freedom

"For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace." -Romans 6:14

I feel like writing all of romans 6 and 7 out here, because it's what keeps coming back into my life over and over again this season. I keep putting myself under the law, which only leads to death, when all along i have freedom in Christ under His amazing grace. doesn't mean i have the freedom to sin and do what I want, but freedom to be free from sin. yet so often I reject this amazing gift of grace and i put the shackles back on, letting myself be led around by dead sin. rip those shackles off!! They're unlocked after all. I keep chasing this freedom which is mine already. I simply need to walk in it.

choosing life

"I call heaven and eart to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him, for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to give them." -Deuteronomy 30:20

someone made a comment about me the other day on how I love life. because I grab every opportunity and make it the best. And that was encouraging and exciting, because that's definately the way I want to live, the way the Lord intended it for me. that I would walk around living, not walk shrouded in death. i have to then think if i truly choose life every moment of my day... often i choose death, because it seems easier. less work. and at work lately i've noticed that i've stopped doing things before the Lord, but rather on my own and that's death. and it stinks. but as i bring it before Him and let Him direct my path, it's amazing!

purpose

i noticed today how often i fill my time with wasteful things. things that will really amount to nothing in the long run of eternity. yet i spend a lot of time doing them, because they're relaxing. is that bad? what is the definition of an activity with purpose and one without? what justifies something to give it purpose? i guess it all comes back to your motivation behind doing it and whether God is in control of it and you've surrendered it to Him. most of my activities are of my own choosing and my own will and I don't let God be part of the choosing process. I want my life to have purpose, but to do that, I need to look to the Lord, who is my purpose. And yet I don't. And so the war between spirit and flesh continues.

evil nature

i just finished a book called three, which really started me thinking again on something i think about often: evil and us and our sin natures. here's one quote from the book:
"Though being freed from sin, most remain slaves, blinded and gagged by their own deception. The good that I would, that I do not do and that which I would not, that I do. Welcome to the church in America."
So true. We've all been freed but over and over again we reject this free gift of God and go on living as slaves to the sin which technically has no power over us. how stupid we are sometimes.

society

not sure if anyone ever reads this, but nonetheless i'll write to simply have my thoughts placed somewhere.

lately i've been seeing a lot of how our society is today. the other night i was at a football game and was blown away but the overall attitude and behavior of the crowd. this is what our society has become. tonight at work a grade four girl was talking to me about how she loves clothes and loves shopping and she finally bought a shirt that's shorter and shows her belly button and she was so excited about it. and she started sharing how her grade three friend looks at naked women on the computer. is this what society is aiming towards? we go to football games simply to get drunk and holler at the half-naked cheerleaders and the children are getting sucked right in as well younger and younger. it's disgusting.

sucked in

right now i'm home in between being gone (makes sense). just returned from quebec and will go to india in january and africa in between. i feel like i'm stretched in ten million directions and i don't know where my focus should be. and in the meantime it's tough not to get sucked into society here as it slowly allures me and pulls me in. all the materialism and other stuff i noticed on coming home is now creeping into my own life and i don't want it! yet i do... as paul said, i am a wretched man (woman in my case) that i do not do what i want to do and i do what i don't want to do. but there is freedom in Christ. i just need to let go of the stuff i'm tightening my grip around right now...

Transformation!!

i've been reading through the chronicles of narnia and today i came upon a passage that had been told to me before, but i was not aware of where it came from.. anyway, it was an incredible reminder... so i'm going to type it out, you don't need to know the story, but just read it and let me know what you think! oh yah, a bit of background, the speaker of the story is a dragon at the beginning... and then he's a boy...Enjoy!

"I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. It came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it-if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good, because it told me to follow it.
I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain and there was a well. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first.
I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, in stead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
But as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
Then the lion said 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but i was pretty nearly deperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know-if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off-just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt-and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been."

fun at the gym...

