So for those of you that have been struck by the love bug, take notes. No, this isnt ten steps to landing the hottie next door. Im much to stupid. This is what not to do if you like the world to be a happy place. Karen and I have been dating going on 8 months now and I have to say were both pretty darn good at the dating thing. We hardly ever fight, disagree quite often, but handle it maturely. We serve one another, consult one another, spend quality time with one another. Usually life is great when were together. Obviously we have our moments but its nothing in comparison to what I’ve seen and heard from others.
However yesterday I made plans with a friend to go to the bookstore after lunch… The bad part, I did it in front of her without consulting her. In defense of my moronism she said she was going home to do school work. This doesn’t matter. Later that night she told me she wasn’t upset that I didn’t spend time with her but that I made her feel like an after thought… Yeah, ouch. Its one of those things you probably do alot to alot of people but never really think about. Oh yeah, thats right, because their an after thought.
I heard a message yesterday morning that kind of drove the point home. if you’re in church Im sure you’ve heard or even said like myself that Christianity isnt about religion its about relationship. The point of his message was that cant be true. In James it says “pure and undefiled religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their distress.” Simply put your faith means jack to the people around you unless your faith is acted upon. Unless its tangible. James says its dead. Often times God, the people we love, and the people we should love are an after thought, our faith is an after thought and often times we don’t realize it because… Our faith is dying.
I challenge you to make sure you’re caring for the people that need love, stop reading, stop praying, stop looking to heaven and asking God for help and start loving the people around you. Start having a living, breathing faith that obviously comes from a living, breathing God.
I think Jesus was more of a prick than alot of us would like to believe… Hes also more of a saviour than any of us will probably ever believe which are the two reasons I love Jesus more than any other.
A while back reading through Matthew 8, I came across to this day still probably my favorite scripture. Jesus just healed Peters sick mother in law and began healing many who were sick and demon possessed. A crowd began to gather around Him and he gave orders to move to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher approached Jesus and said “Teacher I will follow you wherever you go” Jesus replied “foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man has no place to lay his head”. Strange thing to say to someone who says he wants to follow you. “He didn’t say come long young one” or “okay, lets walk together.”
No, It was more like Im homeless you fool, I don’t even know where Im going so make sure you know what your getting yourself into. If you want to follow me be prepared for whatever is to come. Then another disciple said “Lord, first let me go and bury my father” and this is my favorite response ever. Jesus replies with “follow me and let the dead bury their own dead”. (prick) How do you not love that? Imagine a friend telling you that. Personally I think its hysterical… but harsh none the less.
Now obviously the simple correlation is to let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead because they don’t understand life… However the greatest thing to me is that alot of us for some reason think there are things in our lives we have to bury before we follow Jesus. Jesus seems to be saying No, just follow me and you will begin to see those things matter less and less. To bury your father seems like a pretty noble request. To Jesus it is simply a ritual, it is something that will effect nothing in the Kingdom of God. A waste of life.
Jesus is always about life. Spiritually to get rid of things that don’t bring “life” is essentially getting rid of things that are dead… Which is clearly a waste in the mind of Jesus. Jesus is saying become a student of my words, do as I do, and see as I see, and “let the dead bury their own dead”.
Last night Karen and I decided we were going to do a little couples bonding experience. For a while now she had informed me that her ear always feel clogged and recently mine too felt clogged… So we decided we were going to clean one another’s ears.
She went first and basically the routine was this. Pour this liquid medicine down your ear canal that is supposed to break down wax. If its working you will hear a lot of crackling… Very similar to Rice Krispies in milk. So she put her head in my lap and we filled her ear and sure enough it was snapping, popping, and crackling so loud that I could hear it. After 15 or 20 minutes she sat up and we plugged her ear with cotton so it absorbed anything that might leak out.
MY TURN! I lay my head in her lap in anticipation… really just because I was excited to hear all the popping. She fills my ear and absolutely nothing. No snap, no crackel, no pop. As a matter of fact I could hear less because I had all this goop in my ear. Soon frustration turned into fear as I began wondering what could be in there. After 15 minutes I sit up stick cotton in my ear and begin to rub my ear to see if I can feel anything. A few minutes later I remove the cotton and there it was. All of a sudden I could hear and on the end of the ball of cotton was this rather large object that looked like a small slug, a booger, a snail with no shell, it was absolutely disgusting.
Karen turns to me and says “I knew I dated you for a reason” I wasn’t sure to be more freaked out by what she just said or what just came out of my ear. In the end it was just a large ball of wax that apparently made Karen rather envious. She left my house, ears still crackling, and frustrated that a big ball of wax had not come from her ear.
