Tag: Christian

Persistent stubborn dedication or Insanity

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“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Albert Einstein

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers
–Garth Brooks Unanswered Prayers

Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.” But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.” But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she said, “Yes, Lord; [m]but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.
— Matthew 15:21-27

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on passion. After really thinking about it, I started to see how your passion for something could get you called insane, or have people praise you for your dedication to whatever it is. This past week I really felt God leading me into this post about how we pray for things and how we display our faith, passion, and even our work ethic.

It’s been a few crazy weeks around the house with Easter, birthdays, work trips, vacation, and the many other things that are just part of daily life. So when I felt God placing this message on me I took some extra time to pray and look at my own faith and prayer life. As a family we pray EVERY night before the munchkin goes to sleep and then we will all say at least one thing that we are thankful for from the day we just had. But every night, as we are praying the munchkin will have to insert her request to Jesus, and it is the same every night, for her to have a baby brother or baby sister, and she will also pray for people that we had said were sick weeks ago, even if we have forgotten they were sick, she makes sure that we tell Jesus to be with them.

But the are things that we as Christians, find ourselves constantly asking God for: wisdom and guidance in career decisions and all decisions in general, healing, financial help/guidance. But at some point even the most dedicated Christians will fall victim to fear and doubt, but it is here that we must remember that God’s timing is not the same as ours. Just when we think that we have things all figured out, God shows us that he is still in control. So even when it seems like our prays are nor being heard, we know that God hears the voices of all of his children.

Along with the verse I have quoted above , another prime example of how God feels about us in found in Matthew 7:7-11—

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

It’s spelled out clearly, that when we go to God and just ask, if it is his will for us, he will grant that request. There are times, many times, that the things we ask for are not the best things for us. I mean honestly think about it as a parent, if you kid is asking for Ice cream for dinner, you are going to say no. In the same way, we may not see how our request will hurt us in the long run, but God will eventually give us something else and we forget about what we were originally looking for, or we see that is was actually a better alternative to what we had been praying so hard for.

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So while many people will look at our faith as partial insanity, we pray for the same things all the time and get the same results, but we expect something different. This is where we must insure that our faith is strong enough to remember and trus that our heavenly father still knows what is best for us. God wants us to trust him, to pursue him daily, and to be devoted to him in our daily lives. It is this stubborn blind passionate devotion that sets us apart as Christians. While many do not understand why we believe what we do, we know what God can, will, and has done for each of us in our lives.

So take time to think about the way that you pray, what you have been praying for, and also the things that God has done for you in the past. Look for the other solution to your problems, because sometimes we are so focused on what we want, we don’t see the answer God is placing directly in front of us.

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by corymcglone

Whats your love?

To wrap-up this series, I thought it only fitting to do a post about Love on this Easter weekend.  I know that people everywhere will be blogging about Love and Passion and God this weekend, but I wanted to take this a slightly different way from the way I have written about love in the past.

World English Dictionary

love  (lʌv)
— vb
1. ( tr ) to have a great attachment to and affection for
2. ( tr ) to have passionate desire, longing, and feelings for
3. ( tr ) to like or desire (to do something) very much
4. ( tr ) to make love to
5. ( intr ) to be in love
— n
6. a. an intense emotion of affection, warmth, fondness, andregard towards a person or thing
b. ( as modifier ): love song ; love story
7. a deep feeling of sexual attraction and desire
8. wholehearted liking for or pleasure in something
9. Christianity
a. God’s benevolent attitude towards man
b. man’s attitude of reverent devotion towards God
10. Also: my love  a beloved person: used esp as an endearment
11. informal  ( Brit ) a term of address, esp but not necessarilyfor a person regarded as likable
12. (in tennis, squash, etc) a score of zero
13. fall in love  to become in love
14. for love  without payment
15. ( used with a negative ) for love or money  in anycircumstances: I wouldn’t eat a snail for love or money
16. for the love of  for the sake of

I went to dictionary.com and there are even more definitions than what I have listed here.  Then when you do a search at biblegateway.com there are 484 references of the word Love.

John 3:16

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

   16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His [a]only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Footnotes:

  1. John 3:16 Or unique, only one of His kind

What better show of love is there than what God did for us?  God gave up a piece of himself, as a sacrifice for us to be able to spend eternity with him.  So many times we get a distorted idea of what love really is.  We use the word love about so many different things, we love songs, we love cars, movies, tv shows, etc.  But when it comes to loving people, and being in love with someone, the feeling of love comes and goes.  Look at the high rate of divorce in our country, and when you talk to people that are divorced or separated, a lot of times you will hear them say that they just fell out of love.

