Faith

"Did you know that the people who usually are the strongest are the most sensitive? Did you know that the people who exhibit the most kindness are usually the first to be mistreated? Did you know that the one who takes care of others all the time is usually the one who needs care the most? Did you know that the 3 hardest things to say are; I love you, I am sorry and Help me?"... -Author unknown

I'm not sure how to write this blog but what's on my mind is seeing the unknown. There are things we know, things we know we don't know and things we don't know we don't know. The things we don't know we don't know (we'll call it the "unknown") are what we need to be careful with. I think some people can't handle the unknown and the fact that they will never really know while here on earth.

I've had these thoughts after a friend so nonchalantly blasts Christianity. He seems like an intelligent person and the only conclusion I can come to about his bias closed mind view of Christianity is that he can't understand it. He won't allow himself to believe in something he can't prove, he can't have faith in someone he's never met. I can understand how this might be hard for him but I guess I'm stumped to why someone so intelligent can't figure out to at least respect other's views instead of making obvious side remarks which he thinks will go unnoticed. It must annoy him, knowing there are people who believe in something he cannot, it seems like a hatred is built from this. He's so open to all other religions and things against God's Word yet when it comes to God he hates Him and everyone whom believes in Him are just obviously whacked in the head...

This kind of rationale tells me that there's something wrong with him, something he's holding back or desiring to know. You can have all the good things of this earth but when it comes time to leave everything will turn to dust. How do people find it easier to believe in nothing rather than a loving and caring God that want's us to be with Him after life here?

This reminds me of the post I made a few days ago about people being different and not knowing they're different. If someone is an atheist yet they've never experienced a relationship with God or the Holy Spirit, they will never know they're unbelievers, until it's too late. If The Bible and God turns out to be a total sham I will die just as everyone and I will have lost nothing. This way of thinking shouldn't be a motivator to be more open minded to Christianity but it should at least make you rethink your position if you're against Christ. Humans (including myself :oP) are terrible examples of Christ. We try but we routinely fail. Don't base your opinion of God on what others have done or are doing. That's like thinking all Muslims are suicide bombers just because a few do it. First get a relationship with God to experience it for yourself before jumping to conclusions. This friend of mine is intelligent but he's going overlook the biggest opportunity of his life if he's not careful...

Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite when writing my feelings pertaining to God, I just have to realize that I'll never be perfect and I should still try to spread the Word of what I think is right.

This post also relates to the recent posting of finding the opposites within each other. See a person with an "open mind" yet within them parts are so very closed... To think my mind isn't open since I believe in God and to choose not accept some things of this world, would be a close-minded decision on your part, you have no idea how I came to my ultimate opinions in believing what God wants for us is good.

If there's one thing I have learned...

It's that my judgement about people have almost always been wrong, almost always...

We shouldn't be bias or judge others but when people express a stereotype how can you not judge it as being from a particular background? After having watch The History Channel's, The Bible I have been more interested in really understanding the Bible. I feel now that I would like someone to discuss things with and have been looking about at local churches... I have been a member of my church for years but I feel that the message is geared for a different era of people. One on one with the pastor feels completely different to me than sitting through a sermon. I get much more out of having a conversation with a pastor than listening to a sermon and I'm wondering, have we became disconnected with the Word of God? Have we fallen into a type of rut that tells us our learning and teaching about God must take place in a certain fashion?

I found another local church, I have not attended but read it's Facebook posts and saw the pictures the pastor has posted and while I am not judging the pastor I don't see a Godly exterior. I see posts about how Christians are so down and trampled over, victims to this world and how we must over come it but are we really this tortured in our life? I think if some people are it's not because they're Christians it's because their decisions haven't been the greatest. I see a church that is very particular to their contemporary decor and a pastor that pays great attention to his self image. There's nothing wrong with looking nice or having a nice place of worship but I feels churches such as these have lost their sight. Should a church just be motivational or should you actually learn about God? Should you encourage your congregation to just wear flip-flops pants and a dirty t-shirt or should you teach them that in God's house you should try to show Him respect?

