Same Blog, New Location

photo © 2008 Susan | more info (via: Wylio)
My blog is moving!

As of May 30/11, I will be posting from This Time Around's new home at Word Press.   All the posts made to date here will remain, well, here.  I tried importing everything to Word Press, but some stuff looked a little whackadoodle and with having to set up Google Analytics afresh with the new location, I thought it made more sense to leave here what was set up and formatted for this location.

Please bear with me as I sort out working from a new blogging platform and I hope to see you over at Word Press on Monday!

Repost: I Know You Are But What Am I?

Today, or rather this morning, is one of those times where the procrastination skills I have not yet quite conquered come back to bite me in the butt.  So I thought today would be a great day to revisit (and tweak -- it's almost as if I can't *not* edit it) one of my favourite posts.  Originally posted April 29/09.

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"In some sense, we are all hypocrites in transition." ~Erwin McManus

I had started this entry a little while ago, but tucked it away as too many other things were bouncing through my head and life at the time, but some things have settled down and others I have settled into so it seems a good time to pick it up again.  Also, how can one resist the following plea from the comments section of my last post?

*pokepoke*  Update please?  *begs prettily*

I would bug this dear woman (and good friend!) about updating her own blog -- Random Thoughts -- but she has recently done just that, soooo . . . I'm left with the option of updating my own or just shutting up.

But yes -- us, hypocrites and transition. 

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a hypocrite is "a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion" or "a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings."

Ouch.

But wait a second here . . .  look again at the second part of the definition.  A hypocrite is someone acting "in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings." (emphasis added)

Isn't that, to a degree, what Christians must do on a regular basis?

Take my perception of myself, for example.  I have spent a good chunk of my life battling feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.  Pretty near anyone who knows me could tell you I don't have the best self-image.  It is better than what it has been, though.  And this is why:  I'm finally starting to act in a way which contradicts what I have believed and felt about myself.  Regardless of how I feel, the fact of the matter is before the world was made, God loved me and chose me in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes (Ephesians 1:4, NLT).

Do I always believe this?  No.  Do I always feel this?  No.  I still have days where I have to fight to find something positive to say about what I did or about what happened during the day.  But part of changing my mind involves changing how I act.

So if that makes me some sort of a hypocrite, then that's okay.

Further Musing or Two of an Uncaffeinated Mind

 If you don’t create change,

change will create you.

~Anon.

It’s interesting how when you start hearing about an idea or concept, you’re suddenly hearing about it everywhere and thinking about it a lot more.  Or how you can hear about something for probably years when suddenly it’s expressed in such a way that it clicks inside of you and you have your ‘Now I get it!” moment.  Or maybe you finally hear what’s being said properly, clearly and it’s like someone threw the switch in a previously dark room. 

Such things have been happening to me recently in regards to living life on purpose vs. simply letting life happen to me, as it were.  And some times my focus is where it ought to be, too, so I don’t become self-serving, where the temporary weights and struggles of self-discipline are borne with grace.  Other times I choose ‘happiness now’ over ‘happiness later’ only to later struggle beneath the much-heavier weight of regret. 

There are many things to weigh and consider and ponder, times of prayer and reflection and meditation and honesty that are required to take initiative and to live life in such a way that (as clichéd Gandhi’s words may be) we are the change we want to see in the world. It takes work and effort, it means getting back up and dusting ourselves off no matter how many times we fall.  But I do believe, in the end, we will find it to have been worth it.

Beautiful Day

It’s so very easy to grumble and complain about things.  And I know of what I speak, for last night and this morning in particular, many words that were not edifying or encouraging were rolling off of my tongue with a (sadly) practiced ease.

But if I can find the something good in a day that may not be good overall, something inside me shifts.  No longer am I focused on the things I cannot change – things such as the weather, the decisions of others, things that are long past.  Now I am in the ‘now’, changing what I can in and about me.  And then the day doesn’t seem so bad.

 

Taking a Moment

Ten days into a new year and I have done something I cannot recall doing for a good long while now (if at all): I took a look at the goals I set for 2011 to see how I was progressing.  A rudimentary thing to do, as many people may very well say, but sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

Part of the reason for the change, I think, is I'm starting to grasp the fact little changes made over a long period of time start to add up to new habits, a cleaner house, and a life where there is necessary change and growth.  Like I said, rudimentary to perhaps many people out there.  (Hey, maybe some wisdom is finally starting to come with age!  Whoot!)

Another contributing factor is the realization I really cannot change my past.  Oh, I've tried.   Or at least I've spent a lot of time dwelling on my past sins and failures and missed opportunities.  Yet all the "What ifs" and "If onlys" have not produced any positive, lasting changes.  Nor has it led to my suddenly being 'caught up' to where I think I should be or where I wanted to be, or maybe even where I really should have been after 39 years of life, 16 years of marriage and the like. 

