weeklythoughtexchange

A friend of mine recently made this observation: “You might not be able to change a person’s heart, but you might be what causes his heart to change.”   This thought brought me great encouragement. We can be so aware of what we can’t do that we overlook what is being done through us – without our interference.  Let’s be the willing vessels that bring positive change to this world.

I just completed World Vision’s 30-Hour Famine with my students. This is my 4th year of participating in this event and it has proven to be an excellent opportunity for raising awareness, not just about world hunger and need, but also about wasteful tendencies. As a society we speak passionately about protecting the environment and helping the needy; we are also a charitable people, ready to give of our surplus.  Yet sometimes our habits don’t align with our heart.

Think about it: we drive when we can walk, we sit inside with lights on and AC running when we could be outside, we trash what we could reuse, recycle, or repair, and we throw away food simply because we don’t like it, put too much on our plates, or because it’s not been refrigerated for a couple of hours. Our society promotes these wasteful habits through fear of lawsuits (when it comes to restaurants or supermarkets and food) or for profit (if people conserve gas, energy, or products there will be less consumerism).

The previous paragraph was harsh, I know, and once again I include myself in my generalizations. I am drawn to ease, preferring to drive rather than walk if I’m in a rush or buying something new instead of repairing what’s broken.  I don’t want to get sick from eating bad food. However, we cannot deny the fact that we are able to choose ease and luxury because we are a priviliged society, and we are a minority. The majority of people in the world struggle for one meal a day that often comes from the refuse pile. They wear rags and sleep in shelters constructed of corrugated metal and trash bags.  They long for what we throw away.

So I challenge you to embrace your luxury of choice. Change one wasteful habit this month and add another one next month. We don’t have to be ashamed of our status or our wealth; we can view them as an opportunity to make a difference one little choice at a time.

Have you ever seen the young child’s version of hide-and-seek, where tiny hands are placed over tightly closed eyes and a little voice calls out, “You can’t see me!”? The innocent mind of the child simply assumes that if he can’t see the person with whom he’s interacting then he must be hidden from view.  Ironically, we never outgrow the game.

Every person who has ever existed or ever will exist is a pro at the game of hide-and-seek and they foolishly play it with a most impressive Being – the Almighty God. There are some who want to completely deny His existence so that they do not have to be held accountable for their lifestyle choices and for a sense of complete independence.  There are others who acknowledge God but ignore Him most of the time with a simple, “He does His thing and I do mine. We leave each other alone.” Finally, there is a third group of people who claim the name, ‘Christian.’

I write from experience when I say that Christians are clever in their hide-and-seek tactics. We adamantly state that we have a relationship with God and that we know Him very well – so well, in fact, that we know He enjoys the game every once in a while. We verbally stand up for our faith when we are with each other but when our comfort threatens to be compromised our hands go over our eyes and we deceive ourselves into thinking that He doesn’t see what we’re doing – holding on to offense, nurturing bitterness in our hearts, choosing football over Christian fellowship or sleep over reading the Bible, gossiping about a friend, laughing about foul language on TV, walking by the hurting stranger, mocking someone who is struggling, forming cliques rather than separating them, and the list goes on.

This is written with an open hand and not a finger pointed in judgement because I count myself in the winning ranks of hide-and-seek players. My eyes have been opened to my skill in the game. When I counsel others on how to deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ I am forced to ask myself, “And what about you?” Make no mistake about it – Christians need a Savior too. The difference between us and those who deny God’s interest in their lives is that we have claimed the Name. Do our actions match our claim?

I was slammed with people’s opinions this week. I encountered hints of prejudice based on ethnicity; I was corrected about many things and left wondering why many people find it so easy to correct me instead of others; and then I was hard on myself by saying, “If you could have said or done that better, why didn’t you? What a wasted opportunity.”  The capstone to my week arrived in a bizarre fashion.

I was at our busy intersection when the sound of screeching tires grabbed my attention. I saw a lady who had nearly run a red light. She caught herself in time and was reversing back into her lane. The driver to my right was shaking his head and I could almost hear him saying, “Crazy woman driver!” My initial reaction was to think, “How could she do something that stupid?” but then I stopped myself and pondered why everyone is so free with their opinions. We only judge because at that moment we’re not doing the same thing as the one receiving our judgement. “But for the grace of God am I.”  Less than 3 minutes later I almost ran a red light myself, though certainly not on purpose, and I knew exactly what it felt like to be in her shoes.