I think a contemporary church tries to break free of the traditional way of religion, which I agree needs to be done but at the same time they've completely missed the mark but not teaching God's word just as the traditional church. God's house isn't about what you wear or accepting the lack thereof, it should be about teaching your sheep! It's not about making someone feel good for the rest of the week it should be about giving the person knowledge of what God wants out of His people. Singing rap with "godly" lyrics doesn't classify the music as spiritual any more than a lifeless hymn. Traditional and contemporary churchs are both lost in trying to satisfy a specific group of people while still missing the mark. Why can't a church service be like a classroom with an open floor for asking questions and learning? Why must we listen to one person instead of putting our minds together to study and discover God's word? Why can't Christians have a strong knowledge of what they believe and why?

The Infinite Flaw Within Humanity

Within love you can find hate, within hate you can find love.
Within faith you can find doubt, within doubt you can find faith.
Within honesty you can find lies, within lies you can find honesty.
Within hope you can find despair, within despair you can find hope.
Within integrity you can find deceit, within deceit you can find integrity.
Within wholesomeness is corruption, within corruption is wholesomeness.

No one is purely good and no one is purely evil, nothing is always correct while nothing is always wrong. I'm scared to think of how a person can live their life in fear of doing wrong when wrong may be what they need to do. A person can live according to God's word and at the end of their life curse Him and go to Hell. A person can curse Him all their life than accept Him just before their life ends and go to Heaven. This is what I've lived with and it doesn't sound correct. Could our Creator really cast those who did some work for Him into a lake of fire for eternity? Will we be judged by our choices or by our hearts?

The human nature is defined by uncertainty, it makes us weary, uncertain and question yet at the same time gives us strength to continue on, to find what tomorrow will bring. Happiness will never be attained, happiness can switch to sorrow in a blink of an eye. If we realize this uncertainty and accept the pain can we overcome the need to be happy? Once we embrace death will we finally be able to live?

I can't continue you live on the fence to lose in the end.

Nothing to Compare

About a week ago I was talking to a personal trainer I've been working out with, discussing how someone can weigh a significant amount, lose the weight and still consider themselves overweight? I was curious because back in 2003 my highest weight was 283 and eventually I got down to 202, yet when I weighed 202 I didn't consider myself skinny. I still had the mentality that people thought I was fat, I knew I was skinny because my waist was a size 34 and I literally felt smaller. My body changed but my mind was still 283 pounds.
Today I saw this meme posted to Facebook from the show, Bates Motel. It's referencing how Norman Bates is "different" (insane) and he doesn't realize it because he's never been normal to know what it feels like. This got me thinking... I have always wondered about people like myself whom couldn't grasp the fact that they were skinny and also someone like a body builder that continually strives to get big. When do we tell ourselves, We reached our goals!!! When I lost weight it was never enough, if I wasn't trying to diet and lose weight than it meant I was getting fat. When do we create a balance and say, we can maintain this, we no longer have to work on becoming something, we are already something!
There are different realms to this feeling. Perhaps a person is depressed because no matter what he does he just feels less than everyone else, he thinks he's stupid! Thing is, he's actually very intelligent and doesn't know he's intelligent because he's never truly been dumb in order to know what intelligence feels like. He's always been smart but fears being dumb because he doesn't know how to identify the state of being dumb. In this regard, referring to the mind, there would be no way for this person to erase his intelligence, once you're educated there's no way you can "unlearn" something. You might forget something over time but the state of once being educated is still there and a quick review usually brings this information back to light.
Yet with weight loss, our mind has been programmed to be "fat", is it possible to "unlearn" what the feeling of fat is? We want to be skinny but we can't identify the state of "being skinny" so in our minds we will never be skinny. What makes things complicated is, an intelligent person reads and studies to make his mind intelligent. As I said before, you can't "unread" or "unstudy" something to make yourself dumb. When it comes to body weight, usually a person with a sedentary lifestyle and bad diet become fat BUT this can be undone! We can become active and change our diet which will result in us becoming skinny! Thing is, our mind isn't matching the same weight loss as our bodies! We've ingrained FAT into out minds and can't unlearn it!

That is why I eventually told my trainer, I believe my first step to a lifetime of weight loss is first accepting that I'm fat. Learn to first love who and what you are and don't be so critical of your weight! My mind will always be fat but if I love and accept being fat, perhaps this won't cause so much stress and depression? Perhaps I'll be able to meet someone and have a life? Perhaps I'll get happy and not turn to food any more for comfort or enjoyment, perhaps I can stop letting my consciousness rule my life.

