Motivation

There are a few things that can motivate you. I know I have experienced three forces that have determined the majority of my movements and actions: fear, guilt, and love. The first two are great motivators if you are just judging by their shear force and influence. But they are terrible motivators as well, because they do not produce anything but more of themselves. They do not inspire and they do not create.

Love is the greatest motivator because it has the ability to be influential, inspirational, and creative. The problem with love is that it is so difficult for a human heart to grab onto. It is much easier to hold onto fear or guilt because then you can always be sizing up and protecting yourself from threat. With love, you must be willing to let go of managing threat (which is always present) and shift your eyes to something positive in yourself and someone else, something you desire to move toward, rather than away from.

A Friend

I have to try to turn you on to one of my friends' artwork. Here (next to this post) is one of the paintings I like the best. I mean seriously, if he was not my friend, I think I would still love his work. It's stunning how great it is, so take a minute and look at it. You can find more of it here at http://jackbaumgartner.wordpress.com/. Once you're there, click on the pages at the right to look at the work. You don't see stuff like this everyday, especially here in middle-America. No one takes the time to do this sort of stuff anymore - puts this sort of heart, thought, effort, and detail into their work. In this age when we are inundated with fast-moving, quickly rendered digital graphics, it's nice to see the real deal. Enjoy.

Simplicity

It's hard to live a simple life in the middle of all this crap. Just try to be silent for like a few minutes and you'll see what I mean. Unless you're in the middle of nowhere, there's always something around making noise. And here in these United States, we have instant access to almost everything in the world. I mean, if I want to watch a killer whale jumping on a guy, I can. That's cool, but it also means that things start to lose their novelty pretty quick. If I can have anything I want, it all becomes fairly meaningless and I start looking for something that does hold some value.

Before I start sounding any more like Ecclesiastes, I want to say that there is some stuff worth living for. You just have to dig out from all the other stuff to find it. No, getting stuff and more stuff is not the meaning of life. The goal is to have some life-changing experiences with God and people. For that, you have to be quiet, get everything else quiet, and listen.

Slow and Steady

Transformation usually happens very subtly and slowly. If it's true that transformation should happen from the inside out, that makes sense. You could make a huge change in your thinking or the direction of your heart and your hair would look the same, you would still drive the same car, and you would probably still have the same amount of money. There wouldn't be any outward dividends for a while. But soon, hopefully you would start to do some things differently. Hopefully you would feel better and start to treat others better.

Two things I need to do differently because of this concept: 1. Be more patient with others - they could be transforming right before my eyes and the fruit could be coming later and not be visible yet. I don't want to kill it. And 2. I need to be quiet and still and wait for what God wants to change, subtly, in my life. I can look at others all I want. There's still a bunch of stuff about me that needs to change.

Look Closely

I can't get it out of my head that Christianity is this sort of rebellious, underground thing. Jesus went around telling people not to tell others who he was (What? So, you could actually be doing what Jesus told you not to do by telling others about him?) and also, there were a lot of people who did not know Jesus was God. Think about that for a minute - Jesus could have shown people quite handily that he was God (doing a lot more cool tricks would have been one way), but the jury is still out on the whole God-man thing for a lot of people.

It's amazing because the whole premise of Christianity (and the story of the world) is fairly obvious - God was and is, he created the earth and everything in it, man chose to betray him, God spent a lot of time and energy trying to redeem him. God kind of has a corner on the market. He is the only true God. He could choose the straightforward way of revealing himself, but he doesn't. He chooses to be rather subversive. You could actually be face-to-face with him and not even know it. That's how under-the-radar God chooses to be.

Unbelievable, because we spend all this time trying to bring God to the surface for people, using his name a lot, building buildings supposedly in his honor, lobbying for what we think he might, and expanding our empires in his name. All the while, God is probably roaming the streets somewhere, rummaging through a trash can for some food.

The Lost Art of Listening

It's safe to say that there is more to most people than meets the eye. I mean sure, some people operate at a very "safe" level, meaning that they work very hard at pushing down any feelings or thoughts that surface that might give away anything too close to their hearts. Even so, I'd say that most people - given a safe place and at least one person interested enough to pry a little bit - will let fly that they have some inner experience that is different than what they normally present to the world.

