Today is a good day, for I have come to several "realizations"... The first realization came as I was thinking through this whole process that I've written about lately, about personally not wanting to be thought of as "religious" or the stigma that the term "christian" has been aquiring... I came to realize that, all too often "christians" come off as superior, or put themselves above others... Often very judgemental or hypocritical... As Christ-followers we are not supperior, we are not called to be "better", but to be "different". We are called to live with a different perspective, an eternal one, and not be anxious about those things this life throws at us, about what we have or don't have, about our wants and needs... We are to be anxious for nothing... Our perspective is different, not superior. I know I'm certainly no better than the next guy, for we are all made from the same material. But I know only I can own my story, only I can take what has been entrusted to me and develop it... If I learn to be loving, or compassionate, or hospitable, or giving, that doesn't make me better than others in this world- just different. I need to own what's been entrusted to me; I need to steward my personal resources to the best of my abilities. That doesn't make me superior, I just have a different perspective, so I focus my energies differently. Not better, just different.
The other realization I came to is that if I properly learn to renew my mind, if my internal focus is correct, then that which happens externally is just no big deal. I've written that we seek to stay busy because we fear facing ourselves, our minds... Yet when we learn to do just that we can learn some awesome truths... If we can learn to live in awareness of our minds, and learn to renew them, then what happens to our bodies just doesn't matter, for we are free in our minds. The mind is what sets us apart from other creation, and it is the mind that we still fear the most. It is why solitary confinment is so effective as a means of punishment- we are alone with our mind, and facing ourselves scares us to death! And yet, we are the only ones who can hold our minds captive, for we we have the ability to control and renew our minds to whatever pattern we need to in order to deal with life... But learning to be free in our minds completely revamps our perspective... Those areas of stress and anxiety are suddenly no big deal! The perspective of the renewed mind is, that no matter what happens to me in this life it cannot seperate me from the love of my Heavenly Father, for I am a treasured child of the Most High God!
No comments:
Post a Comment