- Not The Only One!
- Post# 138
- 13 Jun 24
- ” Keep Looking ”
- Howdy,
- Welcome once more to the realm of not the only one. I want to thank you guys , the ones who check in on a regular basis, because there is just so much out there that begs for our attention and our time. I am fully aware of the principle of garbage in and garbage out. I’m probably not as discriminating as I should be about my intake of materials and then on the other hand I can be extremely selective about what I let my peepers view, and the material that washes around in my brain. I get that we are all different and to some level strange and peculiar ☺️☺️. We all have different make ups when it comes to belief systems. Some of it charted along by diverse cultures, up bringing and sometimes salted and peppered with superstition.☺️
- I know that temperaments vary largely from the daredevils to the one’s whom you might believe were raised in a convent or monastery somewhere.☺️☺️. While that is an extreme difference, most of us our lives resembles something very much like a classic bell curve, where we will have something that’s very similar to a rebellious period as we try to flex our independence muscles and break away or free from parental controls . We may engage in risky behaviors such as extreme sports and for some that is sex in an automobile ☺️☺️. Most will forge ahead with careers or life’s pursuits , and then begin to level off at the child bearing years, and then be amazed at how fast the years just seem to roll by. We begin our decent on the backside of the curve and watch our children become parents themselves and repeat the process, while we try to ensure that we don’t break a hip or something ☺️☺️
- Never has there ever been more truth than , when God said that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. A lot of people give pushback to all of the diversity and inclusion rhetoric and think that it’s a fairly new thing, when it’s actually something that God had said thousands of years ago. Most of our lives are characterized by some kind of quest, and to seek meaning in our journey. It can be something fairly simple as wanting to be a great mom or Dad to your kids, and even that may have been influenced by not having that as You grew up, or it could be because your parents just knocked it out of the park and you want your kids to have a similar wonderful experience. The caution here, is that we don’t live in a vacuum and if you do very little to nothing, something will come along and fill that void , and you may just not be to crazy about what your neglectfulness leads to ☺️☺️. One of the most common errors that I see here, is when someone is raised with a faith, but take a hands off approach with the next generation, as in letting them figure it out for themselves. I don’t believe that any faith should be railroaded or crammed down someone’s throat, but it should be a teachable moment. The biggest problem here is, way to many people don’t know what they believe, or why they believe it, and can not articulate it in words, or are just blindly going along and checking the box that I went to service, gave money, took communion, sung a hymn, or whatever it is that they feel best characterizes their belief system. It’s no wonder that it’s not a teachable moment, or something shared and passed on to the next generation. If you were raised in one of those , ” because I said so” households, that’s absolutely the wrong approach to have with matters of faith, again, a teachable moment, that shouldn’t be one and done!☺️☺️ what does it say about us when we have something that we don’t believe it’s valuable enough to pass on?
- This becomes further complicated when people don’t see a difference that your faith makes in your life compared to everyone else. I’m not talking about about just a moral compass, because some of the most moral people I know are also the one’s that loudly pronounce that they have no faith in anything other than themselves and their good behavior. Sadly one day they will discover that just doesn’t cut the mustard…per se☺️☺️. We have all heard of wolves in sheep’s clothing, and we’ll the opposite is true as well. What I mean by that is, you will from time to time see God’s kids behaving and taking part in things that maybe they shouldn’t be, and maybe just maybe that is OK. A lot of the time Christians are thought to be goody two shoes, who never have any fun because they are busy trying to follow a bunch of dos and don’ts. However whatever Your particular flavor maybe, there is a Christian for that…so if you are a smoker, there are smoking Christians. If you love having diarrhea mouth☺️☺️ , where you just can’t get enough four letter words in, in a day, there are Christians for that as well. If you are person who runs around like chicken little, screaming that the sky is falling from all of the political unrest, there are even Christians for that as well. If you are a heavy drinker, there are Christians who will drink you under the table . ☺️☺️ Even if you are someone who falls a little bit on the Promiscuous side of things there are Christians for that as well.
- None of us are perfect or even close, so how come some of these narratives exist? Well first of all remember that God’s number one attribute is love and love covers a multitude of unkind things. The second thing is that God is bound up in forgiveness and grace. God’s kids are supposed to be magnets. We should attract others, but not be put off or drug off by other people’s actions and habits. If you are catching a break out in the freezing cold because the cancer stick is calling your name☺️☺️, your buddy beside you turning purple from the cold, may talk to you about matters of faith, and you may be thinking who knew that Christian were smokers ?☺️☺️. So a magnet and a bridge. ☺️Here is one of the most common ones that you will run into , and that’s believers at a rock concert or some other secular music, that You just knew was off limits to them ☺️☺️. My personal presence is old school R&B. Despite popular opinions, we don’t all run around with a harp and our heads in the clouds.☺️ Sometimes God will allow something for a greater good that we are unaware of. Also when talking about people’s behaviors that don’t exactly line up with how you think they should or might, often comes down to spiritual maturity and sometimes just some good old fashioned disobedience ☺️☺️. Most of us will never fully embrace everything from God’s perspective, while on this side of eternity, but it is a journey and hopefully the more and closely we walk with God, we will gain greater insight into the character of God and not just think of Him as about a bunch of rule following….I mean after all, who wants that?☺️ I will confess that I can be a real mix bag on some days. I may laugh at something a little offensive or perhaps sketchy. I do have a dark side and when I don’t meet with God daily, that seems to be the side that I feed by default more than anything else.