I believe we only judge to make ourselves feel better. I am hard on myself when I don’t succeed in perfection and thus my reflex is to find imperfections in others to prove that I must be doing something right since I’m not making their mistakes.  However, the satisfaction in that is only temporary.  Not long ago I was making a deposit at the bank and there was an elderly homeless man sitting on the curb. He would stop the occasional passerby and ask them for money, but he never asked me for anything. In my car I had a gigantic Swiss chocolate bar and I gave it to him. He said, “Food, Sistah! Mahalo!” and he reached out to grip my hand. In that moment I knew I was standing in the footprints of Jesus and there is nothing more fulfilling than that.

The next time you make a move to correct or condemn someone, in your heart or with your mouth, stop and consider what life is like in their shoes at that moment. Will your judgement be uplifting and help them to move ahead or will it only serve to weigh them down further?  We all repeatedly make mistakes and for many of them we have no excuse, other than that we’re human. Yet in the moments when we’re thinking clearly, let’s choose to do the right thing.

I have noticed that sometimes my weeks have themes. The theme of this past week was communication. It seemed like I kept encountering situations where I was miscommunicating with someone else – a coworker, student, family member, or friend. These situations prompted me to begin thinking about this infamous concept. How does one communicate and for what reasons?

At the moment I am particulary aware of 3 different obstacles in communication. I believe these obstacles cover all aspects of human interaction.

1) Gender~Communication between individuals is difficult in and of itself, yet when you add opposite sexes to the mix it becomes even more trying.  Males and females, whether they be children, teens, or adults rarely see eye-to-eye. Men want small bits of information given at frequent intervals so they don’t have to be still for too long at any one moment; women like the stage to be set, the setting to be described, and the feelings expressed as the information is given.  Men want to solve the problem; women simply want to share the problem to receive sympathy.  Men communicate to live; women live to communicate.  There are exceptions to every rule, I know, but this is what I have observed and encountered when it comes to male-female communication.

2) Age~When was the last time you tried to teach a middle schooler?   Or what about the music you listen to versus the music your grandfather enjoys? Have you discussed IPods, IPads, or Facebook with your dad recently? These are all things that matter to the 20-somethings and younger of our society, but are very difficult to grasp for the Baby Boomer generation and beyond. We all live in the same society, though in different time zones, and we all depend on one another.

3) Interest~Back to teaching middle schoolers. Every day I battle conveying knowledge to youngsters who really could care less (for the most part). Somehow I need to cause them to want to learn material that has little to no impact on their life right now. Why should they care if a clause is dependent or independent, or if an adjective is limiting or not? Who cares about when Marco Polo did his exploring or who that dude, Hammurabi, was? Yet it is something they are required to learn.  In every relationship there is someone with the greater sincerity and desire to maintain the interaction, and someone who counts on the other one to make the most effort. Do you ever feel like you’re the only one trying to communicate?

Those are the obstacles I’ve noticed and at this point I can’t say that I have all the answers. All I know is that I want to communicate better because I would like to know that people value communication with me.  What are your thoughts?

Last week I wrote about technology and reflected on whether it’s an enemy or ally to us, especially the younger generations. I seemed to emphasize the negative impact it is having on our diminishing autonomy and privacy, and I don’t rescind my thoughts on that. However, to only emphasize the negative is not fair either.  You see, this past week I was extremely blessed by technology: I received especially encouraging e-mails from a couple of long-distance friends, sent out e-mails to friends who needed an uplifting thought, found an old song that I needed for a church event, researched certain information I needed for lesson plans, became friends with people on Facebook who I hadn’t heard from in a while, began planning an event for the young adults’ ministry at church, and spread the word about dogs needing homes and a service outreach for youth.  Perhaps much of this could be done without texting, e-mail, computers, or Facebook, but some of it could not…and certainly not in the same amount of time.

While technology certainly has its dangers and is, without a doubt, changing the fabric of our society, how can we say the dangers outweigh the benefits? Isn’t it good to reach out, make new connections, and rapidly spread the word about problems and solutions? Perhaps it is more our perspective which matters. If we say something is bad are we actually resigning ourselves to that fact and succumbing to the negative change instead of rising to the challenging and overcoming the evil with good?

Please tell me what you think.

