Wow...better wipe the dust off mah keyboard, I obviously haven't used it for ages...but I digress (how cool is that word??)... So yeah, the point of this blog..."tune in next week to hear D-Man say 'So the point of this blog is...' next time on Days of Our Blog" *weird organ music*...ok... so life is kind of busy lately, haven't had a lot of sleep, and even less time to myself. Work has been flat out, because they want me to work as much overtime as I can possibly manage to meet some project deadline... kinda sucks, but hey, more money I guess. And I've gotten to use Visual Studio 2005 which is rather cool...yeah yeah, I'm a geek sometimes...GET OVER IT!!! I like what I like and don't like what I don't like, because if I did like it, I wouldn't not like it anymore, and then I wouldn't know what I liked. See, confusing, I know, so don't even go there....
God's been revealing much to me over these last few weeks, on different things in my life...a lot of big issues have been raising their heads, saying ooh deal with me and I'm just like GAH!! but it has done sometime. I have a real issue with trust, although I'm not quite sure why I would, it's not like I have some big bad secret from my past that would cause me to not trust ever again or anything like that...
We did our motivational giftings last Friday with Ps. Liz, it was awesome, I've been hanging out for about 3 months do do them because I honestly can't recall what I got last time I did them. When I was younger, I can recall having the administrator gifting as my highest, but those days are long gone methinks. Anyways, this time I got: 1. Server, 2. Compassion, 3. Teacher... So yeah, I was rather happy, because those three things are kinda cool...although I wouldn't mind being the others sometimes...especially perceiver but usually I'm pretty happy with what I have...the next meeting we'll be doing personality types, eg. choleric, melancholy, etc. I'm about %95 sure I'm a melancholic / phlegmatic, but hey surprise me.
Another thing that God has been revealing to me is the issue of manipulation. When I was younger...much younger...I used to have this thing where I would scab food off people, yeah I know, I know, kinda a bit odd...anyway I got to this point and I'm not exactly sure what kick started it but I basically made the decision where I would never put myself in a place where people could say that I made them do something, never blame me for manipulating them. I got very independent...in my mind at least...and all was well...it's only lately that I've come to see that this is a really big problem. I absolutely HATE confrontation because it makes me have to stand up for myself and possibly change someone's mind or get them to 'do what I want'...every time it happens my mind starts screaming at me. I have a hard time accepting help or compliments from people, because I don't want them to feel pressured into something that they don't have to do, etc., etc., etc., the list goes on. It's really drained any potential I have for leadership because I have always refused to take authority. But yeah, God is working on me so it's all good.
We've been going through evangelism in young adults. I've never been big on it myself, much the opposite in fact, because I've never really been much of a people person, but it's pretty good, we've been watching a seminar by a Julian someone from New Zealand talking on the six steps to church growth. His definition of evangelism is that it is proclaiming the gospel, not basing it on results, because that is bringing the most glory to God, and that's what evangelism is. He was saying that the two main purposes of the church are worship and evangelism, and both don't work without the other...all other minor purposes revolve around those two...and yeah, it's just been really good, haha, I can't wait for the opportunity to start doing it... Speaking of young adults, Renae and Anthony are the best! You guys rock my socks, you are a real inspiration and I thank God for the opportunity to grow together and get to know you guys more...
Well, that about wraps this blog entry up I suppose...
GB
Cheerio, D-Man
Tuesday 22 August 2006
Thursday 10 August 2006
The veil is torn away
Well, the veil is torn away. I'm see a bit more of a bigger picture to do with dreams and desires. It's all started clicking as it were...the thing is...we are people of desire, in fact some people go so far as to say that we ARE desire, I dunno about that but I do know that you show me a man without a single desire and I'll show you an empty shell. A man's (human race inclusive) strength come's from his desires, without them he is not a man at all, he's pretty much an animal.
ANYWAY...before we ask Christ into our lives, we are evil... 'for the heart of man is in enmity towards God / eternally wicked' depending on what translation you read, we still have dreams and desires but they are small, selfish, meaningless desires. When we come to Christ we receive the heart of Christ.. 'therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation' ...'I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you' ... 'I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh' etc. etc. etc. there are a thousand and one verses I could list off to get my point across.
