive Ministries . He talked about the search for wholeness through our relationship with Christ. How that is a shared journey. How we need to address our own brokenness through our relationship with our God and with those fellow believers around us. I realized how true that is. How so far of the mark in many ways I myself am. I find myself anxious and fearful and resentful and angry about things going on in my life when in reality all I am truly doing is trying to protect myself and my own brokenness. In protecting myself I am cutting myself off from that which can truly make me whole. The sad thing is that I and many others do these things because we think we are protecting ourselves.
I think of several passages in the Gospel of John that really illustrate this for me. The first is John 14:27
I leave you peace, my peace I give to you. I do not give it to you as the world does. So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
And again in John 15: 5, 11-13
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…… I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
I have someone I love very much that I almost lost because I tried to protect myself and be apart from relationship. It was only when I truly stepped out in love disregarding the possible consequences that I was able to overcome my brokenness and reach this person again. I guess this is my own journey that I am making to get back to the wholeness that we all want.
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