In the Bible -- Jeremiah 29: 11-14a specifically -- God talks about thinking good thoughts toward us to give us a future and  hope.  And He doesn't say such thoughts of goodness and hope run out once we've become Christians.  See, that is a misconception I've had -- that somehow I can 'overtax' God's grace once I became His kid.  That once I say "Yes" to Jesus, my margin for error in the things I do and say (and don't do and say) becomes much, much smaller.  It's easy to read verses like James 1:4 and think "Oh crap!  I must be doing something wrong because I'm no closer to perfection than I was before becoming a Christian."

Then I read this:

"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,  as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue . . ."  ~2 Peter 1:2-3 (NKJ)

And this:

"For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body." ~James 3:2 (NKJ)

And also this:

"I say to the Lord, You are my Lord; I have no good beside or beyond You." ~Psalm 16:2 (Amplified)

God isn't asking me to change the things that need changing in this life all on my own.  I have a part I need to play, but it's not the only part involved in bringing change about.

(Because ending it any other way felt clichéd.)

Step by Step by Step by . . .

Today has been more of a struggle than the last few weeks have been in regards to doing my weekly blog posting.  I’ve had to fight off the urge to dawdle with just about anything else and get my butt not only into the chair in front of my computer, but to quit reading what other people have taken the time to sit down and write (even as it made me tear up and laugh and think). 

Then I was reminded of something I read on Twitter from the associate pastor at my church: 

Most growth happens as a result of many small steps.

The key is to keep taking them.

- Darryl Harms

Now this may not be big news to many of you.  However, I’m the type of person who has tended to (I’m starting to change!) look at the sum of everything that needs to be done for a project, become totally overwhelmed by the perceived vastness of it all and end up doing nothing.  It could be changing a habit, giving my house a thorough cleaning, preparing for a trip, or working on a writing project.  But I’ll see the point where I want to be or need to be, be overwhelmed by the distance between Point A and Point B and then sit down on the road and there I sit.  The irony is I’m not content in my current position, my spot of inactivity either.  I want to move forward, but I feel like I have no clue as to how to get going. 

No journey is made in one fell swoop, with one giant leap.  I didn’t move from being a baby to a 38-year-old woman in a blink of an eye.  I didn’t learn how to drive after getting behind the wheel only one time.  There are many things in this life where perhaps the best thing to do, really, is to yes, keep the destination in mind while focusing only on the next step.  Don’t look back at all the times you tried before and failed, don’t look at how far away Point B is from your current location. Don’t get caught up in all the things needing to be done today or tomorrow or this week.

Pause.  Take a breath.  Look at what you can do next.   And take another step.

The LORD directs the steps of the godly.

He delights in every detail of their lives.

Though they stumble, they will never fall,

For the LORD holds them by the hand.

- Psalm 37: 23, 24 (NLT)

Blind Spots

If I had not such a blind spot
Would I have a less difficult time
Surrendering my ways?

*~“Something Heavenly” by downhere

We often don't want to talk about our blind spots. I mean, who wants to admit to their flaws, foibles and simply put, our annoying behaviour? It's hard, to say the least. And the biggest part of the problem, too, lies in the fact it's a 'blind' spot. As in we're not seeing it. It seems easier to just not worry about it. I mean, no one's perfect, right?

The flip side of the coin (for me, anyway – yours may be different) is we can spend too much time looking for those blind spots, for things that could be wrong and therefore need to be fixed in us or by us or because of us. We can lose sight of God's goodness and grace, of the works He has done and is doing in us. This can open the door for condemnation, guilt, and an overall sour view of ourselves and the world. In short, it can hinder God's work in us.

The following verse has been brought to my mind today as I've been looking for what I'm, well, not seeing in myself:

What we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him,
and that was the turning point. He trusted Got to set him right
instead of trying to be right on his own.”

*~ Romans 4:3 (The Message)

God knows where my blind spots are, what needs to be worked out of me and what needs to be worked into me. And He won't overwhelm me with changes. The prophet Isaiah wrote:

Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
. . . For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.
*~ Isaiah 28: 9a, 10 (NKJ)

And we're also instructed by the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:8 to meditate upon good things, praiseworthy things. To get bogged down in all the things we see wrong does not help us remember God's goodness and grace, nor (as I'm sure many have experienced) does it help us to make positive changes in our lives.

God doesn't ask for us to be perfect. He asks us to trust Him and to obey Him, to go where He leads us and to share the awesomeness of His salvation through Jesus' death and resurrection with the world. Yes, we're going to stumble. We'll probably falter a time or two as well. But if we can keep moving forward by the power of God's grace and the world sees that . . . well, we'll all have a few less blind spots.