OK.
Dear autumn colors
when will you be found outside
as well as inside?
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
thirty-sixth bird
Make a haiku about something that happened today. Bonus: illustrate it!
OK.
Dear autumn colors
when will you be found outside
as well as inside?
OK.
Dear autumn colors
when will you be found outside
as well as inside?
Monday, October 17, 2011
sickly bird
What to do when not feeling great?
Draw lines, of course!
I know, I know. Lines in different colors. So creative!
Draw lines, of course!
I know, I know. Lines in different colors. So creative!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
walrus bird
The gist is that someone said they would hate to be a walrus, because of being monstrously fat and only having two tiny flippers for propulsion. Someone else noted that walruses are tremendously graceful in the water. Or, in space.
Hence:
Behold the graceful space walrus!
Hence:
Behold the graceful space walrus!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
it takes some time to realize reality sometimes
Arrogance is deadly. This is my realization of the day. I've realized it before, but I tend to forget what I find painful, especially if this is a pain that requires me to change. I don't generally like myself, but at least I'm familiar, right?
Ps 119: 65-72: Do good to Your servant according to Your word, O LORD. Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I believe in Your commands. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey Your word. You are good, and what You do is good; teach me You decrees. Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart. Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in Your law. It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn Your decrees. The law from Your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.
Here's the trick: the arrogant that smear me with lies can be other people, but, more often than not, is me. I smear myself with lies.
The filth I've been smearing myself with lately has been several connected topics:
--I need to do whatever it takes to make sure people like me.
--People don't like me.
--Trying to get people to like me is humility and service.
--Low self-esteem isn't low self-esteem; it's clear thinking.
--I can do things for myself that aren't ungodly, and this focus on myself will not be ungodly because the actions themselves are not ungodly.
Low self-esteem is arrogance. I know we know this, but do we believe it? Do we act on it? Do we change because of this knowledge?
Does it hurt when people are cruel or selfish or thoughtless or really and truly don't like me? Yes. Do I wonder with just about every single person I know? Yes. Do I see my identity in what others think about me? Yes. Is this behavior ungodly? Absolutely.
Did you ever stop to think that God might let us feel massively insecure because we've chosen to focus on ourselves, chosen to make ourselves miserable, chosen to find ourselves without Him? I have inflicted acute misery on myself by being obsessed with myself and, therefore, with what everyone else thinks of me. If I obsessed over what everyone thought of me and God didn't let me be miserable, this would mean that He no longer loved me, that He had abandoned me to my own way, that He had disowned me. The revelation of my sin is not so that I'll feel worse about myself, but is the love of a disciplining Father who wants me to know His goodness, His way, His love. But I have to cling to Him. I have to follow Him. I have to conform myself to Him. I have to be identified in Him and Him alone. Otherwise, I've just gained some useless information that I refuse to apply to real life.
So, I've got to change, or abandon the way of God. I can't stay the same and go where God is going. I can't. Sometimes we like to think that, as long as we've realized what our sin is, we're ok. God will still let us come along. But, He wants us to change. When He shows us what we need to change, He really means it. And we can't go any further with Him until we do. The discipline of God is love. The discipline of God is good. And the discipline of God is painful.
Sometimes we think that if we give everything to God that He'll take away all of the things we love, the things we like about ourselves, our personalities, our quirks, our dreams and desires, and will leave us hollow little goody two-shoes cookie cutter Christians. But He says that in Him we have our being, we have our existence and our identity. We are ourselves as He intended. If God created me full of quirks and weird humor, why would He take that away from me when I submitted to Him? Would He not perfect me in His image, removing the things that are unlike Him? Would He not make me more useful, more myself because I'm more like Him? People free in God are the most fun you can have in a room because they only care about what God thinks, so they're going to be themselves and do what they were created to do as God intended them to be and do before God and men to the glory of God.
At the same token, how much of your self is God worthy of? Where do we draw the line? Where do we decide to stop giving God what He is asking of us because He is asking too much and we're too valuable? What if God demanded everything and never gave any of it back to me? Would He not still be good? Would He not still only do good? Goodness is defined by God. God doesn't do good things, God does things and they are good because He does them. Do I trust that? Do I trust Him enough to give Him everything and know that whatever He does is right and best and the only possible good?
I do not define myself. You don't define me, either. Only God knows who I am, and I only become who I am when I know God and am known by God and am completely owned by God.
My confession to you is that I sought your approval through this blog. Like me. Like what I make. Like me because you like what I make. Think more highly of me because you think highly of what I make. There can't possibly be any harm or sin in some little arts and crafts, right?
This is not only foolish, but completely arrogant and ungodly.
The point of this whole blog is going to change. The content may not change much, but the glory, if any is to be found, is for God and to God and to God only.
