Everyone fears debt. Acknowledging God’s love accrues a great debt in that we owe our love, in return, to both him and others.
There’s no snowballing interest rate, rather you’re the one who misses out when you refuse to give love back.
I know that I’m one of the few people that don’t post photo’s on here, but this is an exception. First day back in the swell (I always get sick from winter surfing) tomorrow!
ps.. For those who don’t know me, this is kinda what 1/6th of me looks like.
Regarding a class I took on the Holocaust my professor made one thing clear; that those who perpetrated the catastrophic acts of the Holocaust like us, were human. My professor protested that when we label these perpetrators as “demons, “Satan” or monsters. We started that we are wrong in dehumanizing them.
If I am to believe this then I am forced to come to the sobering conclusion that I am capable of the same deeds.
Hearing the news of the abused girls who were recently found, after being kidnapped locked away for years, an anger arise in me to do justice to the situation. An anger that makes me and many others want to lynch the person who did this.
I have a friend who’s decided to change their gender. When asked, “If you could tell the church one thin,g what would you tell it?” He responded, “that although you might disagree with me that I am still a person.”
As I mentioned, I am capable of the worst of deeds. The killings, the mass murders, the rape… etc. We all are. It’s as if something is deeply wrong with humanity. There’s an illness imbedded in us that has been there from the womb and it’s been there since the beginning of time. It’s not contagious because all of us already have it. Those affected by this sickness and who have the worst symptoms (addiction, lust, homelessness, poverty.. not just “the worst of crimes”) are pushed aside, degraded and dehumanized. Those you can mask the sickness, tuff it out, or maybe those who are less effected by this sickness are “safe”, but as with any sickness, those who are well can become ill. When we discover the illness behind those we thought well we are astonished as if out hope of being well is taken. We are presented with the reality that are not well and we are presented with the reality that we are powerless to our illness.
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It’s plain to see that we are all human and we are all in the same boat. We are all sick. Some of us would like to pretend that we are better off because we we have first class rooms on this ship but really, the ship is on a one way trip to the grave.
We’re powerless to the sickness and i suppose that why we are so quick to write people off. It can be overwhelming when those who are out of our control. Those who’s sickness we don’t know how to lay to dormant rest or those who can’t white-knuckle through.
If Jesus were to encounter these people I think he would respond a lot differently than us towards them. I think he’d know them by name, know their life, their story, he’d know what makes them depressed and what brings them joy. I think that more than know Jesus would care.
They say Jesus was all human and all God. That means that the “sickness” I talked about, Jesus willingly carried by becoming human. More than that, by living the life we could not and carrying our pain I believe he beat the sickness and broke the curse; that through him there’s hope.
For me a I believe there is hope for this sickness and that hope is in Jesus Christ. I believe that he’s redeeming of us. I believe that we can put our worst behind us through him and that everyday we are still in need of his redemption.
We’ve all fallen short and Christ is the answer. There’s hope to be well and hope for new life. For me the most sobering part of this is not that Christ cares about us because we “take the cure”. The most sobering part of all this is Christ simply cares about you and to show his love, he being God, humbled himself and became like us. His doing this was not based on how well we could help ourselves or if we’d accept him. Jesus knows your pain and hurt regardless of you accepting his “cure”. He cares and loves you regardless of you accepting the “cure”, so much so that we was willing to risk his own life for you with the chance that you might not accept him or what he did and also knowing very well (and without imposing) that he was what is best for you.
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I think if we are to look like christ we need to humble ourselves to others even if they’re “wrong”. I think that if we are all in the same boat and that there’s hope.
A light illuminates at the end of the tunnel when we understand that things don’t have to be the way that they are.
This is not the way it has to be.
Part of my electric rig. I run an AB selector (little silver box in the back that I whack with my heel) after my tuner that splits to an acoustic circuit. This allows me to use one input wire for acoustic and electric playing.
Generation one Hot Rod Deluxe. The pots in this model aren’t volume pots, so they have the amp screaming at 1 (hence the “attenuator” on top of my amp. )
Walking into my house, I noticed to the side of my entrance stairs what was a pack a flowers dead from the winters cold. There are flowers that serve their annual service and after the season they never grow again. I wondered if these now frail and lifeless flowers were the type that would ever live again.
You know, there are actually flowers that will not grow unless their seeds (or bulbs) are subject to winter climates. By putting seeds in the freezer people in warmer geographical areas can to accommodate to the seeds need for cold. The flower wont grow unless it is subject to the hash conditions of winter and even after that it may not even be a type of flower that will grow back every year.
I compare this to life. We persevere through suffering to watching the fruit of our toil abound in life. Like flowers the efforts of our toil die and leave us empty handed, as if it would have been better should we have never survived the winter.
I can’t help but consider an unseen variable in this equation of mind. The seeds of the dead flowers are the variable that we most overlook. For some, these seeds are legacy. For others, these seeds are the next chapter of their life; one season has ended and died, now the next season begins with new seeds purposed for life.
Have you toiled, found life and seen God work only to end up in a place where it seems that the life never existed? That your grass root beginnings have yielded in plenty but have wilted?
Let it go.
The winter is coming but life awaits.
Have you been looking for answers, mentally trying to piece together loose ends, asking how and wondering why? Are you exhausted from running through the possibilities of how the future will play out, that is if you can even imagine what the future will look like?
Let it go.
The winter has come but life awaits.