“As you walk through life pursuing depth in your relationship with God, you’ll find yourself more secure because wholeness flows from Him. You’ll find yourself more at rest because peace flows from Him. You’ll find yourself feeling more loved because love flows from Him. You’ll find yourself more alive because life flows from Him. Being close to God will make you feel more at home in your life because we’re all meant to be at home in Him. We were literally created for it.” ~Journey devotional magazine for women

I have experienced the truth of this reflection in my own life. Everything is found in a vibrant relationship with Jesus.

I was recently out with a couple of friends and I asked the question, “What will life be like for our generation 25 years from now?”  There were some quick mental calculations going on as we all figured out how old we would be, and how old our kids might be if we had any.  They shared their thoughts and then inquired about mine. That’s when I summarized my concerns about Technology and I’ll go into more depth here.

Technology – it’s something that younger generations can’t imagine living without. Those of us who were born in the 80’s are probably dependent on it by choice, but the generations after us are fed, entertained, and taught by it. Think about it – with a few clicks of the mouse just about anyone can access everything about you: your name, age, SS #, your interests, hobbies, profession, approximate salary, the cost of your home, even a picture of your driveway! You can go a year without handling any cash since bills can be paid online and your purchases made the same way. Before too long, you might not even have to enter a grocery store, as you may be able to make your purchases online and have them delivered to your doorstep.

Great? Maybe. Think of all the pollution that is elimanted by people socializing, shopping, and working from home. The convenience is out-of -this- world, as everything we need is just a button-click away. The choices are endless because technology allows our purchases to be personalized just for us. The world has become smaller as from our couches we chat with people all around the world. Distance has been scaled down to fit a computer screen.

The cost? High. We may be limiting environmental pollution by using less transporation and less paper for mail, but moral pollution is also a mere mouse-click away. Pornography can be accessed by a slip of a key in Google Search and marriages can end in a chatroom. Autonomy can disappear as we allow convenience to erase caution and privacy is a few years away from history. I haven’t even begun to touch on the consequences technology will have on the interpersonal skills of our children (that is for another blog).

So what about Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Ipods, Ipads, electronic transactions, Amazon, chatrooms, webcams, Droids, Ebay, and the myriads of other things I don’t even know about? Are they truly moving us forward or are they actually taking us back to the future?

“In His grip”~I saw this closing signature on an e-mail and I appreciated it because I could visualize myself firmly held by my Savior and Creator. Nothing can loosen His grip on my heart and life.

On one particular morning this past week I was sipping my hot chocolate and casually perusing a Christmas book that had been left on the dining-room table on its way to be packed up with all of the other Christmas items. It was a book filled with pictures of quaint cottages surrounded by snow and, of course, the lighted windows allowed a glimpse of the delicately decorated Christmas tree inside. The pictures were partnered with paragraphs of Christmas memories and traditions, sprinkled with comments of child laughter and savory gingerbread.

As I was reading I happened to become aware of my response to the pictures and the stories. I was longing to replicate those traditions in my home; to live in a place that snowed in the winter so my house could resemble the Kinkade-esque cottages that adorn most Christmas cards; to compliment my decorating with cinnamon apple candles and gingerbread men.  Why?

I would call it ‘soul warmth.’ It is that sense of belonging to a place where you’ve always wanted to be; the relief in knowing that the horses are in the barn and the children snuggled in their beds when the storm hits or of making it to the shore before the ocean currents change; the satisfication in a completed to-do list at the end of a Saturday when you sit down to a movie and popcorn; the pleasure in planning an event that everyone enjoys; and the list goes on. 

What causes a warmth of the soul? Humans are always striving to find an equilibrium of the spirit. There is ever some loose end to tie up, some sentence to tweak, some more polishing of the carving to be done. But on occasion we have those moments when everything is just right – there is nothing more to do and what has been done, has been done right. The worries have faded into the shadows, and the future, for the moment, is a promising sunrise. Our hearts are content with life.

We wish every day to be one of soul warmth; unfortunately the hustle and bustle, the scurry and worry, the chaos and confusion of traffic and deadlines and bills and peace-making interrupt our attempts to reach a consistent equilibrium. However, it never hurts to create a sanctuary in your life where you can consistently find that soothing calm. For example, a regular route to walk, a reading corner, a hobby, a playlist of your most uplifting music, or simply light a candle. 

Make your life a haven for yourself and share your joy with others.