How Dare You?

Are you an investor? I think it must take a lot of nerve to put large sums of money into stuff and then hope that someday it'll pay off! I suppose it's kind of like the lottery, they say you can't win if you don't play but there are others who believe that you can't lose what you don't bet...I've been told that relationships are work, as if they're a task or a job that has to be done and that may be true...it would explain why so many don't work! I think it's also true that you first must venture something before it's possible to see a return of it, let alone to see a return on it! We sow seeds hoping for a crop and although there's a reasonable expectation of a result it's still not a for sure thing. I'm drawing comparisons here to various things that involve risk so that I can talk about what most people perceive to be the greatest one of all,

loving people!

Allow me to clarify, I feel as though I need to because there are so many concepts people have about what that means. I'm talking about the type of love that can and most likely will cost you everything. The type that never stops to count the cost before acting or that leaves no room for compromise or half measures. It's an all consuming obsession that's primarily characterized by selflessness and a concern for what's in the best interest of it's "object" which of course is so much more than a thing to them...

it's their everything!

Many people practice a much more conditional definition of love as in,

"I love you as long as times are good or until you do something I disapprove of."

Another common example is the idea that I love you until it becomes inconvenient for me or until my feelings for you result in a "heartache" on my part at which point we're through. Some people do see love as an investment, and as such they have some very definite ideas about what they expect in return and while I do believe that love always comes back to us I don't think that anyone truly gives love only because of what they expect to receive in return.

Having said that I'd also like to say that even though expecting a return on our love investment is not in character, that when we do give, sow, invest, or commit ourselves to truly loving someone the return is guaranteed! Perhaps not in the way we might expect or from the person whom we've loved but just as the rising sea levels of a harbor lifts all ships we benefit from bringing more love into the world! Like am electrical wire with current flowing through it, we're warmed by it's passage!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM-gZintWDc&w=640&h=390]

I'd like to be able to say that I've loved that way, but what Robin Williams said about loving something more than yourself kind of left me hollow, I find it's quite a struggle for me to love something more than I fear being rejected by it...

I'm also floored to know that this is how God loves each of us, except it's actually so much more than I can even comprehend. He sent His only Son Jesus to be our redeemer even though I'm sure He knew that many would reject this supreme act of love!

Thank You Father for Your infinite love, please change my heart to allow Your love to shine through me more, and for me to see the fear in my life for the liar that it is!

Do I dare?

How dare you?

Without A Net

Whether we realize it or not all of us are walking a tight wire of some kind in our lives and the balancing act we do is always at risk given the thin nature of the "reality" we subscribe to. Everyday, people in this hard little world fall off that wire, land hard, and are injured in way's that can be hard to heal. The repercussions of that fall are what we sometimes call a "crisis" which interestingly enough is a word that's based on the Greek term Krinein which means "to decide".

Decide what?

Any trapeze artist you happen to meet will most likely tell you that a certain level of fear or respect is essential to the performance of their craft, but that if you allow that fear to take center stage then walking that wire becomes impossible. And while a net can be something that catch's us and keeps us safe from a fall, it can also be used to keep us in bondage after we've lost our balance and fallen into a trap or snare of some type! Safety is of the Lord, but fear is a symptom of spiritual bondage to sin. Just as Adam found out in the garden. How is it that that after thousands of years we still hide in the bush's from a loving God?

The greatest fear any of us have is the fear of not being loved. So why does it seem as though we run from the very thing we need the most or pretend to be above it in some way? Perhaps it's because in lieu of being able to procure it, we've taken on the mantle of god in our lives and arrogantly chosen to express or exercise our "divinity" by making choice's about our lives that no one else can change, even if we're the one's that suffer as a result of that choice. Isn't that a shame?

Ultimately it isn't us who make our choices, but instead they, who make us!

It's at these familiar crossroads, these moments of sudden confusing complexity, that like any other subscription we've signed up for our fear delivers to us our default answer....

What about me?

