seeing things as they are

I was talking to one of the BB guys tonight and during the conversaton he said "I don't get it how you can have a bad week, bad day maybe, but a week?". Well I must admit my first thought was, lucky you mate, the joy of being young. But thankfully I respect teenagers and what they say and thought some more before talking.

Cos the thing is, in some ways he was right.

When I think back on my "bad weeks" I rekon the causes boil down to - doing the wrong thing; not doing what God has clearly told me to do; looking at the bad and forgetting the good; letting the things I do not have overwhelme the things I do.

In the end it's all about focus. If you look at this world and the things that happen - it sucks. I can not imagine any other conclusion to reach. Just now CNN is running tape of a bombing in jakarta, BBC world news has images of fighting in Iraq, google news has stories about deaths in Liberia. About 3000 children died today due to poor hygene. I have a mate with a disease which will mean his final days may come a lot sooner and be just horrible. About 5 men in australia committed sucicide today. Who knows how many people starved, were taking into slavery, murdered, abused - this world sucks.

And if that was all it was - then you would be right - but that is not the whole story - it's like those 3D Magic Eye Puzzle things, you know you squint and squint and squint and you just can't see it. The way you do those is to focus through and past it. looking beyond the surface lets you see what is really there. The harder you stare at the picture before you, the less sense it makes.

This world is the same, when you take God out of the equation of this world - it makes no sense. It sucks. No matter how hard you stare at this world you don't see the full picture - you have to look through the things in front of us, looking up and out of the things that suck in this world, and into the heart of God.

When you look into that heart you see a God who loves, forgives and offers a way back to him.
When you look into the heart of God you see a God who wants what is best for you.
When you look into the heart of God you see that you are loved, loved by the one who made and keeps this world going, who will deal with the evil in this world in His time and in the most ultimate and final way possible.

And you know how I know that, cos God sent His son to die for me - to die for everyone who rebelled against Him. It happened, it's true, He died and rose again to bring me back into a relationship with God and to give me a second chance and a hope that is alive and real.

When I do not look to God - life sucks and is without Hope and reason.
But when I do look to God - life, no matter what it brings, it may hurt me more than I could imagine, but the peace in my heart makes me able to have Hope and see reason.

There is only one way for you to know if what I say if true - try it for yourself.

Serving

Serving people is very hard - it costs, and the person it costs is the person who is serving - but it is better to persevere than to give up when it gets hard.

Ever since the weekend when the BB guys came round for the demo derby car my internet connection has been a bit flakely - I had also noticed that quite a few of the apps on my iMac had been opened, including my personal email program, and the IM that only I use.

So I wasn't exactly feeling positive about the BB guys - clearly mutliple computers and an xbox still wasn't enough, they also had to poke around on my computer.

Anyway I got home today and the net was down - so I poked around on the PC which is the router for the home network, and found that some of the BB guys had decided to install Messenger on the box out the back - this annoyed me a bit cos I had been asked and I said "no, look use the laptop instead, thus allowing two people on MSN". I wasn't happy, but just uninstalled MSN restarted and things seemed fine. Seemed fine.....

I have just finished half an hour of working my way through all the checks you do when your internet connection dies for no reason, eventually I found the problem was loadqm.exe causing my firewall to bring everything to it's knees while it waited for me to allow or disallow the messages loadqm.exe was sending.

I disabled it from the startup items and then deleted it and everything is now fine again [clearly]. But I was quite upset - I had wasted half an hour fixing something, that I would not have had to fix if they had not installed MSN, which I had asked them not to do anyway. So I decided, that's it, no computers, no network, no xbox - next time nothing, work on the car and if you get bored go home.

And then I stopped and thought ...

You see, I let them use my gear because I do believe the things I have are not just for me to use on me and that I am here to serve others [just like Jesus was] and this is one way I can serve the BB guys - it also makes the house a place to hang out so that the BB leaders can use the time to get to know the guys better and have a chance to talk to them about God.

In the end, yes I was put out, but that is a part of service - it is nice when you can serve and not have it cost you - but the reality is that real service costs the server - I have forgotten that, forgotten that I am here to serve and to keep on serving no matter what, Jesus did the same thing on the cross, it wasn't easy [understatement] but he knew that what he was doing was so important for us that He had to do it - and because of what Jesus did anyone who believes and trusts in that can be right with God.

I will talk to the guys the next time they come, and remind them that they are guests who are using stuff that isn't theirs and so they have to look after it - but I will let them use it again because that is one way I can serve them - and serving others is what Jesus did and I want to be like Him.

Footnote: am I perfect? no, far from it, I am just sharing a moment of realisation with you. I hope it encourages my christian brothers and sisters to remember that when we serve it is God we are serving and that it is worth it - and for those who haven't trusted Jesus, to get you to think about Jesus and what He did.