What this means for each of us then, I guess, is that it is important to try and meet the conditions necessary to create a safe space for others, and then to be caring enough to honor that person's experience. I'm serious - it's not just for therapists and counselor-types. You can do it. Just listen, keep your mouth shut about it afterwards, and be respectful of how you think that person might want you to treat the information (I think Jesus said something about that). Think about it, be trustworthy, be patient, and don't assume people want advice. Just listen. What this also means is that we should really stop making assumptions about what people are thinking and feeling and ask. My guess is you're looking for someone to do the same for you.

My Self

There's a very important concept I really was supposed to have learned a long time ago. It's self-control and the basic idea is evident in the term - you can't control other people; you can only control yourself. My elementary school teachers were all busy trying to get us to keep our hands to ourselves, to keep our eyes on our own papers, and to not tattle on others. I remember there was this one time I had my name written on the board for talking when it was clear that the girl sitting next to me was talking to me and I was just listening, responding quite minimally.

It's really easy to blame your problems on others. And it's easy to start thinking that if the world was different, you'd be a lot happier. And while I haven't given up on trying to change the world (I'm actually an active protester to the way the world works now), I also know that the only one I can control is myself. The only deeds I can apologize for are my own. The only one I can open up for transformation is myself. I find that I have a lot more control when I stop trying to change things I can't change.

Judgment

It really does not matter what people think about you. What's sad is how much value I put on what every single person says. I had this series of like five minutes this week where someone said they were proud of me and then another person questioned a decision I had made. It was like my stock shot up suddenly, and then plummeted and I lost everything. It was pathetic.

Really, it only matters what God thinks. 2pac is right: only God can judge me, but it seems that I let people judge me more often. I care the most about what people say and the least about what God says. For real - I spend tons of mental energy considering what I can do to make the least people mad and the most people like me, and I spend substantially less mental energy praying and trying to align my heart with God's.

This is probably because people give the most immediate feedback. If you do something stupid, you're likely going to hear about it from someone in the immediate vicinity and if you do something praiseworthy, at least people won't ostracize you. God's evaluation doesn't seem to be quite as quick - maybe because he bases his judgment not on your performance, but on who he says you are.

For Real!

Man, it's hard to do what Jesus says. If people actually start doing it - like loving their enemies and not judging others and stuff - I'm pretty sure the world will change. It's especially hard not to judge other people. OK, it's hard to love your enemies, too. It's just so much easier to hate people who make you mad and it's easier to think they're worse than you because of the way they talk, act, treat people, etc. There's always that voice in your head that's sizing people up.

The problem is sometimes that voice gets turned on yourself. Jesus is right (again) when he says that the same measuring stick you use to size other people up is used against you. It's hard to live up to the standard to which I, a lot of times, hold other people. Maybe I should think about that next time I try assuming stuff about other people, their intentions and their motives.

I and Thou

There's this guy named Martin Buber. Funny name, I know, but he's the author of this philosophy that says that we can explain reality by looking at the way we communicate with the world around us, with one another, and even with God. It's all about relationships. Check it out.

What makes a whole ton of sense to me is his idea of the I-It relationship, which means that often, we talk to other people like they're "its," or objects, rather than people. What we're supposed to do is have "I-Thou" relationships, meaning we're supposed to talk to people like they're people, not just objects there to serve our needs. He says that when we analyze people and God as "its," then we cease to have genuine, mutual, give-and-take relationships with them.

Kind of interesting because we do this with God a lot. We study and talk about him so much (more than we talk to him), that he becomes more of an object to us than a person. Maybe we should start letting God have a say in the matter. Maybe we should start letting God speak for himself.

Using God

God gets used for a lot of different things. He gets used to scare people. He gets used to prove people's points. He gets used as justification for lots of horrible things that people choose to do. Most of the time I use God to make me feel better. I am usually wanting him to solve all my problems. The thing is, it's really hard to use God. The times I look back and I just wanted God's presence as a salve for my wounds, I realize he really didn't take to it too swiftly.

Usually when I spend time with the Father, I have this agenda of things I want him to take care of, or there's something I definitely want to get from the time together. Then I think about how awful that is - if I treated any of my other friends like that, we probably wouldn't be friends anymore. God will not be used - and that's kind of good. If he just did everything we wanted him to do, we wouldn't be able to experience real relationship with him - the kind of relationship where he is exactly who he is and not just everything we want him to be, and the kind of relationship where it is enough just to be together.

War

There's a hell of a war going on. It's the war for your soul. You know how it feels worth something some moments and other moments it doesn't? Well, there are more than a few forces marching into battle each day, which are more than happy to let you know what you're worth. The trick is which side to fight for and listen to.