The challenge I bring before you is to find out who you are in God. Otherwise, you'll be miserable. Otherwise, you'll be uncertain. Otherwise, you'll live your life striving and striving to get something without God that He would love to just give you.
Because He loves you.
Because He wants to for His own.
Because He made you on purpose.
Because He made you for a purpose, and walking in that purpose is pure and overwhelming joy.
If I'm afraid of looking stupid, I'm afraid of the wrong things. I'm looking to the wrong people and I'm going to lose.
Ps 119: 65-72: Do good to Your servant according to Your word, O LORD. Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I believe in Your commands. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey Your word. You are good, and what You do is good; teach me You decrees. Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart. Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in Your law. It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn Your decrees. The law from Your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.
Here's the trick: the arrogant that smear me with lies can be other people, but, more often than not, is me. I smear myself with lies.
The filth I've been smearing myself with lately has been several connected topics:
--I need to do whatever it takes to make sure people like me.
--People don't like me.
--Trying to get people to like me is humility and service.
--Low self-esteem isn't low self-esteem; it's clear thinking.
--I can do things for myself that aren't ungodly, and this focus on myself will not be ungodly because the actions themselves are not ungodly.
Low self-esteem is arrogance. I know we know this, but do we believe it? Do we act on it? Do we change because of this knowledge?
Does it hurt when people are cruel or selfish or thoughtless or really and truly don't like me? Yes. Do I wonder with just about every single person I know? Yes. Do I see my identity in what others think about me? Yes. Is this behavior ungodly? Absolutely.
Did you ever stop to think that God might let us feel massively insecure because we've chosen to focus on ourselves, chosen to make ourselves miserable, chosen to find ourselves without Him? I have inflicted acute misery on myself by being obsessed with myself and, therefore, with what everyone else thinks of me. If I obsessed over what everyone thought of me and God didn't let me be miserable, this would mean that He no longer loved me, that He had abandoned me to my own way, that He had disowned me. The revelation of my sin is not so that I'll feel worse about myself, but is the love of a disciplining Father who wants me to know His goodness, His way, His love. But I have to cling to Him. I have to follow Him. I have to conform myself to Him. I have to be identified in Him and Him alone. Otherwise, I've just gained some useless information that I refuse to apply to real life.
So, I've got to change, or abandon the way of God. I can't stay the same and go where God is going. I can't. Sometimes we like to think that, as long as we've realized what our sin is, we're ok. God will still let us come along. But, He wants us to change. When He shows us what we need to change, He really means it. And we can't go any further with Him until we do. The discipline of God is love. The discipline of God is good. And the discipline of God is painful.
Sometimes we think that if we give everything to God that He'll take away all of the things we love, the things we like about ourselves, our personalities, our quirks, our dreams and desires, and will leave us hollow little goody two-shoes cookie cutter Christians. But He says that in Him we have our being, we have our existence and our identity. We are ourselves as He intended. If God created me full of quirks and weird humor, why would He take that away from me when I submitted to Him? Would He not perfect me in His image, removing the things that are unlike Him? Would He not make me more useful, more myself because I'm more like Him? People free in God are the most fun you can have in a room because they only care about what God thinks, so they're going to be themselves and do what they were created to do as God intended them to be and do before God and men to the glory of God.
At the same token, how much of your self is God worthy of? Where do we draw the line? Where do we decide to stop giving God what He is asking of us because He is asking too much and we're too valuable? What if God demanded everything and never gave any of it back to me? Would He not still be good? Would He not still only do good? Goodness is defined by God. God doesn't do good things, God does things and they are good because He does them. Do I trust that? Do I trust Him enough to give Him everything and know that whatever He does is right and best and the only possible good?
I do not define myself. You don't define me, either. Only God knows who I am, and I only become who I am when I know God and am known by God and am completely owned by God.
My confession to you is that I sought your approval through this blog. Like me. Like what I make. Like me because you like what I make. Think more highly of me because you think highly of what I make. There can't possibly be any harm or sin in some little arts and crafts, right?
This is not only foolish, but completely arrogant and ungodly.
The point of this whole blog is going to change. The content may not change much, but the glory, if any is to be found, is for God and to God and to God only.
The challenge I bring before you is to find out who you are in God. Otherwise, you'll be miserable. Otherwise, you'll be uncertain. Otherwise, you'll live your life striving and striving to get something without God that He would love to just give you.
Because He loves you.
Because He wants to for His own.
Because He made you on purpose.
Because He made you for a purpose, and walking in that purpose is pure and overwhelming joy.
If I'm afraid of looking stupid, I'm afraid of the wrong things. I'm looking to the wrong people and I'm going to lose.
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