Insignificance

What if we are meant for more? What if our lives are more than just OUR lives? Maybe we are meant to change the world, one life, or even literally be the hands, feet, lips, minds of something bigger than just ourselves. 

   Today, I had a moment of realization. I am insignificant but, at the same time my life holds significance. Allow me to explain. I am one person, one tiny person in a world of more than 7 billion other people who may or may not realize their own significance. As one single person I cannot be expected to make a difference on my own. Yes, we are constantly told that one person can make a difference but, in reality it takes so much more. I do not write this to be discouraging rather, I write it to express an idea. As one person you interact with other people, people who also have a voice, an opinion, and some sort of desire. Those people interact with other people and so on and so forth. In order to accomplish anything one must have the idea to react. In order to have that idea they must read, hear or see something that inspires them. This is where others first appear. In order for me to have the desire to write this post I had to see a movie, written, directed and produced by someone, that gave me an idea. Indirectly all of these people, that I do not know, are responsible for this post. So, after we have this grand idea we must have support, we must have followers who believe in our cause. That means we are never completely responsible for any accomplishment, it takes many insignificant lives to make a significant difference. I say that I am insignificant because I could not do anything without the help or inspiration from others and then again with their support. 

   Now that I have bared the entire contents of my brain for the evening, I would like to discuss this thought process in terms of service to God and our walk with God. God created us to do his will. He did not create us to live life for our own personal gain. We are here, on Earth, to help each other and to do all things through and for Christ. I do not pretend for one second that I am not a selfish human being who does things for the benefit of me and only me sometimes but, I will say that I try my hardest to do things in the name of God because, after all, He is why I am here right? We would not know what to do or how to act without an example, Jesus Christ. He was brought down from heaven to plant a seed in our minds and show us that life is so much more than just living for ourselves. He died for us...DIED. He cannot be where the line ends. We are here to be the arms, legs, lips, and minds of God. We are here to show others Gods LOVE. Showing his love is not that hard and I can almost guarantee you that if you show someone love in God's name that they will be happier and more likely to share His love with someone else. The chain is never ending, if we do everything we can to love people the way God loves us...unconditionally. 

    I do not pretend for one second to be perfect but, I do love. I love with all my heart because God loves me with all of His heart and He doesn't have to. What if we loved everyone? What if the "more" that we are meant for is love? What if we can help one person or the whole world just by loving? 

Long Walks & Deep Thought

Thanks to my roommate, lately I have been taking walks that last about an hour and happen daily. At first I only agreed to these walks because I knew they would be good exercise and summer is coming up fast which means beach weather and bathing suits. However, yesterday I went on a walk by myself and half way through I realized my headphones and music were distracting me from what was going on around me and even what was going on in my own head. I removed the headphones and began to let my thoughts travel down the path of beauty, then love, and finally toward who I am as a person and if that person is who I want to be...

I looked around at the trail I was walking along, on one side I could see fields and animals and on the along the other side was just a plane old road with apartment complexes on the other side of it. We always hear that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as I walked and looked around I realized that there is beauty all around us. Even in a city I was able to find a moment of solitude and peace under a night sky along a trail surrounded by nature and commotion at the same time. There is beauty in the strangest of places and in every different person. Everyone and everything have some beauty, sometimes you must dig and search but it is there somewhere. I was then lead to thinking about God and his idea of beauty. He made us in His likeness and finds us all to be equally beautiful. Though, this is very true we do not always look for the beauty in others. I will even admit to my vanity and my ability to be judgmental. In every judgmental thought I believe there to be at least a little bit of evil. This evil is unfortunately inevitable. I believe this to be true because God has given us free will and with that comes temptation. Temptation is a test of our ability to restrain from the evil in the world. Sometimes we fail the test and must ask for forgiveness but, sometime through all the muck of life we are able to see the beauty in it and the beauty in others.

The thought of beauty in others led me to my thoughts of vanity and attractiveness. I constantly find myself thinking as a guy passes, wow he cute or no, no not my type. I have always thought that there must be some attraction between a couple to be in love. So often people say that you can't judge a book by its cover but even more often, we do it anyways. If we have this type of judgement how are we supposed to find the person we are meant to be with? Could it be that we are blinded by our vanity? Is that what is truly holding us back from being who we really are and loving those who are not even in our line of sight at the moment? Is vanity what is keeping us from truly loving ourselves? From loving God?

-S

Relationships II

Relationships are hard.
Recently I have been getting closer to a new group of friends and distancing myself from another group. Today I was talking to a good friend of mine about the situation and she gave me some really good insight. What I deduced from the conversation was this:
Some people were put in your life to change you and make you see things differently but, they are not meant to be in your life forever or all the time. Some of these people are only meant to see snapshots of your life and you only glimpses of theirs. God only shows you what he wants you to see. Due to the people you surround yourself with your perception changes. Everyone sees life through a different set of eyes. The fact that you distance yourself from someone shows that you know who you are and what you want. I have distanced myself because I know I do not want the life they are living. There is nothing wrong with their life because that is what they want. Changing is a part of growing up and discovering yourself and your beliefs. Recently, I have begun to realize a lot of my views and beliefs are firm. You should never settle for less than you are worth and believe me you are worth more than you think you are. Through the perspective of a good friend whom you share a good relationship with, you are an amazing individual.
Relationships will come and go because God wants you to experience life from all angles. He gives us opportunities to love him every single day. The relationship between Him and you is the most important one. Just the other day I began reading a book called Captivating. This book has opened my eyes to Gods love for us and He is vying for our attention. If you think about it God just wants us to love Him and give Him some of our time and attention. I mean He literally sent His only son to die for us in order to show how much He cares. So, why can't we give Him a little bit of our time and love. God says Himself that He is a "jealous God" who only wants our love. So, why is it so hard for us to build our relationship with Him? Is it because we are scared of what others think? Could it be that we have too many distractions in our life? Maybe it is that we just do not take the time to stop and think or even stop and look around at the magnificent place God had made for us. Relationships are hard but, our relationship with God should be easy. He loves us, we love Him, right? Then, Why don't we make time for Him? This question gnaws at me every single day. Why don't I make more time for Him? I hope these words help you to think about your relationship with God and with others.
-S