- There are other dangers lurking about as well when we don’t pass on what we say or profess to believe without any real substance to it. On occasion when you have really good moral people, they become humanist. This is a belief that man kind is some how evolving and getting better 😂🤣😅☺️☺️☺️☺️. Excuse the laughter, but just check out any media source and you will clearly see the depravity and know that mankind is not somehow renewing itself or getting better, just the opposite is true. It doesn’t even have to be the news or world events, just check out the music and the lyrics or the things on the silver screen. I would classify myself as someone who enjoys a good sci-fi plot , but we are not becoming Star Wars, or Star Trek, or any of the romanticize things we read in books or see in movies….sorry!
- The pursuit of humanistic ideas, will most definitely have you trusting in yourself, your achievements and accomplishments . We will seek to find meaning and significance in things that have a temporal or temporary leaning towards fulfillment. It will on some level set off the rewards part of our brains, that puff us up , as we reach around to pet ourselves on the back.
- We look for meaning and significance in the most shallow of things. Many times we will judge and gage life as if we are looking at someone’s resume and we are scanning it for the highlights. We are often judging someone’s success or failures based on possessions, accomplishments and the accolades of other people. We do very much the same thing with people’s social media post , a dating profile, or where they went to school or their zip code. Our default all to often is I’m better or I don’t measure up somehow. We unleash the green eyed monster of envy, or we add a few more pounds of air to an already over inflated ego☺️☺️. We all to often will associate someone with what they do, as to who they are. Just as we are so much more than our worse moments in life, we are more than what we do to earn a living. It doesn’t matter the diversity of being a doctor or a ditch digger, people are more than what is on the outside. The doctor could be a secret pedophile and the ditch digger could be someone who devotes all of their free time to a literacy program, but we can’t tell that by just judging and observing the outside. We should not to seek to be like other flawed individuals, when we often don’t know who they truly are.
- I spoke earlier about the things that I allow my peepers to view, and I’m here to tell you that it all matters. We need to know that the things that we take into our system matters and it will influence you in some shape form or fashion. Most people on the outside will cast their vote that porn is bad, but it continues to grow it’s audience by leaps and bounds each year. I’m not going to rail against it because it’s influence on the culture is very apparent, but I want to raise the caution flag on the things that we don’t see as toxic, but are on some level are , just as toxic. If you are someone who spends any amount of time online, then you should absolutely be aware of cookies. This is a form AI artificial intelligence, where they track you and your activity online. So whatever you view, you will get more of the same kind of content. It’s doesn’t matter if you are watching cute videos of kittens, shopping for a lawn tractor, or the latest political bad news, you will just get more of similar content. Sometimes it’s helpful , but more times than not, it’s not something that moves us in a positive direction , even if we just waste half of the day watching mindless dribble. ☺️ So much loss of productivity. We don’t get that watching negative and mean spirited videos, turn us into what we observe in media. We become vile and argumentative, and callus, without often knowing why or even observing our behavior as it gradually becomes what we take in from media. The even most sad part is that as we watch and listen to more and more content, we loose our objectivity as to whether it’s true or not and we just take it all in with little regard to it’s truthfulness or not. The hook is in and they just continue to reel you in as if you are a unsuspecting catfish waiting to be pulled into the boat and hit across the head with a club.☺️☺️ People can be so quick to talk about faith as blindly following, but this is the pristine example of that☺️☺️. My confession is watching videos of husband’s and wives where they take shots at one another. On the surface it’s just a chuckle, but it has made me more cynical about and towards women and even the concept of a healthy relationship and even marriage itself. See in my mind I know that these skits are put together by couples to make money through the ads and the followings that it creates. They are done with the objective to be funny, but I also take away a subliminal message from it as well, and each reel makes me just the tiniest little bit darker without being terribly aware of it. So it doesn’t have to be something as dark as porn to have an impact.
- As we hone in on certain types of material and often will give it incredible amounts of our free time, it will often make us feel more confident about some things more than we should. It’s like someone watching a lot of gun videos online, but has never owned or handled one, it’s a false narrative between what could be and what actually is ☺️☺️. Two final observations for me today as we view others through the lens of us being better than or not so much ! Other people aren’t the standard that we should be comparing ourselves to as we parade around on our high horse of moral superiority. The standard is a holy and righteous God , who blazed the trail through living a sinless life and when you accomplish that, then you can have something to be proud about and boast in….no takers?☺️☺️. My other little nugget is , when we are online looking for UFOs and all other sorts of sort after material, why don’t we give God and matters of faith the same benefit of the doubt that we give to our favorite political talking head.☺️☺️ We are so quick to dismiss or belittle and disregard the truth of God’s word. How about you put that in your search engine and let it to start sending you similar material and see if you can refute the truth opposed to just ignoring it and doubting it’s validity.
- Two thousand years ago or so , Jesus had a cousin by the name of John. His cousin ended up in jail just before the end of his life. He sent a message to Jesus asking Him if He was indeed the promised one of God or should they be on the lookout for another. . Jesus’s reply was to tell him what they had seen Him do and the things that He said. In all of our seeking, comparing, and searching for truth, meaning and significance, have we ever found anything that can match up to His statement of, it is finished! That is a call to the end of the seeking and striving for significance. So, why the culture is constantly shifting and changing . The message of Jesus’s gospel is unchanging, time tested and proven to be true.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
- Reply
- ,
- Reply All
- or
- Forward
Send
