Bible Report

One of my thoughts for the past several weeks/months is that it has been far too long since I’ve written anything and also that it is so much harder to start something up again when you’ve neglected it. This blog for example, I feel the need to catch you up with my life or something but that has become far too daunting task to achieve and so my conclusion has become that if I ever intend to write on here again I must simply ignore the absence and start writing. And so that is my intent today to go back to my roots and simply write. So, the first time I ever remember writing something that was not for school or maybe just the first time I remember writing something meaningful was 5 or 6 years back when my sister challenged me to read my bible and write about it; the task was simple, read at least one chapter a day and then write about what stood out to me in what I read.  

So the chapters I read today were Matthew 19&20 and Proverbs 13 and the verses that stood out and connected for me were…

Proverbs 13:7

There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing; and there is one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches

Matthew 19:30

But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Matthew 20:27&28

And whoever desires to be first among you let him be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

 

All of the statements made here in these verses are pretty straightforward and in most cases can be applied to being charitable; giving of your money or time, and there is truth in that but there is also a statement being made about pride and humility and the kingdom of heaven. Because in the world we live in the general mindset of society is all about getting; getting money, getting power, or just getting more people to listen to what you have to say. But that is not the mindset of the kingdom of heaven.

If you have ever spent time reading the gospels you may have noticed that Jesus shares a lot of parables and that most of them start out with “the kingdom of heaven is like…” and then He goes on to continue with whatever point He is choosing to make that day. Now I’m not a great bible scholar or even someone who really likes reading the parables, but from what I’ve heard read and remember the kingdom of heaven is not run like and does not follow the same rules as any kingdom we have here on earth.      

So with that in mind, the kingdom of heaven and life as a Christian is not about getting more, it’s about giving til it hurts and putting others before yourself, in essence it’s about humbling yourself to the point of being last, poor and a slave because God is the only One who can truly make you first, rich and free and maybe when it comes right down to it that might be the point that God wants to make with your life.        

             

I Want To Be

I’ve really been struggling lately, I’m having a hard time connecting with people, and my dive to be social is gone, I find myself complaining all the time and when I look for beauty and joy it’s more than a little hard to find. My life hasn’t really changed and there is no good reason for me to be feeling the way that I do, so why has this depression sprung up now, why am I weary and burnt out and what good is going to come from writing about it? I could create a list, all the reasons why I think this has struck me, but I don’t think I want to do that. You see the reasons don’t really matter at this point, the only thing that matters is getting past the reasons and overcoming the way that I feel in order to be the person that I like again.

I don’t know exactly how to do that, and at the risk of sounding overdramatic, when I feel this way it’s sometimes hard to remember what really brings me back to normal. But normal will return eventually and I’m not blind to the attack so I have the mind to fight back, to look for beauty even though its hard, to stay connected even if it’s just one person, to be social even though I don’t want to, to be positive when my instinct is to complain and to somehow find rest without abandoning my life. But most importantly to pray, because no matter what I do, who I talk to or how much I fake it til I make it, I know that my joy comes from the Lord, He is the One that gives me rest and seeking Him is what I need to remember most when I can’t remember anything else, because it’s Him who makes me the me I want to be.