nervousness

Here's another blog where I'm going to be pretty much thinking out loud.  My question is this, why do people get nervous about talking/doing things in front of others.  Is it because they are worried of belittling themselves by doing something stupid? Are they afraid they will let someone down.  Do they not like the attention?  So many questions and so few answers.  Well not really I guess.  Everyone has their own fears depending on their situation.  For instance, if you are with a performing ensemble you may be afraid you will let others down.  If you're doing an individual thing then you may be concerned that you will will destroy your public image.  That i don't like to much.  Perhaps we should be afraid of not getting our point across, but being afraid of destroying your image isn't a good thing.  I think its kind of disapointing that we are so focused on ourself that we worry not about our message but about our image.  Maybe its just me though, w/e.

In order to make this post less of a waste I'll put up another song, the lyrics are on the video, pay special attention to the spoken part.

Generativity

As many of you know I am a big proponent of helping the poor and those less fortunate than us.  My reasoning behind this is first; I like to help people, and second; the bible advocates it to the extreme.  Well it turns out helping other people is also endorsed by modern science.  George Valliant conducted a thirty year study of 95 highly intelligent men.  After the experiment was finished Valliant compared the thirty most successful and thirty least successful men.  One major thing was found in the successful men that wasn't found in the unsuccessful men, generativity.  Generativity is the essence of giving back to society, through community service or helping others.  The experiment demonstrated that this is a good predictor of how successful a person's life was.  So, perhaps the bible knows what its talking about and you can fare better if you follow its teachings as it suggests.

Wa Wa Wa

This might get me in trouble, but so be it.  In this post I'm going to tackle one of my pet peeves, Complaining.

Complaining is something that often gets on my nerves.  Perhaps its because I'm naive and look for the best in things, or perhaps its just not who I am, but when I hear people complaining it makes me want to leave the room.  I don't have a problem with a thing here or there, I do that occasionally as well, but when there is chronic occurrences of whining about similar topics I begin to lose it.  Here's the main problem I have; people will complain day and night but they will never try to fix it.  All I want to say is "Fine, you found a problem with something, go and try to get it fixed then."  I don't even want to hear that you can't, that "I'm only a teenager" or "They'll never listen" or "what can I do?"  Guess what all those problems occur because you allow yourself to think them.  If you would actually try to do something you might just find out that they're all imaginary.  Also, even if at first you fail, then try try again.  It really works, believe me.  

The reason why I hate complaints so much is that personally I feel its a form of elitism.  If you're saying that one way is wrong then you are saying that you could do it better.  Well that's great, then come share your expertise with us...  No one ever does come forwards though do they?  Nope, they would rather mope around and whine about this or whine about that and never do a thing to fix it.

Once again, I'm not saying that every little complaint drives me off of my rocker.  I too will say "aw man, that's a really dumb rule," or "Gee, that probably should have been done like this" but I don't bring it up time and time again.

I guess that this was just me letting out some thoughts, and for those of you who would say "well look here, he's complaining too, isn't he?"  I answer back "Yes, I am complaining, but here's two things to keep in mind.  First you will probably never hear me speak of this again.  Second, I am doing something about this complaint by writing this blog, so back off."  Anyway, I hope I didn't offend anyone too much.

Until next time,

Godspeed. 

My Jesus

I want to be like my Jesus.  Do you?

My Jesus

~Todd Agnew~

Which Jesus do you follow? 

Which Jesus do you serve?

 If Ephesians says to imitate Christ 

Then why do you look so much like the world?  

Cause my Jesus bled and died

 He spent His time with thieves and liars

 He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant

 So which one do you want to be? 

 Blessed are the poor in spirit 

Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land

 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness 

Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand  

Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins 

He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars 

He loved the poor and accosted the rich 

So which one do you want to be? 

Who is this that you follow 

This picture of the American dream

 If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet  

Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion

 Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins

 But the Word says He was battered and scarred 

Or did you miss that part

 Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him 

Cause my Jesus bled and died 

He spent His time with thieves and the least of these

 He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable 

So which one do you want to be?  

Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church

 The blood and dirt on His feet would stain the carpet

 But He reaches for the hurting and despised the proud 

I think He'd prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd 

And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud  

I want to be like my Jesus! 

I want to be like my Jesus!  

Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus 

You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity

 I want to be like my Jesus but I'm not sure what that means to be like You Jesus 

Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me 

Can I be like You Jesus? 