What's kind of cool about this is that you're important enough to fight for. What's even cooler is that the One who has the final say has already declared you worth saving. He's given his life for yours. What you have to decide is whether you're ready to listen for his voice and let go of all the others.

Wrath

When bad stuff happens, especially when it happens repeatedly during a short span of time, it's easy to think that God is punishing you for something you've done. It's easy to think God's like the Karma Police - he's going around waiting for you to screw up so he can make your life just a little bit more miserable. I don't doubt that God wants to keep us from doing things that damage us. I just think he's got better things to do than act as a giant-sized hall monitor, roaming around, waiting for someone to point the finger at.

It's good to remember that Jesus took yours and my punishment on the cross. Also, I think God's more like a wise and learned parent: he gives us exactly what we want knowing that it won't be what we want in the long run. There's this guy in the Bible who says that God's wrath is giving us over to our own desires. God doesn't need to add more misery to our lives than we already create ourselves. Plus, I heard he wants to bless us.

You Are What You Are

There's this language we all speak, but most of us don't notice it on a regular basis. It's the non-verbal communication between people that is underneath and around the actual words we say. You know - like when you're talking to someone and their mouth is saying they're listening ("uh-huh...uh-huh"), but you can tell they'd rather be anywhere than standing in front of you with your mouth running.

We're all mindreaders. Some of us are just more adept at reading body language, tone, facial expression, and other subtleties than others. What this means is that we affect people no matter what we do. Even if you think you can put on a smiley face and make people feel like you like them, there is still a chance they sense your falseness in some small way. All the more reason to become someone who truly loves, rather than just pretending to be someone like that. You are what you are.

Now

I like the subtitle of one of my friend's books: it's "Following Jesus in real time." There's really no other way you can follow, except one step at a time. And there's really not another way to build a relationship with someone, including Jesus. We've all been with those people who never sit still or shut up long enough to get to know you. That's the same thing we do with God - we never give him a chance to speak.

God's hoping you'll just settle down and be. See, the goal is really just to know God, to be still until he comes to you and then you've found the greatest treasure that you will find - a God that loves you. Then, I promise, things will fall into place, but you have to be willing to be present in this real moment right here.

Trust

One of the greatest things you can learn, I think, is to trust people. It's funny because most of us are taught not to trust anyone. I mean, seriously, there are people out there who teach their children to trust only themselves. What a sad deal - it's hard to have a real relationship in your life if you don't trust anyone. Nevertheless, we're taught that as we grow and learn, we'll become more and more self-reliant and soon we'll be able to control ourselves, do what's right, and make good decisions alone. Then people will trust us and we won't really need to trust anyone.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but I don't know everything. And I don't think I ever will. There are some people who think they do, and they're the people we call lonely. The nice thing about being in a family is that when I don't know something, then it's not the end of the world. I can just ask someone who does. It takes a lot of pressure off, not having to know everything. It's relaxing...and there's a lot of freedom in trust.

Answers

People, in general, want answers. What I mean is that, as human beings, we have this tendency to always run after solutions to our problems. We want questions answered and crises averted. I've been thinking lately, though, that maybe what we're looking for is not so much an answer or a solution, but someone to walk with us through our crap.

It's funny because a lot of times when people ask for help, they don't necessarily want help in the traditional sense, but someone to understand where they're at. People don't react all that well when you tell them what to do about their problem or you try to fix it. They usually think you're wrong and then go talk to someone else about it. Maybe the healing thing is not the answer, as much as the relationship. Maybe that's why Jesus gave himself, instead of just giving us answers.

Pain and Fear

Pain and fear, although quite unpleasant (especially in great intensity), seem like they exist for a purpose. I'm not one of those people that will tell you that everything happens for a reason (I don't think the fact that I just belched has any bearing on anyone anywhere), but I do know that those two things (fear and pain) are there for a reason. What I'm talking about is that if you feel pain or fear, your body or your mind or your spirit is trying to tell you something.

Pain and fear are both symptoms, although they do feel like diseases in themselves sometimes. There are times we think we are meant to live in pain or in fear, but we're not. I'm one of those people who believes God loves us and wants us to have joy. Jesus went around loving people and healing them and he did quite a bit to let people know he wanted them to have a better life. I mean he did die.