PERHAPS EVERYTHING WE WANT TO BE, WE ALREADY ARE?

Who am I?

What creates me, what creates you? Our choices. I may have spoke about this in a recent blog, if not it was something I've been thinking of and realize now that I was right. We own nothing in the world. Everything we hold dear will turn to dust, think of that. The things we fight and kill over will turn to dust. The thing that defines us here and after will be our choices. As I've spoken about before, our lives are like a huge maze that we are navigating while on this earth. Eventually our choices will be all we have left and judged upon.

In the midst of the Boston bombings and the fertilizer explosion in Texas there's been an evil lurking in the shadows. There is currently a trial being held for Kermit Gosnell, an abortion doctor that murdered at least 14 babies that were born alive. I believe the life begins at conception but according to the law he can only be guilty of the murders he performs while the babies were outside the womb, breathing. Abortion is a deeper kind of evil, more so than terrorism. America has evolved into a society where some of us cheer on the choice of allowing mothers to kill their unborn (and sometimes born) babies. The law even allows these hanis acts which allows people like Kermit to perform the murders.

I'm not here to talk about abortion, I'm here to speak of the pure evilness that is woven in the fabric of America. Good loving people are defined as being accepting of abortion, homosexual marriage, acceptance of a deceitful religion named Islam. Just a few things that go very strongly against God, most of what America wants us to accept and embrace. You may be too blinded by these people to realize that based on these decisions we are corrupting a once Godly nation. These choices are not pleasing to God and I wonder, if God realizes this nation is becoming corrupt and no longer wants Him in our lives, why would he change the course of the choices we've made? He is a loving God, but if we despise Him and turn to Satan that's a choice we've made. I struggle with sin but I pray that God still knows my heart.

Sometimes I wonder, do I know God enough? Have I read His word enough? Am I part of a religion that will get me into Heaven? The answer to those questions is, No. I will never know God enough, I will never study His word enough and a religion won't save you, if anything it may just corrupt you. So what do we do then? Well we seek God. We read His word and understand it as well as we can, we attend church to listen to views of His word and to socialize with other's about His word. When we have this information a relationship begins to form with God. We don't live blindly by what a religion says, we live by God whom lives within us. Once we have this strong relationship with God and with rational thought of what God wants for us we can then see through the mess of this world. We can see the deceit put in front of us by satan, we will realize that God is loving yet strong. God gave us freedom of choice since he loves us so much. He didn't create robots to serve Him, He created us with the loving ability to make, CHOICES.

Being Human

I just finished the British series Being Human. All 5 season of the show were amazing, even when the entire cast changed in season 4 through 5. I like many other TV shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Dexter (among many others) but I have never felt so attached to the characters as I have in Being Human. I was wondering what draws me to this show and realized it's the relationships of the characters.
I don't really have many friendships to compare to each other but I always imagined and group of friends similar to those of Being Human. I feel like the closest friends to me never truly valued knowing me. I gave my heart to them and often found myself having to hold it back. I give too much of myself to people and it's never been returned. I'm not saying it's their fault but I don't know how much to give any more so end up holding it all back. Perhaps it's all just sensationalized writing and in fact no one really has relationships like that but why not? Perhaps I already have it and I'm over looking it... No one will fit the mold perfectly so I suppose you better make sure you hold on to what you do have. Perhaps my thoughts are distorted and I'm trying to render myself to a person rather than to God...

Rise

It's 12:09 a.m. Easter Sunday. Remembering how the Lord arouse from the grave coincides with what's been on my mind lately. For far too long I've been held down and burdened, I've let material things in this life consume me. I've let other people live my life, I'm happy to say that I'm changing. I've come to accept that our bodies are only vessels. They are vessels to get through this life which will determine our eternity. Nothing we work so hard for, our money in the bank or our prized possessions that are under lock and key, will come with us when we're dead. The only thing that will come with us from this earth are the choices we've made.

What if the people who can't take the time to give us a look or a simple hello, knew that their time was up. What if the people who have spent their lives building their body, knew tomorrow they would die. What if the families in sorrow and bitterness knew that tomorrow wouldn't come. What if the dreams you have could only be obtained tomorrow? What would they, what would you, do today? At the end you'll see that everything passed so quickly.

It scares me to think of how much time I've wasted on the things that will pass with this world and so little time I've spent on ensuring that my soul is on the path for Heaven.