Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Eternity

Off and on God has been laying on my heart about eternity. Sometimes our pastor at church mentions a family who just lost a member of their family and they are at peace because they are in the presence of Christ. But like Monday and yesterday, God really has been pressing it more on my heart.
Monday started like any other day except it was warmer outside so I decided to jog. As I was making my laps, I heard our friendly neighborhood guneas which Cyrus and I have named bob and Betty. They r the funniest creatures especially to watch when they get separated and squak until they find each other. Well on this morning, I only saw bob, the black, grey, and white one but there was no Betty. It was kinda weird. He was just by himself and they never like leaving each other. It was weird. I did not think too much more about it until when Cyrus took me to work. as we were driving down our street, there was poor bob and still no betty. Then Cyrus noticed tons and tons of feathers on both sides of the road. We both got the feeling at the same time. Did something happen to Betty? Cyrus went back to the house to investigate after he dropped me off. He texted me saying there was no body anywhere and no blood on the feathers. It was just so sad. I thought about it all day and thought it was the sadest thing that this could be the end of Betty. Cyrus and I kept on thinking that maybe she is ok and just got scared and ran off or maybe the worse that a dog ran off with her and killed her. It is just so sad. Also that night, I also read some of my book called Desire by John Eldredge. The basis of his book is "how to learn how to uncover our desires and learn to decipher them". Desires aren't bad. Desires were meant to be spent forever and forever in eden with God, but as humans we ruined that when we took control. Now we battle with our desires. Are they good or do they consume us and our thoughts? He then states that we try to "arrange" our life to fulfill our desire and what we think is right for us. But what about eternity? What if our desires were so consumed in eternity? How would our everyday perspective change? How about the people we work with? The family members that are not saved? I will confess I love to "arrange" my life. I have made the comment several times, God you can come back when I have kids, maybe grandkids and have this amazing ministry. But what if God does not allow me to have any of those things? Would I be happy? Cyrus talked to an aquaintance of his yesterday. Recently his friend suddenly lost his wife. He has 3 kids and owns his own business. He told Cyrus that he hs spent the past 3 weeks in bed out of grief. How sad is that? I feel so bad for him. I cant imagine that happening to me. That is certainty not in "my plans" for my husband to die. Once again eternity is the answer. Focusing on eternity on heaven. Sin in our world is such an awful thing. It twists our thoughts and confuse us from what we really need to focus on. I need to focus on the kids I work with everyday even if they drive me insane. They need Christ. Will I see them in eternity in heaven? I challenge you as my reader to truly mediatate what it means to have an eternal perspective in this twisted world. It will be interesting to see where God takes this in my life. I have seen him already change alot of my thinking because of just one bird. http://www.ransomedheart.com/?q=node/87

Friday, February 3, 2012

Man and Our Total Depravity

As I continue to grow in my relationship with God, He shows me so many things in my life and how He remains faithful to me as I slowly "get it". My husband loves to watch post nuclear times such as The Road or The Book of Eli. He also likes to listen to Glenn Beck and all his things about how economical and political hardships are going to happen and how we need to prepare for it. To be honest, I don't know what to believe. I do know our world, our nation, is settling for second best and probably the most self absorbed group of people ever. Clearly, we feel like we can do whatever we want because we are "so powerful" and everything is given to us on a silver platter. The people who govern over our nation are desperately wicked and evil and think clearly only about their own needs and not the needs of our failing nation. But this is not my point of this blog. My point is we are failing as a nation because our Human existence is evil and depraved focusing only on ourselves and not God. And because God is a holy and just God, He can't really allow this for much longer. Huge nations just don't last long. Rome only lasted for 200 years. We have a quite a couple more decades to even reach our 300 birthday. So we are going to fail. It is just how it is. And how are we going to react? When our economy hits rock bottom or we get taken over by a more powerful country, how are we going to take it? To be honest, Cyrus and I are your typical young couple just getting by living simple. Yes we are very fortunate for the things we do have that are nice. But imagine having none of that? My question still remains, how will we respond? When I watch these movies, (ok I know these are just movies but go along with me on this) the people are so down right evil. They think only on how to survive and thats it. I mean in the movie, The Road, the dad is clearly a dad who takes care of his kid and does anything for him but when it comes to the point with this poor guy who does steal their things he is down right merciless. I mean his true sinful nature comes out of him. I will confess being poor or living in a different place every night or not sure what you are going to eat for the day is scary, but I think man's depravity scares me the most. I know what I am capable of thinking when I allow my flesh to get the best of me. But imagine people who dont have Christ. I don't know. In the long run, it makes me feel very thankful for God's perfect gift that He has given to me. I also know that He is faithful and only puts me through things that He has prepared me for in order to handle them. My only thought for you as my reader, how will you respond? How will we respond if Obama get re elected for another 4 years and changes more things in our nation? I know our God is a good God but He is also a God who needs to be glorified. That is my point. In our human depravity, in our human struggles, in our human rebelliousness and pride, God will be glorified. No matter how much I fret or try to control or reason about the condition of our world, my God will be glorified. All I need to do is keep my focus on Him. In Him, I am strong. In Him, I can overcome the world. Oh how I wish that for my frail human existence today.
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