Look! I can write in colors, now! I LOVE colors. So much. Guess what I'm doing right now? Eating out of a Cookies 'n Cream ice cream carton. I poured Hershey's chocolate syrup all over the last 5-6 bites and am eating it. Hey, that's the joy of living on my own. My mom can't come in and say, "Taryn, that's so gross, why wouldn't you put that in a bowl?" No... now my room mates are responsible for keeping me in line.
But none of them are around right now, so I'm not too worried about it. :-) The way I see it... I'm going to polish this ice cream off, and then throw the carton away... without having to worry about washing the bowl I put it in! So. Really, I'M the one thinking here. I'M the clever one. I'm saving myself the trouble of rinsing a bowl out and putting it in the dishwasher.
Pink is my favorite color. Today, I wore a pink Gateway Woods shirt and a pink watch, and I have a funny story about that. So, I went to my piano lessons today and my piano teacher sat back to listen to me play, and right after I started he put a hand up to stop me. In all seriousness, he confessed, "I have to apologize. If I had known," he said, gesturing to my outfit, "I would have bought a pink piano for you to play on."
Wouldn't it be nice if I color-coded all of my topics within my posts? Then, if you got bored of one of my topics, you could jsut skip it and know exactly where the new topic picked up!
Yeah, but I'm not going to do that because then you will all get lazy and never read my posts thoroughly. Not that most of you do, anyway. I've heard it said more than once, "Taryn, I just read the first sentence and then the last sentence of all your posts." Well, thanks guys. Thanks a lot. We'll see how long it takes me to recognize all you non-readers when I become a famous author some day and accidently forget to dedicate the book to you...
Anyway, onto more important things, tonight was an amazing sermon in Bloomington. I feel like every minister feels obligated to preach about New Orleans, which he DID bring it up, but with a new twist. He said that we all sit and say, "Yeah, those poor people," and maybe even do what we can by praying and sending some supplies. "BUT," Bro. Ron said, "I believe there is something spiritual that we can benefit from this." He took us to Ezekial 47 and then talked about the levee built in NO and how it wasn't sufficient for the huge storm that came through. Yet, so many times, that is completely like our spiritual life if we aren't careful. If we don't build it high enough, sin and evil will flood in with it's overpowering force. Are we strong enough spiritually? He talked about Adam and Eve in the Garden, and asked, "Who let Satan in? Who let him into the Garden?" God allowed him to be there. And Adam and Eve would have been fine had they not focused so much on details... Ron said that some of us are details people. We focus on the here and the now and the nitty gritty details and get caught up in them so much so that we forget about the big picture. But stepping back from the numerous surrounding puzzle pieces and looking at the picture on the box gives us a whole new perspective... and it causes us to realize that we need faith. Faith in God! That's what it is ALL about! Adam and Eve lacked that... if they hadn't gotten so caught up in those details and had just had faith in God, oh how things would be different. They let the walls of the levee break and in came the flood of sin.
Ron left us with a beautiful illustration. He asked us if we had seen the Target sign (for the store). Well, yeah. And what is it composed of? A bull's eye in the center, with ONE concentric circle outside of it. He said, "Imagine the bull's eye as Heaven (and God), and the surrounding concentric circle as faith."
Target is one of my favorite stores, and now it really is. I will never shop there again and not think of that! If we are to press on to Heaven, we have to surround ourselves by FAITH!
Something I often think about is the fact that I hear great sermons ALL of the time, but how often do I really apply their teachings to my life? No, really. It's a real challenge. Spiritual application is often one of the hardest things to do. It's easy to sit in church on Sunday and nod my head and agree inwardly to great points that the minister is making... but what am I doing about it? I find that the things that convict me the most are the hardest things to apply. Yet with God's overflowing amount of grace, I can.
Another thing Ron said tonight that stuck out to me was, "Christians shouldn't have any reason to frown (and granted, he said, we're going to go through hardships and that's understandable). That made me smile because some days I kind of have a scowl on my face, sometimes even for no reason and an instant smile comes because I think, "I'm a Christian, I need to smile to show others I have joy!" I pass tons of college students every day on campus and around here, and if they can't look at me and see that I'm happy... that's too bad, really. I want to spread the Jesus-Others-Yourself JOY!
May God bless you all today! Show your love for Jesus on your face! Others will notice...
I love you all!
T
2 comments:
Just for the record. I would like to say I've read every word of every post you've written, so I totally expect a book dedication someday! ;)
That's a neat analogy about the levee's! I like it.
I also give a big amen to the thought of how hard spiritual application can be. I too find myself in that situation a lot. I hear a great sermon, and feel conviction, and then walk out of church and never do a thing about it. I want to change that.
Luke-
If nothing else, you will receive the "faithful blogger reader" award. But one of my life goal's IS to write a book, so the dedication thing could actually happen...
Heather-
Hmmm... well, I definitely have all the characters :-) but that's all I got. I'll let you know when I finish the prologue so that you can start adding "Heather's commentary" at the bottom.
Although, you're not allowed to have bias to your character! It'll ruin the book.
What did we say the title was going to be?
T
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