There's a verse in the bible that says something like 'stay focused on God and He will give you the desires of your heart'..this has always caught me, in fact I've been in about the same rut for the last year or so of thinking, yeah, my desires ARE good even when they weren't necessarily. I've been wondering why my desires seems to be more of a hindrance to me when I thought it was supposed to be all scriptural and stuff and it suddenly hit me (with help from various sources indirectly) 'the old man is crucified with Christ' ... 'that old has passed away all things have become new' ... God doesn't give us OUR crappy desires, fact 1: If we don't get it from God, it's not going tobe beneficial for us anyway, fact 2: God's plan for our lives is much greater than we can possibly imagine. When we get saved God is already thinking of the bigger picture, that is why He tells us to sacrifice our desires...look at Abraham for the most famous example of that...We are called to focus on God and He will give us the desires of our heart..what heart do we now have? The heart of Christ.
I propose that God gives us His desires, and it is THOSE that we are called to hang on to..our own desires end up taking us astray and into not very nice places, as I've had to learn the hard way. The trick is killing OUR desires to make way for God's perfect plan for us...being empty vessels for God to use as He wills. This is a pretty touch call, even harder to follow through than to have revelation over. Barlow Girl put it awesomely in their song Surrender, 'Surrender you whisper softly to me, but my dreams are me, will I dream again?' I did have more on this topic this morning when I was thinking about it, but time it seems has displaced my memory and so I shall finish there...hopefully someone got something out of this, I know I did...
In other news, I've been coming back to the whole selfish thing, it seems I have a lot more to deal with than on first thought and I'm only having little success, but never fear...God will get me there, haha yer, if you think I'm being selfish, don't be afraid to pull me up on it..it'll be a good exercise in humility which I can never get enough of, anyway I'll leave you with a song that's been speaking to me recently. It's by a damn awesome band called Red off their debut album 'End of Silence'
Pieces
I'm here again
A thousand miles away from You
A broken mess
Just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
Thought I could do this on my own
I've lost so much along the way
Then I see your face
I know I'm finally Yours
I find everything
I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to You in pieces
So You can make me whole
I've come undone
But You make sense of who I am
Like puzzle pieces in your hand
When I see Your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything
I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to You in pieces
So You can make me whole
I tried so hard
So hard
I tried so hard
So hard
Then I see your face
I know I'm finally Yours
I find everything
I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to You in pieces
So You can make me whole
You can make me whole
Until next time, Cheerio
D-Man
ANYWAY...before we ask Christ into our lives, we are evil... 'for the heart of man is in enmity towards God / eternally wicked' depending on what translation you read, we still have dreams and desires but they are small, selfish, meaningless desires. When we come to Christ we receive the heart of Christ.. 'therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation' ...'I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you' ... 'I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh' etc. etc. etc. there are a thousand and one verses I could list off to get my point across.
There's a verse in the bible that says something like 'stay focused on God and He will give you the desires of your heart'..this has always caught me, in fact I've been in about the same rut for the last year or so of thinking, yeah, my desires ARE good even when they weren't necessarily. I've been wondering why my desires seems to be more of a hindrance to me when I thought it was supposed to be all scriptural and stuff and it suddenly hit me (with help from various sources indirectly) 'the old man is crucified with Christ' ... 'that old has passed away all things have become new' ... God doesn't give us OUR crappy desires, fact 1: If we don't get it from God, it's not going tobe beneficial for us anyway, fact 2: God's plan for our lives is much greater than we can possibly imagine. When we get saved God is already thinking of the bigger picture, that is why He tells us to sacrifice our desires...look at Abraham for the most famous example of that...We are called to focus on God and He will give us the desires of our heart..what heart do we now have? The heart of Christ.
I propose that God gives us His desires, and it is THOSE that we are called to hang on to..our own desires end up taking us astray and into not very nice places, as I've had to learn the hard way. The trick is killing OUR desires to make way for God's perfect plan for us...being empty vessels for God to use as He wills. This is a pretty touch call, even harder to follow through than to have revelation over. Barlow Girl put it awesomely in their song Surrender, 'Surrender you whisper softly to me, but my dreams are me, will I dream again?' I did have more on this topic this morning when I was thinking about it, but time it seems has displaced my memory and so I shall finish there...hopefully someone got something out of this, I know I did...