I guess what I'm saying is that we should trust our instincts sometimes. If things don't seem like they're going that well, maybe they aren't. If you're afraid or hurting, maybe you should try something different.

Freedom

Paul says "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free." It's not for some new and different kind of slavery, he says later. Christ didn't set us free so that we could turn around and walk right back into our cells and slam the door. And you can't be a little bit legalistic. If you're going to try and be justified by anything except relying on Jesus, you have to swallow the whole thing.

It's religion (meaning the empty, rule-centered rituals devoid of Christ) that keeps people in bondage. It's when we try to add stuff onto what Jesus said and did that people start gagging when they drive by churches. It's hard enough just to do what Jesus asks - then we want to add onto that? A good friend of mine tells me about once a week that if you just try to love God and love others, you'll have enough to do. There is a lot of freedom inherent in love. It's a bit of a shift from what we're used to with religion.

We're not a bunch of islands

It used to bother me when people would act different in different situations, or with different people. It doesn't bother me as much now - I figure it's pretty inevitable. We're all part of a context. We act different around different people because the relationships are different. I'm not going to treat my grandpa the same way I treat a 12-year-old. It won't work.

I've been thinking a lot about community lately, too - how we're all defined by those around us and how if you're not in one (a community, that is), you start feeling very lonely and a little lost. As much as we don't want to admit it, we need others. We are people made for relationship and the more we try to fight that, probably the less we feel like people.

Be Here Now

The hardest thing is to be present in the moment. We're always projecting ourselves into the future, reliving some moment in the past, or we have some out-of-body experience where we look in at outselves and wonder if other people are seeing the same thing we're seeing. The problem with that is that it's hard to be truly with people if you're always somewhere else. I have to admit I'm always there - in another place, in another time.

One of my friends told me the other day that you only get enough grace, spiritual energy, or whatever you want to call it for the situation you're in. That means that if you're worrying about tomorrow, you're using up your spiritual energy for today. I'm starting to think that way - each day has enough trouble of its own.

Linear thinking

I have this really bad habit of trying to figure stuff out. You can drive yourself nuts.

See, we humans are so used to solving problems, we want to be able to isolate one event or condition in the past that has caused the problem. The trouble is there isn't just one cause. The truth is it could have been one of many causes, or it could have been all of them at once. There's no way to tell.

Scientific experiments are all about isolating one variable to see its effect on something, but even in science, there are variables that creep in and confound the process. We'll never know and so maybe it's better to stop trying to pinpoint a time when things went bad and start focusing on how we can change the picture now.

The fact is, buried in all our context, in this tangled web we weave, we all need someone beside us. Besides, how far are the answers to the "why?" questions going to get us? The fact is we do not need answers as much as we need someone who can help us change the future.

What are you looking at?

Boy, there's lots of stuff on which to focus, other than what you should. There are lots of pretty things to look at. You can watch TV. You can surf the internet. You can listen to music.

Even in the middle of trying to live the Christian life, you can find lots stuff to look at, other than Jesus. You can look at yourself and always be trying to adjust your own behavior. Or, you can look at others and police their behavior. You can look at the facts and gain a bunch of knowledge so that you're more right than everyone else.

But, none of that can save you. The only one who can save you is Jesus. He is the one we need to watch.

Same old story, different day

People need people. We might as well get used to it. It's a fact.

Good research shows that we come out of the chute looking for someone who knows we exist and who will take care of us. Then we spend the rest of our lives acting out some twisted version of the same. No matter how hard you try, you never outlive your need for someone else to tell you that you matter.

The funny thing is that we're all trying so hard to be individuals. The same research I mentioned before says that once we feel secure in who we are, we feel alright to go out and explore. It's a toddler who goes to explore the backyard, always looking over his shoulder to make sure his mom or dad is still there. We're always looking for something new, to do our own thing, but we always come back to someone who matters who can tell us we matter.

Perfection

I think it's good every once in a while to realize how messed up you are. I mean I don't think people should feel terrible about themselves, but it seems like with all the talk about self-esteem and crap, we're supposed to always think everything we do is great. I think a good view of yourself involves knowing that you're going to make some doozies of mistakes.

The problem is that we get this idea with all this talk of being holy and stuff that we can achieve something pretty darn near perfection. That's just not true. If you're a human being, you're fallen and broken. That means even if you do and say everything right, you still have some stuff that makes up your insides that is less than immaculate.