Our lives become a frustrating failure when we try to take on Gods role or when we project onto God our flawed human understanding of love. Most of these misguided actions and bad choices flow from a core belief that the universe we live in is a decidedly unfriendly place, that real love is a lie, and that if there is a God He's probably mad at us!

No wonder we're anxious and afraid to step out! We're walking on a wire and we believe that we're working...

Without a net!

Why am I saying all of this? Because there are way too many people who go through their lives making decisions that originate from thoughts that are sponsored by fear, not love. Who instead of living the life God had planned for them are tangled up in the net of this world and are presently miserable as a result! If hell is an eternal separation from God, Who is love, then you might say they've already started doing their time here on earth! In fact, I've heard more than a few people refer to their lives as being a "living hell"...I don't believe that Gods pleased with any of those things at all, actually I think it break's His heart, mine too...and since I'm on His team I'm trying to do whatever He enables me to do to help others to choose Him instead! Being a Christian is simply an awareness of who we are in Christ and the joyful acknowledgment of Gods saving love that has freed us from the necessity of fear in each and every moment and circumstance of life! What it means for each of us is that,

Above all we are greatly loved!

Come what may, we do have a safety net...

Jesus caught each of us when we cried out for Him to save us!

You've done that right?...Is your life going to suddenly become perfect after you come to know the Lord? NO! what it means is that whatever you go through in this life He's in the midst of it with you! God never promised us a smooth ride, but He has promised us a safe landing! While we're here we don't have to live a life of fear, shame and doubt, or be prisoners to things like worry and anxiety! There's no reason this life has to be an empty meaningless existence without a hope for eternity when all we really have to do is stop for a second and simply reason this thing we call life out!

Have YOU traded in fear for faith!

That's a choice I'm committed to making every day!

"Faith is that state of being in which we're able to find present comfort in the arms that have held us up all along, and future peace based on the past and the present."

People...

People who need, People...are the luckiest people...in, the world!

Why is that? I thought that as people our happiness was somehow tied to our sense of independence and self sufficentcy. The truth is that YES we must all take responsibility for ourselves and our family's, but as they say "the devil's in the details." At what point do we (because of fear) throw up a wall between us and the world full of "people" who are our brethern? At what point do we say (sub-consiously), I'm just afraid to let anyone know how much I need them, afraid that they won't need me back, afraid that they'll take advantage of my feelings, afraid that somehow it will make me "less of a man" afraid that I'll look like a fool, afraid of what other people might say about me and my inability to explain why I "need" people...Thats a whole lot of fear! who could be behind that? who profit's from it? maybe it's the "other" people in the world... They're quite smug and self assured as they look upon the rest of us who in an attempt to get a need met (love) will sometimes crawl down a few dead end streets. Is there anything worse than pity? being "pitiful"...perhaps believing that you're pitiful is! I believe that it takes a whole lot more courage to crawl down a dead end street because the truth is you NEED something you believe is at the end than it does to sit on the sidelines and pity the people who are or perhaps could be wrong about it. I don't mean pity them for being mistaken about whats at the end of that street,I mean pity them for trying...for having the courage to overcome the fear and crawl if they have to instead of living your life pretending that you've "got it covered" when you definitly don't...Our enemy the devil is a liar, he's also a fear monger, he would do the unspeakable things he does to achieve his goal of preventing you from knowing love, which we know as God. Who came to this world as Jesus, who showed his love for us by carrying his cross down a street of people who jeered at him and taunted him, spat on him and cursed him, eventually dying on a tree of shame.

So, why are we the "luckiest people?"... we have needs that can only be met thru seeking the need, and thru accepting the gift of our Fathers Love...and luckily, Jesus is waiting at the end of our road, also we're lucky because he sent the Holy Spirit here to counsel and comfort us as we walk or crawl whichever the case may be.

I need people, because I love people, because my Father loves people, because I love the Father,because he first loved me...I think that makes us all pretty "lucky"...or at least it should, have you accepted "the love"?