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.

Content (But Not Complacent)

In what was perhaps not the wisest of moves, I went to sleep last night struggling a bit with remembrances of missed opportunities and wonderings as to whether or not certain ships truly have sailed away for good.  I know, I know – I’ve been trying to put such things to rest for a while now, but my brain is not an Etch-a-Sketch.  I cannot give it a really good shake and have all those things disappear, never to be heard from again. And it feels a tad more difficult ‘to let bygones be bygones’ when I get caught up in thinking I’m surrounded by people whose lives are moving forward whereas I keep tripping over the same stones time and again.  But I’m not privy to all their struggles and questions and fights, so who am I to say I’m alone in these struggles?  I know, even though I lose sight of it sometimes, I am not alone.

So I’ve been fighting a little bit of the blues this morning.  But as I’ve seen my husband off to work and taken care of a few non-writing things, I have (however slowly and repeatedly) cast my cares on the One who cares for me.  The Message expresses it beautifully:

So be content with who you are, and don’t put on airs.

God’s strong hand is on you;

he’ll promote you at the right time.

Live carefree before God;

he is most careful with you.

~1 Peter 5:6-7

And as I give my head a shake, take a deep breath, and make the conscious decision (and effort) to keep moving forward, I rejoice in the One who made it all possible for me to have another fresh day with another fresh start. 

Oh, and a little ‘banjo music’ (my husband grows tired of it . . .) courtesy of “The Cave” by Mumford & Sons doesn’t hurt either.  ツ

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.)

What About Grace?

So I was on-line yesterday afternoon, trying to get some stuff together for a project I still don't have done when I discovered the lead singer of a group I like had married a solo artist I have enjoyed in the past. I knew the one person had been married and divorced a few years ago and had made some questionable career choices. And I discovered this person had apparently made some recently, as there was a blog which felt it was its duty to keep a continual reminder up of this person's faux pas.

As I talked with my husband about it later, I said I had the urge to post on this person's web site that he or she is really acting like a Pharisee. I wanted to point out there is only one sin Jesus said was unforgivable (blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12: 31-32)), that God forgives and forgets our sins when we genuinely repent, that grace covers a multitude of sins and hey, how big is that plank your eye? But hubby said such a thing would be pointless -- it wouldn't change their minds. Plus it is the goodness of God which brings men to repentance (Romans 2:4), not my sarcastic replies and jabs.

It's sad, really, how so many of us in the Christian community can judge each other (I'm as guilty as anyone else), finding Scriptures to back up our wrong stances and misconceptions. Sure, look at the person's fruit and see where they're at. Be careful who you associate with and all of that. But then remember what many a person has been taught, Christian and non-Christian, as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Mark 12:31, Galatians 6:7).

And remember the great grace and love and mercy which have been bestowed upon you. Unearned. Undeserved. But available to all who will receive it.

*<):-/

People, myself included, can confuse me.

I regularly post on a message board where people share the ups and downs of their daily lives along with some good (some bad -- LOL) jokes and some amazing recipes and travel stories/pictures. Some solid friendships have been formed, in my opinion, in this little corner of the world wide web. And it has been at times frustrating, challenging and just plain fun and encouraging.

So please pardon me, but I do wonder why some people choose to leave and then wonder why I'm wondering about it. Am I naive? Blind? As negative a . . . okay, I can't think of an 'n' name that isn't the name of someone I know . . . okay, am I as negative or of as ill of a character as the people supposedly causing other people to leave?

Hmmmm.

Well, the Bible does say many things of how we're to judge people by their fruit and watch who we associate with for 'a little leaven leavens the whole lump' and all of that is true. But as my pastor stresses time and again, we have to look at the context of the verses before running willy-nilly with them. Because the same Bible says not to judge others and try to deal with their little speck of a problem when we have our own logs to deal with. It also says only God knows the true intents of a person's heart. Yet we all try to figure out just that. And then we act on it.

Gadzooks, it's not like I'm perfect in my relationships. I'm not. But such *grace* has been shown to me by God and He does say as I have freely received such grace, so must I give it to others. Does that mean I become a doormat? Or put up with all kinds of sin and garbage?

Mmmm, no. It doesn't.

Lets look at it this way. If you are behaving in a way others didn't like, would you prefer they just dump you or judge you first, then dump you? Or would you try to find out the 'why' behind their 'what'? Basically, how would you like to be treated if the shoe were on the other foot? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is one of the most oft-quoted Bible verses used by many sides in many arguments.

So why does it seem we all want to be treated so poorly?