Charity Case

I always try to help people out whenever I can, but whenever I'm the one that's in need, I try my best push past the issue on my own. I don't like admitting that I need help, I don't like admitting that I'm struggling. I don't want to bother other people with my burdens (except for a select few) and I don't want to hear a sunday school response.

Why do we go the distance to help people out? Because its what Christian's do? Because it's what is right? In regards to asking for help, I'm no different from the next person who doesn't like to feel in need. In that moment, I can start to understand how other feel when tragedy hits and people offer their condolensces out of pity. No one wants to feel like a charity case. No want wants to be demeaned. Especially in the eyes of non-Christians, no one necessarily recieving help just because its what our God calls us to do, or because it is the right thing to do. Doing that turns all our actions as a duty with undertones of self-righteousness and condemnation instead of love and compassion. You know, I looked it up in the dictionary, there's a term for this kind of attitude: pharisaical.

What gets lost in the bigger picture is that I'm as much of a charity case and the next person in the eyes of God. It's not a matter of helping because I have the ability to, but because I've been helped so many times before. For the first time, I think I begin to understand what grace and humility really means and that I am truly nothing without God.

Courage To Speak Up

It's so easy to sit back and critique what the right thing to do is, especially when it doesn't affect you directly. It's so easy just to do what you're told and when things go wrong you just claim you're following orders and cover your own ass. And its so easy to pin the blame on inexperience. "He's a newbie, he doesn't know any better." Are these excuses reasonable? Maybe.

I find in the workplace is that there are times when your ethics and values get challenged. That there are moment when you have to take a stand and raise a concern against a co-worker, supplier or superior on their methodology. When you're on the hotseat what do you do? I'm finding out true courage is stand up for what is right, regardless how it potentially affects my own well-being, regardless if it means being thrown in a situation of conflict. But this can only happen if I am blameless in my own actions.

When the waters are still, it's so easy to proclaim my faith, but the moments things get a bit choppy, I run for the hills. I don't know if I've been living for God or for myself. I don't know if I can stand up and proclaim that I have struggled in the Lord's name and remained faithful. I don't know if I'm relying on God's strength or my own. I like to think that I have courage, but maybe its bravado.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

Hebrews 11:6

Lord, I pray for wisdom, courage and faith. Wisdom to know what is right and when to act, courage to act and faith to know that regardless of the outcome, that I can say I've seeked you first.

She Ain't Right For You

I've never had to recommend to someone that they break up with their significant other up until this point. I really wonder if they'll take those words to heart or if it falls on deaf ears. As bad as it sounds, I really hope it does happen. I've just seen it all too often, people who are in a relationship they shouldn't be in, with the results disastrous. All they have left is baggage. I don't want that to happen. Things could work out, but what are you really working towards?

No one has to the right to treat you like crap and walk all over you. And if you can't see yourself in marriage then what's the point? I hope you see past my directness and see why I say it. I don't want you to get hurt. My point is simple: She Ain't Right For You. The sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be.

Don't Hold Back

It's been stewing in my mind for a while. I've been struggling to find the words to charge me up and boost out of this comfortable yet unsettling spiritual rut I'm in. Quite often when I read an encouraging verse from the Bible it lifts me up. However, I always find that I need to digest the words and let it chew out the message God has been trying to hit at me.

Colossians 3:23

"What ever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men..."

Matthew 23:37

"...Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

For weeks now, I've been trying to put God first. Trying to stop with the manufactured eloquent talk and get back to the raw truth that my heart is feeling when I come to God. I've been praying for an answer, a signal, confirmation of his calling. It's always cool that it boils down that greatest commandment. My struggle lately has been to personify what that means and not merely recycle it. In the end I'm left with three words to drive me: Don't hold back.

Walk with humility and with confidence in the Lord.