I work at a gym. Some call it a fitness centre. Some call it an athletic club. I call it my work. All day long I watch people come and go. Everyone comes with different purposes. Some to hang out, some to build muscle, some to lose weight, some to get in shape... all day long i'm surrounded by people who are trying to change their body shape, because most are unhappy with its present state. when i go on msn.com, i see ten million adds about how to lose weight, eat healthy and so on. when i go to the grocery store, i'm surrounded by magazines talking about the latest hot figures and how you can look like that in ten easy steps.

We live in a society that is totally obsessed with body image and well, if you're not like they say you should be, then you're worthless. I'm sick of it!! All day at work, I'm surrounded by people who just can't get thin enough or muscular enough and so they devote their lives to working out, drinking meal supplements, starving themselves... they live under strict regulations of what they can and cannot do. For what? To meet the world's standards of how they should look.

It's simple for me to get sucked into it and then I feel like crap and get down in the dumps and think maybe i should follow with all these people... but then i realize that my standard is in Christ and not in the world! wow! how freeing is that! In Romans 6 it talks about how the law leads to death, but under Christ, we're under grace, which is total freedom! It comes back to not allowing the world to control how I live, and not creating laws for myself of what I should or should not eat, how long I should work out and so on.. but it's submitting to the amazing grace of Christ where there is total freedom to live as I am! And as I let Him have control and follow His lead in this area of my life, I know it will be the best way, because He knows much more and me and my body than the world does. And know what? He loves me just as I am! And that's what matters! And that's what is exciting! This freedom is unlike anything else. I have to simply continually be reminding myself of it, because so often i forget and slip into a downward spiral as I measure myself according to the world's standards! But God loves me! That's what matters!!

thoughts on hamlet

"This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

~William Shakespeare, from Hamlet

I've been going to a lot of Shakespeare plays in vancouver since i've been home and the other night when i was watching hamlet, the above quote stuck out to me above anything else. It made me think again about who I am. I think that person is very different from the person I pretend to be... I'm not often true to my actual character and who I am and as a result I'm false to most men. I just want to be myself, but in order to do that, I have to first discover who that person really is.

the vine

went to church today not in the best of moods... and was wondering why oh why everything seems not so great in my life and yada yada yada. then i was reminded of the fact that God's the vine and I'm the branch. makes sense.

and if i remain in Him, He remains in me and I bear much fruit. revolutionary really. something i know, but then why oh why don't i remain in the vine? and i wonder where the fruit in my life is.
i keep trying to do it myself because i think i can, but He is ultimately the only one who can truly nourish me as I remain totally and completely in Him. I need to stop and spend time in Him. Not just visiting, but remaining, abiding, dwelling. i need to take off my shoes and rest awhile.

stars make me feel small

so last night i was in a bad mood and was mad at some people... then suddenly i walked outside for a bit where i was totally taken aback by the stars. amazing. made me feel so small and i realized that it was me that needed the changing, not the people i was mad at. who am i to look at others and judge them? when i'm so small and insignificant and am full of sin myself? how dare i look upon someone else and cast judgment while i hide my sins away in a nice little corner. i need to bring myself before God in brokenness with everything i am rather than continually looking down on others, trying to elevate myself, when really we're all at the same level.

alone and lost

went to a wedding today. it was the first time seeing a lot of people in the last few years. the wedding was nice. it was in my yard and all the flowers and everything was so beautiful. as we were mingling afterwards, i came to the stark realization once again, that I really just don't fit in. Not sure why. Not sure why I can do to change it. Not sure if I'd truly want to change in those ways.

at the reception tonight, it was really nice... but once again, watching everyone together, made me feel this horrible sense of being alone. I'm frustrated. I think it would be wonderful to be married someday, but I think at the same time the thought scares me, and so I'm cynical against it. Perhaps it's because I'm scared to love and be loved. I feel like no one will ever love me. Not the truth, but I just want someone, anyone to love me for who I really am. Maybe I don't even know who that person truly is and therefore I can't properly love myself.

I'm being sucked into a world that I dont want and I hate, but I love it and long for it. Not sure where I'm at or where I'm going. Just feeling alone and lost. No idea what's around.