But what God did for us, is the type of love that we should be striving for.  True love and passion for God and for others is love that gives up part of yourself, to benefit the other person.  In most cases, the other person will give back and give up part of themselves for you.  A true relationship is not one-sided, and too many times this is not the case, one side does all of the giving.  Too many times we take advantage of the gift of Love that God has given us.  God has only asked for us to listen and follow Him, to love our neighbors as ourselves.  We have so much to be thankful for and so little to do, to show our love back to God.

What are you willing to give up to follow Christ?  What part of yourself are you willing to give up for your spouse, family, friends?   Are you willing to go out of your way to do something for them, to step out of your comfort zone?

Love is not easy, it is to be cherished and fought for.  Jesus told his disciples, that the world would hate them, but to remember that it hated Him first.  And in marriages, you must always be willing to fight to keep your love alive.  The day that you say, “It can’t happen to us…”, is the day that trouble will begin.  You must guard your heart and guard your love.  Stand up for love, and for what matters in life.

God was will to have His own Son die, to show His love for us, what else is there to give up….

by corymcglone

What’s your hope?

So last week I started with passion, and this week I want to move on to hope and faith. No not the sitcom, but true hope and faith.
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hope |hōp|noun1 a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen: he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information | I had high hopes of making the Olympic team.• a person or thing that may help or save someone: their only hope is surgery.• grounds for believing that something good may happen: he does see some hope for the future.2 archaic a feeling of trust.verb [ no obj. ]want something to happen or be the case: he’s hoping for an offer of compensation | [ with clause ] : I hope that the kids are OK.• [ with infinitive ] intend if possible to do something: we’re hoping to address all these issues.

faith |fāTH|noun1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something:this restores one’s faith in politicians.2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.• a system of religious belief: the Christian faith.• a strongly held belief or theory: the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe.

faith – noun 1 he justified his boss’s faith in him: trust, belief, confidence,conviction; optimism, hopefulness, hope. 2 she gave her life for her faith: religion, church, sect,denomination, (religious) persuasion, (religious) belief,ideology, creed, teaching, doctrine.

hope – noun 1 I had high hopes: aspiration, desire, wish, expectation,ambition, aim, goal, plan, design; dream, daydream, pipe dream.2 a life filled with hope: hopefulness, optimism, expectation,expectancy; confidence, faith, trust, belief, conviction,assurance; promise, possibility. 3 have we any hope of winning? chance, prospect, likelihood,probability, possibility; informal shot. verb 1 he’s hoping for a medal: expect, anticipate, look for, be hopeful of, pin one’s hopes on, want; wish for, long for,dream of. 2 we’re hoping to address the issue: aim, intend, be looking, have the intention, have in mind, plan, aspire.

To me, hope and faith, are the same but different. Faith to me is the belief of things unseen, and hope is what we want to happen. I have faith that the studs in the walls will hold up my house, I have faith that my heart will continue to beat, I have faith that God will provide for me and my family. I hope that my car starts every morning, I hope that my computer works properly everyday, I hope that I save my blog posts… It is also my hope that my daughter will grow up to be a great woman of God, and find a nice christian husband. I hope that I am the father figure that God has called me to be, I am the husband that God has called me to be.

If faith is a belief in the unseen, why do so many people say the the will only believe in things they can see. Do we not have any faith anymore. To me the best description of faith I have ever heard is; “I’ve never seen the wind, but I have seen the effects of the wind… but I still know that there is wind.” So while we can’t see God, we can see his creation all around us. We can see and feel the effects of his presence around us. Just when we don’t know where else to turn, we see a way out. God knows the answers the entire time, we have to look to him to get those answers.

Think about some of the team building exercises that are out there; the trust fall, walking blindfolded while someone else guides you. With all of these exercises you have to hope that people will catch you, and that they will guide you properly. Look at all of the plays that are used during a football game; the quarterback has to hope that his line will keep him protected, and that a receiver is going to get open, and be running the route that he is expected to run so that the quarterback knows exactly where to look.

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It comes down to the fact that we need to have a child-like faith. We just need to trust God that all will be taken care of. As kids, we didn’t care about the things that our parents did, house and car payments, bills, etc. We just wanted to know that mom and/or dad would be there to: pick us up when we fell down, make dinner, and that things were the way they were because that’s how God made it. As we get older, we start applying logic to our thinking, we start questioning faith with logic. It is here that we have to go back to the child-like faith, and realize that the things of God, don’t always make sense in the now. Many times we can look back on situations that happened in the past and see where God was in it, but it is hard to see when it is happening.

The biggest question that I want to pose to you now is, where are you putting your hope? Do you put your hope and faith into people, material things, sports? Do you put your hope and faith in God and Family? Take this time leading up to Easter, and reflect on where you place your hope, and what your passions are.

by corymcglone