Follower or leader?


Sometimes I get hung up. I get hung up on mean people, intolerant people, injustice, stupidity, jaywalkers, marketing ad nauseum, well, that's the latest list anyway. I am sure I'll be judgemental about something else later today. You see, that is what this hang up thing is about: me making judgements.
Some might say we need to judge-judge truth in something, judge trustworthiness of a person, judge wisdom in a plan-that sort of thing. Maybe that is true, but that is not what I find I do. I don't go looking for the positive in a thing, I get hung up on the negative of a thing.
Negativity magnet. Pessimist. Brooding. There are words that I used to describe myself. But, over the years, I have been noticing that I find what I look for. If I am searching for the negative, I find it. If I am seeking beauty, I find it. So, judgement depends little on the thing one is looking at, but on the focus of the one looking.
Same thing about the company I keep, the books I read, the TV I stare at, the music I play. I can find myself on either side-the negative or the Good. A person recently reminded me of the phrase, "garbage in-garbage out." Am I compromising my spirit to try and fit in where I have no business being? Am I ignoring the Spirit in favor of man?
If I am focused on God, I seem to bump into beauty, truth, love, joy, wisdom. If I am trusting God, I know that all will work out for His good and His will and so then it is good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At worship services, Catholics make this little gesture before the reading of the Gospel. With the right thumb one draws a tiny cross on the forehead, the lips, the heart while praying
"May Your words be in my thoughts,
on my lips, and in my heart."
I love that. If God's word were always in my thoughts, how much more clean, broad, and focused might my thinking be! If God's words were always on my lips, how much more love and kindness and truth might I utter! If God's words were always in my heart, how much calmer, joyful, compassionate, genuine might I be! Oh, Father, that I might follow Your Word and nothing else!

Comments

Diana said…
Amen, sister. I completely agree.
May 20, 2008 at 10:58 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Carnival: Community

Image
Blog Carnival: Community Community is getting to be a buzzword that hardly seems recognizable.  It has become permanently connected with a metrosexual worship leader at the hip church which has an outreach into some impoverished place.  But is that community? Yesterday I wrote about Facebook's social networking site.  Did you know that there are more than 300 million active users and that 50% of their active users (returned to the site in the last 30 days) log on to Facebook in any given day and that the average user has 130 friends on the site? Is that community? Do we really have a community or do we talk so much about it and request friends by the busload because we desire it intensely? We were made for community.  Creator said it was not good for that first man to be alone.  Even Creator was not alone.  We need to walk with others.  We need our village.  We need them to not only walk with us a...
Read more

He's Calling

Image
I didn't sleep well last night. I kept waking up, wanting to write. Those nights are annoying, particularly when I am working 12 hours the next day so I have no business getting out of bed to write. But here is the thing that kept bugging me...what if God is calling us not to greatness, but to smallness? Yeah, weird thing to keep a person awake, huh? Our group that went to the Leadership Summit are praying for ways that we can put what we learned into practice. Look around your neighborhood-there is so much need. Look around your coworkers-enough need to depress you. Look around the world-so much need it can paralyze. And then I think about this thing with callings... What if it isn't about being called to a thing, but to be like Him? What if it doesn't matter where I am or what I do but how I do it? What if His only desire is for me to respond to this broken world as He does? Right where I am? Jesus stopped to love the kids, he held up important people to talk to a woman, ...
Read more

The Reason for the Season

Image
This post is participating in today's blog carnival on the word LOVE.  To read other posts, click here . As all my friends texted holiday wishes this Christmas, one stood out.  This one seemed to go against all the "Keep Christ in Christmas" and "Jesus is the reason for the season" bumper stickers.  This text said simply, U r the reason 4 the season. At first I thought she wrote it incorrectly, so I read it again looking for the typo.  But, there wasn't one. That's when it hit me: without me, there wouldn't be a need for Christmas. Ok, so that sounds somewhat egocentric, but hang in there with me.  God is this crazy amazing being made of love.  It is out of that crazy, amazing love that he chose to step into flesh, to show us that God does love us and that he didn't abandon us to the evil that surrounds us, to bring us back to this relationship.  God, the first and greatest lover, pursues us, rescues us.  O...
Read more