In other news, I've been coming back to the whole selfish thing, it seems I have a lot more to deal with than on first thought and I'm only having little success, but never fear...God will get me there, haha yer, if you think I'm being selfish, don't be afraid to pull me up on it..it'll be a good exercise in humility which I can never get enough of, anyway I'll leave you with a song that's been speaking to me recently. It's by a damn awesome band called Red off their debut album 'End of Silence'
Pieces
I'm here again
A thousand miles away from You
A broken mess
Just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
Thought I could do this on my own
I've lost so much along the way
Then I see your face
I know I'm finally Yours
I find everything
I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to You in pieces
So You can make me whole
I've come undone
But You make sense of who I am
Like puzzle pieces in your hand
When I see Your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything
I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to You in pieces
So You can make me whole
I tried so hard
So hard
I tried so hard
So hard
Then I see your face
I know I'm finally Yours
I find everything
I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to You in pieces
So You can make me whole
You can make me whole
Until next time, Cheerio
D-Man
Thursday 3 August 2006
Mistakes
I make them. Despite popular belief (and I don't even know how it got popular...) I am not a totally awesome guy. I am only human...just you're average Joe... and I MAKE MISTAKES! I could say I can't help it, it's just how I am, but I know better. I have a LOT of issues and a LOT of wounds in my life, and I am far from perfect. I can only say that I try to do the best I can and that God is working on me. But you know, all masterpieces take time. The roof on the Sistine Chapel took 4 years of solid work to complete and how much more complex is the heart of a man than an empty canvas? This is not a cop out. I hate making excuses and every time I catch myself out I wince. It's like not taking responsibility for your own actions...(like, duh)...Even admitting that I was wrong, is not enough. It can never be enough. The trust is broken and there's no going back. The best I can do it focus on God and pray that He will work through the situation. Every time I make a mistake, it's immediate condemnation from myself. I don't know why...I really need to look past it and keep focusing on God, but it doesn't usually happen like that. I can see the hypocrite in me, and I hate it, don't worry about that. I really wish I was that awesome guy that everyone raves about, I really do, but I know the truth. I am not there yet, nowhere near in fact.
On the flip side of this coin is God's grace and mercy. How ...awesome...amazing...beyond words is it that His grace covers all things. That no matter how many mistakes we make, He will always be there for us to run to. It really blows my mind...can you feel it? God didn't just know from the beginning that we would screw up. He has always known...for God there IS no beginning. There has never been a time in the history of God that He didn't know that you and I would screw up. His love has ALWAYS been there for us. He knew that things would turn out this way, just as He knows the bigger picture. We will NOT always be this way. Often time's I've noticed that He will turn a bad situation into a really good one. I'm not quite sure why He would do this, but He knows best. Even so, we still have to deal with our mistakes and the consequences thereof. Usually these come in the form of wounds we receive that cause us to lash out at people or not trust people or make us become incredibly selfish. we build walls around our hearts to protect us from the evil outside, this very act of self-preservation is one that causes us to hide away from the One TRUE Healer. I guess this is why Jesus says that those who would truly live must die to themselves. To give up that part of themselves that always looks to hide from pain.
Well, I'm going to leave that there. I could go on I guess, but I've run out of words at the moment, and yes I know it is very unfinished, but ah well. Until next time, my faithful blog readers.
Cheerio D-Man
On the flip side of this coin is God's grace and mercy. How ...awesome...amazing...beyond words is it that His grace covers all things. That no matter how many mistakes we make, He will always be there for us to run to. It really blows my mind...can you feel it? God didn't just know from the beginning that we would screw up. He has always known...for God there IS no beginning. There has never been a time in the history of God that He didn't know that you and I would screw up. His love has ALWAYS been there for us. He knew that things would turn out this way, just as He knows the bigger picture. We will NOT always be this way. Often time's I've noticed that He will turn a bad situation into a really good one. I'm not quite sure why He would do this, but He knows best. Even so, we still have to deal with our mistakes and the consequences thereof. Usually these come in the form of wounds we receive that cause us to lash out at people or not trust people or make us become incredibly selfish. we build walls around our hearts to protect us from the evil outside, this very act of self-preservation is one that causes us to hide away from the One TRUE Healer. I guess this is why Jesus says that those who would truly live must die to themselves. To give up that part of themselves that always looks to hide from pain.
Well, I'm going to leave that there. I could go on I guess, but I've run out of words at the moment, and yes I know it is very unfinished, but ah well. Until next time, my faithful blog readers.
Cheerio D-Man
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