Thoughts in My Head

Thought One: Thoughts are quite strange. Sometimes they're frantically running around your mind rushing to get where they're going. Other times they're leisurely strolling around, taking their time getting to where they're going. Sometimes they just sit there. And stare at you. They refuse to move. They just stay there and refuse to get to the point. You don't even know why they're there. Sometimes they hide behind bushes. It's pretty obvious the thoughts are there, but you can't for the life of you find them. Anyway, that was Thought One. (By the way, that was a leisurely stroll thought. :])

Thought Two: Non-Christians often seem to think accepting God's grace is way too easy. A lot of Christians struggle with it, too. They seem to think you can't possibly receive forgiveness through simply asking the God of the universe for forgiveness. Accepting God's grace and vowing to make a change in your lifestyle can also seem cowardly because you aren't offering any compensation for God's grace (something we're used to and comfortable with--one service in exchange for another). However, from my point of view, accepting God's grace is one of the most courageous, humbling, and difficult things a person can do. It comes down to pride. People don't want to admit they can't get forgiveness by themselves, and they don't want to admit they can't get forgiveness by themselves because they don't want to admit they have something they need forgiveness for. That's why it takes courage and humility to accept God's grace. Before you can accept God's grace you must first admit to God that you need grace and forgiveness. Before you can admit to God that you need grace and forgiveness you must first admit to YOURSELF that you need grace and forgiveness, exposing yourself to all your own dirt. We spend a lot of time covering up our dirt. It seems anything but cowardly to humble yourself enough to admit you have dirt in the first place. Anyway, that was Thought Two.

Thought Three: I often try to reach people through experiences we have shared. It's usually good ground to get a conversation going, and if you're counseling someone, well, the only thing you can logically speak from is experience. But I was thinking about this. Sometimes do we try to fit ourselves into Jesus' place? Let me explain. Do we try to act like we've been through everything? Do we get up on our mighty pedestal of "been there done that"? Something I realized today is I haven't been through everything. I can't relate to a lot of situations. But that's okay. I don't have to try to help everyone who has a problem, because that's not my job. My job is to lead them to someone who does understand everything. And (wait for the cheesy part) God CAN understand every situation. God does know how your situation feels because He was right there with you. That's right. I said it. God understands because He was with you while you were in that situation. Anyway, that was Thought Three.

Last thought:
Thought Four: I was watching America's Next Top Model the other day. One of the models had just come back from a photo shoot. This model had very fickle photoshoots. Some days they were amazing and others, eh. Not so much. As Tyra so wisely said to this model, "Your problem is this shoot theme is not your favorite. You need to make it your favorite!" Now let me tie this completely secular reference to my favorite man--Jesus. So we're supposed to serve Jesus with all our passion, all our energy, and everything we have, right? And we're supposed to serve Jesus in everything we do, right? Well, if we're serving Jesus with everything we have and we're serving Jesus in everything we do, doesn't it make sense to do everything with all our passion and everything we have just as if we were doing it for Jesus (because we are)? Just like the model on America's Next Top Model, we have to make things our favorite. We need to act like everything we are doing is our favorite because we're serving Jesus and we're supposed to serve Jesus with everything we've got.

And that's another thing. Why NOT serve God with all we've got? First of all, every facet of us belongs to Him anyway. He created us. I'm pretty sure that entitles him to ownership. Second, He bought us with the blood of Christ and we owe him everything we have, so why not act like we owe him everything?

Anyway, those were the thoughts in my head.