I want to be like my Jesus

What I've learned

I think If I had to pick the one most important thing I've learned this year it would be this.  Mistrust.  You can't trust anything you see, no matter how replicable it may seem you always have to question.  I'm not talking about people here incase you weren't sure.  I'm talking about information.  Everything these days seems to have a twist.  Even "cold hard science" isn't as reputable as it may have you believe.  For instance, did you know that many people question the reputability of carbon-14 dating?  Or how about the fact that science talks about theories as if they will never be disproved?  Even in the field of psychology facts can be misleading.  Most research is done through surveys, but you have to question many things just to make sure the survey actually has weight.  For instance, I could give a survey about a new car asking customer's satisfaction and get outstanding results.  It would appear as if I had the best car in the world, but just who did I ask?  If I only asked employees of my company then you, as the consumer, may start to have some doubts about just how good the car actually is.  Even the news can be biased.  So much these days is uncertain, its no wonder my generation supposedly is the generation of an identity crisis.  The world is not always as it appears.

Talitha Koum

Today I would like to look at Mark Chapter five and throw some questions out there.  For those of you two lazy to look it up, Mark 5 has three main stories in it.  The first is the story of the man possed by a demon called Legion.  Legion got its name because it was composed of many demons.  Anyway, the story goes that Jesus tells Legion to leave the man.  Legion pleads with Jesus and finally asks to be allowed to enter the herd of pigs near by.  The pigs all run into the lake and kill themselves, the farmers return to town and tell their story, Jesus is turned away from the crowd, and the man cured by Jesus is turned back to his town.  So what is the purpose of this story?  Jesus doesn't get angry at the town like He tells His disciples to do when they are rejected.  In fact, Jesus turns away the man that he healed so that he can try to bring the good news to the town.  Why is this town so different?  Another thing, Jesus gave into the demon and allowed it to go into the herd of pigs.  Why is this?  I have a theory for this one.  I feel that Jesus here is trying to demonstrate His teaching of love your enemies, but that theory could be wrong.  

The next story in Mark is of a lady who suffered constant bleeding for twelve years.  She spent everything she had on doctors but none could heal her.  Word of Jesus reached her ear and she decided to give things one last go.  Following Jesus throw the crowd she managed to touch the hem of His cloak.  It was recorded that "immediately He felt the healing power go out of Him" and he turned around to see who had touched him.  "Who touched my robe?" He demanded.  Now I;m not sure how He said it but Jesus almost sounded angry, at least how I am reading it.  Then the woman steps forward, with a very sorrowful look on her face I can imagine, and says I did it.  Immediately Jesus seems to have mood swing, and says "Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.  Your suffering is over."  Once again we are left with some questions.  What is the significance of this passage?  Well for that we can see that faith is really all that it takes, and this passage does a good job of describing that.  Why was Jesus so angry (or at least so it seemed to me, and i could be completely wrong) that someone had touched the hem of his cloak?

The final story in this chapter is about the little girl of a leader of a synagogue.  The girl was horribly sick and the father came to Jesus asking him to save her.  On route to the father's home the child dies, but Jesus ends up saving her.  Yadda yadda yadda, the moral is never give up hope.  My real question is in the way that Jesus tells the daughter to awaken.  "Talitha koum" he said, which is arabic for "little girl, get up."  Why did Jesus use that phrase, in that language.  As far as I am concerned it is the only time the bible records a specific phrase Jesus used.  So what is so special about it?  

I posed a lot of questions in this post and not a lot of answers.  If you have an answer to any of these I ask that you could impart your knowledge to me.  I would like to know.

Until next time

Godspeed

The Sabath

Pastor Brian spoke about this in the last get out of debt series we had.  He made a point that Chick-Fil-A seems to be doing very well as a business, even in this tough economic time, but it doesn't open on Sundays.  Anyway, now that you know all that heres what I'm really planning on talking about.

In Mark Chapter 2 Jesus Speaks on the Sabath. What happens is the disciples pick some grain to eat while walking through the field.  The Pharisees see this and make note of it to Jesus.  "Look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting on the Sabath?" they said.  Jesus came back with a story about David from the old testament which does a good job of getting the disciples off the hook.  However, its what is written afterwards that I find most interesting.  To conclude the chapter, Mark records Jesus as saying, "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath."  That's very interesting wouldn't you say.  Pretty much Jesus is saying, "Look, the sabbath wasn't made to be a challenge for you.  Meeting the requirements of the Sabbath wasn't the purpose.  The purpose is that humans have the best life we they take a day off."  We as humans need a Sabbath.  We need to take a break or else we will be burnt out.  God is pretty intelligent, He doesn't just make rules because He wants to make us struggle, He makes them because He knows that they will help us.  I'm willing to bet that we can apply this logic to the law as well.  The law wasn't created to make us struggle, it was created because humans need something to guide them, or else we would spend our lives doing a lot of junk that was not beneficial to ourselves. 

So, in conclusion, trust God.  He knows what He is talking about.  Give yourself a day off, even if you feel you can't afford it.