Even in the middle of his ministry to the Gentiles, Paul the apostle called himself a wretched man with a "body of death," and the worst of all sinners (in the present tense). I tend to resonate with that. And every time I feel like I'm getting closer to perfection, I know I'm getting further away from the truth and probably further away from the Father.

To belong

I read this article the other day that said that postmoderns (whatever those are) have this need to "belong before they believe." I guess that means that it is important for people in our time to feel like they are welcomed and accepted before they start believing in Jesus. I don't know, maybe we're splitting hairs here, but it seems like this has always been true. Maybe it's just that we have forgotten the belonging part somewhere along the way.

Jesus told his disciples that the way people would know that they were his disciples was if they loved one another. He didn't say people would know by their statements of belief or how convincing their arguments were.

I think, also, that people just felt comfortable around Jesus. They felt welcomed by him even if they weren't what we would call Christians. The Bible doesn't say this, but I don't think Jesus converted all of the people with whom he partied. That makes me think that they liked having Jesus around and that he didn't push anything on them, but just made them feel like they were loved no matter what.

Fiction

My wife has a library card. She says there's no reason to buy books if you can borrow them for "free". She hardly reads a book twice, and I guess if she wanted to, she could re-check one. The thing is, she gets her tax money's worth. She'll read 3 or 4 novels in a week if she gets the urge. She reads fast.

And there is hardly a word said about any of these stories. She'll close the book when she's done and say, "That was a good one." It's like she's in her own little world when she's reading, but I admire that because I read stale, uppity non-fiction. Unless it's a story that really catches my attention, I'd much rather read a logical line of reasoning. I'll sit and watch a movie and try to figure out if it could really happen or not.

The problem with my overactive brain is that it's hard to have faith when you have to figure everything out before you jump in. Real faith is really like getting caught up in a story.

Inertia

There are lot of things that keep us inside our own skin. And if you do decide to get outside of yourself, many times there aren't a lot of alternatives - places for you to turn. You can get on the internet and connect, sort of. Even then, though, it's digital and it ends when either party decides they've had enough or they don't like the way the interaction is going. It's hard to get a commitment from someone on the internet.

Newton said that an object will continue in its path until acted upon by an outside force. That means that it's hard to stop a moving train, but it also means that it's hard to get a giant stone rolling. It seems like the longer we stay on our own, the harder it is to overcome the inertia and reach out. We're not supposed to be alone, but there sure are a lot of forces to overcome.

Ambivalence

Ambivalence is a word used in the mental health field, many times when talking about addicts. It means that people can feel two ways at once. They can know what is right and what is best and still choose to do the opposite. You don't need to show people videos about what bad things drugs can do. People aren't stupid.

I think this idea describes the human race. Or, maybe it just describes me. I know I feel two ways about just about everything. I'm like Paul: I do what I do not want to do. I believe the truth and I never stop questioning it. C.S. Lewis called himself the most reluctant convert. I would say I am the most reluctant devotee.

I believe and I do not believe. I love and I hate. I am spiritual and very human.

If you love me...

I think I figured out why Jesus' most important command was to love. It's not like it's some new thing, but I think the reason why Jesus made it such a big deal was because he knew that a lot of people's first exposure to him would be us - the people who claim to represent him.

Yes, people can look at nature and know something about God. They can read the Bible for themselves and see God, but most people look most directly and most often at the Body of Christ, the people his Spirit is supposed to inhabit, to get their views on God. And they should. We are supposed to represent who we follow well.

Now a lot of people have been turned off by the way Christians have treated them for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons. And you can say all you want about how Christians are not perfect, just forgiven, but I don't think that's any excuse. All the more reason we should be focused on changing into people that love.

Narcissism

What's funny is when you love yourself, you actually forget all about yourself. You don't spend time worrying about yourself, thinking about yourself, or staring at yourself. You just love others.

Actually, it's not so much about loving yourself as letting someone love you. There's some sort of security in that - when someone else loves you, you can stop worrying about loving yourself so much.

I think this is exactly what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 16:25: "whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Self-love is not trying to feel good about yourself even though you know you're a scumbag. It's letting someone else love you and getting lost in that.

The Abyss

The problem with introspection is that it's impossible to have a balanced view of yourself. When I spend some ungodly amount of time focused on myself, I always end up thinking I'm either God's gift to the world in everything I do, or scum. Neither is true. I'm a saint and a sinner, an angel and a demon, a hero and a villain. Brennan Manning says he's an angel with an incredible capacity for beer. And he says it eloquently, too...and loudly.