Joy

     Life is a series of moments. The bad moments seem to drag by and the good ones seem to be gone in the blink of an eye. This is why we have to treasure those moments of joy. I don't mean moments fleeting happiness that you won't remember a few days from now. When I say moments of joy, I mean the moments that you wouldn't trade for anything, the ones when you experience pure happiness free from worry and distraction, the times when you laugh so hard you think you might pass out, and when you step back you realize that these moments do not come along very often.
     This passed break I had one of those moments. My friend Charlie and I went to Oregon to visit some of our friends from state office. The first couple of days were spent solely with an amazing family that we had gotten the chance to know in the past year. We spent Christmas with them and we were treated as a part of the family. The moment I am speaking of happened on day 3 of our trip. Charlie, Luke, Grace, and I went steel head fishing. Now this is not like the fishing us Floridians are used to, no no, there is a technique that everyone in the boat must master in order to catch a fish. We watched a video about it the night before, threw some casts before we boarded our row boat and we thought we were ready to go. From the very beginning the day way a little off. On my second cast, before we got in the boat, I got my line caught on a rock and apparently my hot chocolate spilled all over the place when Luke took the truck to the spot were we were to get out of the river. Finally, we loaded up the boat and were off. Our first cast was awful, charlie couldn't get his line right, mine got caught on Graces and I got hit in the face with fish eggs. The rest of the trip went about the same way...needless to say we did not catch a fish. I know what your thinking, "Man this sounds awful!" but, it was just the opposite. We laughed nonstop the entire day and there was a moment when I looked around and realized in that moment I was completely and utterly happy, I didn't have a care in the world and there was with a few of the most amazing and beautiful people I know. This is a day and a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for the experiences I have had and the moments that have changed my life for ever. At the time I just thought we were having fun on a fishing trip, little did I know that this moment would become one of my favorites. I am so blessed to be able to say that I have experienced moments of pure joy. Have you?
          Have you taken the time to look around in awe at the world? Have you ever taken a moment to look at the people in your life and realize that they are eminently special and you don't know what you would do without them? Do me a favor and take a moment to think about how much real joy you have in your life and if at the end of that time you see that you have a lot, find more. And if at the end of that time you find you do not have enough then look at those who love you and those who would do anything for you....they are part of the joy you may be looking for.

Relationships

Tonight I went out to dinner with a guy I was friends with in high school. I used to consider him to be one of my best friends but I never thought about why we were friends, we just were. As we sat talking tonight I realized we know the basics about each other but nothing much deeper than that. So, I started asking him questions about himself that I have never thought to ask him. I found out that he wants to drive a truck for a portion of his life and he really enjoys manual labor. His dream job just happens to be a ranch manager. On my way home I asked myself, how well do I really know any of my friends? I am lucky to have friends all over the nation who I know inside and out and know about all my deepest fears and secrets. But, do I really know the people I spend most of my time with? Do any of us really? Do we see when someone is going through something? And when they simply say "I'm fine" do we just leave it at that or do we take the time to actually care? Do we take the time to see the people we claim to love? All too often we take for granted our relationships. We just assume our friends will always be there no matter what. But relationships take time and work, they don't just happen. If we don't start contributing our time and love to the people we care most about, we will loose them. The next time you ask someone how they are, don't just ask, listen. They may have something to say or they may actually care how your day is going. Take the time to care and take the time to love. 1 Corinthians 13 4-8

Sanctus Real - Forgiven w/ Lyrics

This is an amazing and inspiring song! Take a listen if you are feeling down or even if you just want some awesomeness in your life :)

Happiness

Question: Are we meant to be happy ourselves?
I have thought about this question a lot and on several occasions and I came to a realization that lead to my answer. At times I consider myself to be a leader which is where my answer is aimed. For leaders, I believe our purpose is to serve. At different times the service will be different and maybe even sometimes unpleasant but does that mean we shouldn't partake? If you are serving others and making their life better I personally believe it is all worth it. I am meant to to serve God in all that I do, we all are, but the capacity will continuously change. This question lead me to thinking of change and temptation. When we decide to live a new life, a life that will look even the slightest bit different from the one we currently live, people will criticize. This is human nature, not because they necessarily disapprove but because they do not understand and that is okay, we must learn to take their words with a grain of salt. But once we have made that decision to change there will be evident temptation everywhere we look; at some point we will be forced to look temptation in the eye and simply say no. To live for the future and for the betterment of ourselves and our society we must learn to control our urges and temptations. I have chosen to change many times in the past but I have fallen off of the wagon so many times that I thought it was impossible to get back on the right path, I was wrong. God is forgiving always, He is loving always.
I believe making others happy will in turn give me happiness. We are not meant to be happy all the time but in the moments we are, they will be extreme and enough. After all, life is only a series of moments, small and intense moments. If we look back on those moments and see that we have made an impact then, in the moments of stress and ridicule, we can realize that our good days our weigh the bad and we can see that in the end it was all worth it. Happiness means different things to different people. What does it mean to be happy, I mean really, truly happy? What makes a person so unhappy they decide that they have had enough and that no one can help them come out of the darkness? What makes a person choose to be unaccepting and mean to another person? Could it be their own unhappiness? And can a person who chooses to be different ever truly change?

I hope the answer is yes...