Pain is the fuel of passion

Today, same ol' same ol'. School, knitted (I'm SOO close to being done with your scarf, megsie!) watched t.v. got online, whatever.

Last night I was reading The Purpose Driven Life. I know I know, it's one of those books that you see all the old people in church carrying around, but seriously, why aren't more young people reading it? I've had it for a while, and read it off and on, I'm only on the 12th day....yeah, pathetic. But recently I've been reading it every night. Last night, something totally stuck out to me, and I thought it was cool, so I'll share with you.

"You are as close to God as you choose to be." It's so true, I think so many times, we get frustrated, because God puts us through hard times, or we are just unmotivated in that way. So we blame him, we say, you aren't allowing me to be near you, you aren't giving me that fire. It's not God, it's our dumb human nature.

"I must choose to be honest with God." it talks about how God encourages us to be honest about our feelings, our doubts, our insecurities. I know personally, I tend to tell God, I completely trust in you, when in fact, I do have doubts, it's human nature, again (geeze...human nature SUCKS!) but seriously, who are you kidding? This is GOD we are talking about. He knows what you feel, and when you tell him it's all good, you are just lying on top of all that. God can handle it.

"I must choose to obey God in faith." It mentions how every time you trust God blindly, it deepens your relationship with him. It's so scary, but when you see how he has worked through that situation, you will be that much closer to him.

One of the things that stood out to me the most, is when it talks about how we are often challenged to do "great things" for God. Which is totally ridiculous, I mean yeah, go to Africa and help the starving children, I'm not saying that's bad. You will be recognized for what you do, but what about when you are alone on a street corner, on your way home from the drive through at Wendy's and you see a homeless guy. Are you more apt to give him some of your food, when you are a lone and no one is there, or to do it when there is a crowd, or do something else, where people will notice what you have done. I struggle with this a lot. Doing things to meet my own selfish needs. To be praised, I want people to know what I have done. In the end it doesn't matter. In the end, it's what God saw you do, and your intentions in doing so...He knows when you do something small out of true generosity. We should be trying to please him more than anyone else, so why are we like this? I don't know, perhaps we like the instant gratification that human praise brings, maybe it's something else, all I know is that we suck at life a lot of the times.

My favorite part of this chapter talks about how pain is the fuel of passion. This hit me hard. It says that "Your problems are not punishment; they are wake up calls from a loving God. God is not mad at you; he's mad about you, and he will do whatever it takes to bring you back into fellowship with him." I think we (I) tend to think that God is punishing me for being such a dumb dumb sometimes, then it makes me mad at him for making me go through it in the first place. If we think about our hard times as a wake up call, I'm sure our lives would be so much easier. Not perfect, but it definitely puts a new perspective on it. God tries so hard to get us to love him, and be close to him, we always find a way to push ourselves away, and blame him for what's happening. Why do we do that?

Anyways, sorry this was so long, that chapter just hit home with me, and gave me some insight on certain situations. You should definitely read this book, it's pretty much really good. I dont even like reading! But yeah.....

No one guessed my quote from yesterday! It's Top Gun.....I love that movie.

Here's a new one (in a whiney voice) "My paws are cold, my tail is cold" (I'm not sure if this is the EXACT quote, but if yuo knew it at all, you'd know...yeah, i like to make sense alot.)

Thanks for stopping by, San Diego.