It's a good thing there are other people in our lives - to tell us when we're being stupid and to invest in. It's better to get lost in someone else's life than to get lost in the vast abyss of yourself.

OCD?

Sometimes I think about how much we do because we are compelled. And I wonder how many things in a day we do because we have to, and how many things we do because we want to. Human beings have this pretty innate tendency to react negatively when they feel like they're cornered, or they feel like they are being forced into something.

I guess for that reason I'm glad that Jesus came because Jesus abolished the need for man to have religion to have peace. Because of Jesus, we can be free, and because of Jesus, we can just be. Enough doing, doing, doing. I need to be.

Predictability

My big problem with faith is that I want to know.

I want to know that I'm right about God - that when I do something that God is going to do something else in return. Really, I want God to be a giant computer. He would be a lot easier to pin down that way. He would be a lot easier to predict.

It sounds kind of funny, but doesn't it make more sense that God is unpredictable? Don't we want God to have a personality and choices, just like us? It's hard to have a relationship with a computer, no matter how long you stare at it, or how smart it seems to be. It's hard to have a relationship with God, too, but it gives me some comfort and intrigues me that God is personal, and not just a set of facts, or a set of rules.

2 Choices

The way I see it, I have about two choices. Either I can wait until everything in my life slows down to live my life the way I want to live it, or I can live my life the way I want now, in spite of my circumstances. My guess is that it's not going to die down anytime soon, so I better start figuring out how to be content despite the fact that my life is not exactly how I want it.

But would I really want a quiet life - one without difficulty, stress, or struggle? The beauty in life seems to come from a life lived through struggle, not absent of.

Doggone it!

It's easy to get caught up in the performance trap. It's a doozy, it's everywhere, and the only way to stay away from it is to realize that you're a failure and you'll always be. God's love doesn't really try to convince you that you're alright - that you're good enough and smart enough and people, at times, tolerate you. Jesus calls a spade a spade and that means we're all found guilty.

That's kind of nice for me to know, though, because then I stop trying to earn something that I can't earn. I can just accept that God loves me despite the fact that I am a failure.

Truth and my ultra-critical, abnormally large and thick skull

I find myself doubting what the Bible says quite often. Most of the time, it's when I don't read it. I figured out, though, that it's breathtakingly arrogant (a phrase I'll borrow from a good friend) to take potshots at the Bible and truth from my oft-critical high horse. Cause most of the time when I become skeptical, it's when I'm not consistently spending time with God, or reading or studying Scripture.

It's amazing, from outside the situation, it's easier to see how Christianity could be a real big crock. But when I spend time with God, it's not as easy. He seems very real. And I'm banking on the fact that he is - and that he loves me. I find myself loving Jesus, even though I'm not always sure (cerebrally) he's there.

It's like Fyodor Dostoevsky says, "If someone proved to me that Christ were outside the truth and it really were that the truth lay outside Christ, I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth."

Process

Today, I watched my two-year-old daughter with a bag of buttons she had gotten from her mother. She laughed as she dumped close to 100 buttons out on the dining room table and then proceeded to pick them up one-by-one, sometimes three-by-three, and slip them back into the bag. Then she would dump them out and start over.

You can learn a lot from a two-year-old, if you want. I was thinking that I could show her a more efficient way to pick the buttons up from off the table, by borrowing a pair of bigger hands to grab more buttons at a time, or by sweeping an even greater number of them off the table into the bag below, but I stopped myself because she was enjoying the process.

And I thought about how many times I just want to get something over with so that I can get on to the next thing, or so that I can stop worrying about getting it done, but life is more in the process than in the completion.

Believing and doing

I heard this guy say yesterday that believing always precedes doing and doing always follows believing. That means if you believe something, it's going to show up in your life. Now, we can argue about that all you want, but then we're just doing more of what people like you and I tend to do - talking about what we believe, rather than doing something about it.

One thing that a lot of us claim to believe is that God is love. It's in the Bible and it's basically common knowledge that God loves everyone, but how many of us actually live like God loves us? You almost have to set up a system of rewards and punishments to get people to read the Bible and pray, to spend time with someone who loves them dearly. That doesn't really make sense if you think about it.

If you think about, if we believe that God really is as loving as we say he is, it is a great thing to spend time with him. We gain something from it and he actually wants to be with us.