This week, Monday-Friday, was phenomenal.
And it goes like this:
Little bit of a sore throat on Monday... kicked it with some Halls - which I found to give some pretty lousy advice. What a bad influence. Jesus would probably punch this wrapper in the face, had he been the one opening it. I wonder if Jesus ever had a sore throat.... ANYWAY.
Tuesday, I didn't take any pictures that day. But it involved some soccer, some really good food, and these people:
I like them.
Wednesday, was a brilliant day. Left work early at 1:45p, came home, and the Hub and I spent the evening putting up our Christmas decorations. We even ordered pizza! That's how special that evening was.
Thursday... oh you KNOW Thursday was sick. We hosted a small Thanksgiving at our house for some friends who don't have family in town. Was a small, but very fun group, and a lot of food, of course.
Friday was also beautiful. Came home, laid on the couch and watched almost TWO WHOLE MOVIES! Very rarely does that happen. There's always something to be doing, it was so nice to do nothing. Then from 7:30p-9:45p, it got loud. Band practice happened. This is us packing our band into our house (with LT hiding behind Raena):
Now, for some ranting.
You know how God would change some peoples' names in the Bible to better fit who He sees them as? Abram became Abraham to mean "father of many nations", Sarai became Sarah to mean "princess", Simon Peter became just Peter to mean "The Rock", you see what I'm saying.
In this context, you can just start calling me Israel, because of its meaning (or one of its meanings) "one who wrestles with God".
I feel a consistent pressure to "be good", while fully knowing that that's not actually what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian is to love and know God and believe that Jesus is who He says He is, the One who died so that we can live. But am I the only one who feels the pressure (the pressure that we're not supposed to feel BECAUSE Jesus came...) to "be good"? You try and you try, and you'll always fall short. Is that okay? Is that not okay? Yes, I know that though we sin, we are forgiven because of what Jesus did, but the sin we continue to commit STILL breaks God's heart, doesn't it?
It's like He allows Himself to be a punching bag... You can break His heart over and over but He'll still (Luke 15:11-31) run back to you when you return "Home" (in this context, "Home" meaning when you see the light that you've been screwing up and using Him - however unintentionally - as a punching bag, so you tell Him you're sorry and you love Him and you'll try not to do it again). You are welcomed back with opened arms - AND a robe and pinky ring.
But am I alone in the overwhelming saddness of breaking His heart? I find it so easy to do the wrong thing that I don't want to do (Romans 7:15), and so difficult to do what is right. I KNOW I need to fully engage in conversations with people who I (to be transparent) find exhausting. I KNOW I need to get out of my comfort zone and give this lady over here a ride home, even though I have been gone at work for 10 hours and just want to go home. I know. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I act on these things God wants me to do, and sometimes it's rewarding. And sometimes it doesn't feel so rewarding.
But when we DON'T act on those things He wants us to do... He has said that He loves us just the same. But it probably makes Him super frustrated and sad to see us not living to our potential. Are we allowed to shake something off that we know He wanted to us to pursue that we, in fact, ignored? Or are we supposed to live with the guilt of being a disappointment? Have any of us found a healthy balance between contentment and conviction? Oh how I'd love to be balanced in that way.
There's a constant stream of overloading thoughts happening in my head about the definition of a Christian. We are free, by Him, to... ? It's supposed to be to live this fantastic life of love and adventure and stepping out of ourselves, DYING to ourselves every single day (Luke 17:33, Luke 9:23), and pursuing a constant, powerful, earth-shattering, revolutionary God of the universe into a life that is so worth-while that it's nearly impossible for this culture to fathom.
But what's the reality here? We are free, by Him, to... shop. To take expensive vacations. To go out to eat. To work a 9 to 5. To close the garage door before we even get out of the car so we don't have to interact with the neighbors outside. This isn't the life we're supposed to be living. Yes I know, He loves to bless us. But we are spoiled to the point of being rotten. Spoiled to the point of expectancy. I read the other day, on Twitter I think, "If tomorrow you woke up with only the things you thanked God for today... what would you have?". I feel like I'm going on a tangent and veered off course, but it is what it is.
I just feel the pressure. The discomfort of the conformity that we all know all too well. The discomfort of comfort. So what do we do about it?
I leave you with this, our dog Bix in a sweater:
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