kids and foks and brothers and sisters and mothers and father etc

Here are some pictures of me playing with Sofia and Madeline yesterday. Sofia was playing the "Josh's head fell off the couch so i have to put it back on, and hten knock it off again" game with my head. And Madeline was playing the "i'm an airplane game." Man I love playing with kids, and how will i miss these two!




















Family,

I've been thinking alot lately about how I am and how people view me and talking alot to some of the guys here about it as well. I knew this all along, but i never had it articulated into words. i put myself out there alot, by that i mean i am so ridiculously open and out there and no holds barred unadulterated me, that I do get on people's nerves, especially people that are very different from me. I know for a fact i have a knack for making people feel uncomfortable as well, and usually it's not on purpose, and i can see how me being so deliberately up front can really make some peopel feel way outside of any semblance of comfort.

Natural reaction is such, and not even that i am a special case, everyone reacts the same sort of way to people that they dont like or dont get along with. We make snap judgments, we make fun of them, we talk about them behind their backs etc. It's so funny how many problems would be solved if we simply had the courage to go up to another person and just talk to them about what is bothering us if it was legitimately something that hurt the other person. On the flipside, so many problems woudl be avoided if people woudl realize that nothing they can do will actually change a person. I mean we hear at church all the time that the burden of salvation isn't upon us, all we are is vessels for Christ, so in that aren't we jsut vessels for Him in affecting change in His people? We even look at Christians we perceive as being less far along than us, and look on them in pity, and as if we are these amazing crusaders that are going to fix them and make them ok.

Well that's trash too. We cannot change anyone, not one person can be changed by anything we do. If we react badly to the way a person is (and i'm speaking of people who aren't acting maliciously) then it is not their problem, it is ours. So why do we react in such petty ways to it? First of all i know you guys can quote Romans to death and know that "...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And i'm sure most of you have realize that this is the great leveler, this is the thing that shows that none of us is any better, deserves anything more, than anyone else. Yet we insist upon it.

And i guess i could steer this conversation toward self love and why we love us since we have nothign inherently good in ourselves, which is true and helpful in this. But I guess i just want to point out how horribly the church treats itself. I have seen non-christians love peopel better than I see Christians love peopel. What kind of a testimony is that? Yes their love for peoepl comes from God and yes He is glorified by that love, but why can't His people love each other well? I can't qualify it, but i'd venture to say that there is just as much if not more gossip within the church as without.

The main point of this is to point out something i'm learning here, but that can and should be applied anywhere. It is never my job, NEVER, to make people like me. It's never my job to please people at my own expense, it's never my job to seek recognition from my peers, to seek approval from those around me, to seek acknowledgement and validation from any other person. I can't help but go back to Eldredge over and over again no matter how little scriptural backing his book had, but NOBODY can tell me that I am a man, nobody can validate me as a person, nobody can tell me that i'm ok in such a way as to satisfy me. If you rely on men they will fail you.

But there's hope! We have one job, that is to love God and love people. That's it, the greatest of the two commandments. I wish more people knew Deuteronomy 6 just as well as the story of Jesus giving the two greatest commandments. It talks about loving god, but it goes further, it says we are to meditate on loving God all day long, everywhere we go, talk about it with everyone we come in contact with, and even to put it on our doorposts. So my job while i'm in Africa, while i'm in the States, while i'm anywhere, is to love him and love His people. This is an encouragement to everyone as well as myself, because i suck at this more than anyone, but no matter how much somebody gets on your nerves, how much they hurt you, you exist to glorify the Lord, to show His love to them.

So I encourage you/me to love, let that be the motivating factor behind everything, meeting people where they are at, like Jesus did, not trying to change them so that we can feel more comfortable aroudn them. Let the church take the plank out of their own eye before they seek to take the splinter out of their brother's eye. I woudl even go as far to contend that it's not my job to take that splinter out of my brother's eye if it's not causing Him to sin.

So lastly to reiterate, it's not our job to change people, it's God's. It's our job to love Him and His people. Life boils down to that, and it's amazing how that truth can change everything.