Embrace the Within no. 18

“Christianity is all about relationships with God and with others.”

David Watson

Embrace the Within.

I am to love God and my neighbor. That is the foundation of the walk I am to have if I am to be one of the children of God. This weekend we had a little conversation about complaining about going to church. And I am past the point of arguing and fighting with anyone about doing what they know in their heart, mind, and soul is important and right. I left that decision to weigh the importance of their relationship with God. It’s easy to forget that the reason we are doing any of this is because God took the time to create and plan this existence. And that we should want to have a relationship with God.

Children and even adults that behave selfishly look at the inconvenience placed upon them. And it isn’t just with God. Oftentimes the relationships we have with other image bearers of God are just too much trouble for us to take the time to reach out and call, email, walk across the room, take a drive, spend a day, etc. We have all types of excuses for the inconvenience BUT just like our spiritual relationships, our human relationships are also our choice.

We can continue to make excuses for why we don’t want a relationship or why we want a less than relationship. We could be out there having the best relationships filled with joy, hope, and abundance. That would mean living a lot more unselfishly. That would mean sacrificing a lot more of ourselves and thinking more about God.

And that is where I left the conversation for this week. We make time for what is important in our lives. I have made choices over the past fourteen days because those choices aligned my life with my values. I value being with my family and protecting them despite and in spite of the upheaval and brokenness of the world in which I live. I value saying and showing love to my family by doing things that are not always easy. Some of those things involve sacrificing what I want and what I thought were important BUT were really just excuses for living a less than life. I had to examine where my path was leading and where I wanted my path to go.

There are a lot of distractions out there that look right and just to humans. There is a lot of emphasis on doing what I want and living to make myself feel better. BUT all of that neglects the importance of filling that God-shaped hole in the core of your nephesh. And you can walk around like a donut as much as you like, throwing all manner of things into the God-shaped hole, BUT nothing is going to fill that hole completely BUT God. And nothing is going to make you happy until that hole is filled with God. So stop being a donut and fill your hole!

I get to choose every day how much I talk to God. I get to choose every day how much I care about God. I get to choose every day the quality of that relationship. Just as I get to choose the type of relationship I have with everyone else I contact in any way. What are my choices doing to my relationships? Are they making my relationships better? Or are they just making me feel better?

Peace to your home. Bless your being. The reign of God is now. Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin

Embrace the Within no. 17

"You have one teacher, and you are all brothers to each other...Whoever ministers with the divine word does not put himself forward to be called teacher, for he knows that when he performs well it is Christ who is within him. He should only call himself servant according to the command of Christ, saying, Whoever is greater among you, let him be the servant of all."

• Origen of Alexandria

Embrace the Within.

The last fourteen days have been a lot of struggle with an ultimate reward of finding a new and meaningful walk with God. None of it has ever been easy yet I find that folks tend to think that Christians have it easier than everyone else. Folks like to marginalize our walk with God as something that is infinitely easier than whatever they are going through while leaning on their own judgments and reason. And it isn’t that walking with God makes things easier BUT it gives us reassurance that no matter what may occur that God is still in our corner.

It is great to not be alone. And that brings me to another thing that I have been hearing around that God is some invisible man that lives in the clouds. I don’t know when the anthropomorphic idea of God became a way of viewing God for grown ups BUT it is out there that Christians believe in some dude that lives in the clouds. That is not my belief and that is a very basic understanding and a very limiting way to view God. God is everywhere. Marginalizing God to a single place and a single body seems like a way of equating God to classical ideas of gods and goddesses. And seeing spirits as floating orbs of light that just leave our bodies is also a limiting way of looking at the soul. And I think that limiting God and limiting the spiritual is a way for folks to feel disconnected from each other and disconnected from God.

To act like I totally understand God would be a disservice to how truly unfathomable it is to understand God. And understanding the ways of God is beyond my paygrade. To try and understand why things happen the way they do, to try and map out a plot diagram for my life, to sit and look for the rhyme and reason for living, are all truly pointless pursuits that I have spent many hours, days, weeks, months, and years of the past trying to wrap my brain around in futility. That is not what I was made to do.

I think we spend a lot of time trying to figure out God when we should really be trying to figure out how to just do what God asks. Doing that is far more complicated and far more achievable than trying to figure out God. And, yes, things get easier to understand and figure out when you trust in God first BUT nothing about life gets easier just by accepting Christ. Life is still messy and problematic. I am still a broken person in spite of and despite my trust in God. The great thing about it all is not that life gets simpler BUT that I am not alone in that journey. My life is not easy. Your life is not easy. My relationship with God makes my purpose in life much more easy to understand and allows me to focus on what I was created to do.

Peace to your home. Bless your being. The reign of God is now. Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin