Chains Fashioned by Options and Possibilities

After reading a book called Just Do Something, I decided to follow its advice. There are so many options put before us that we just don’t recognize as open doors and so we’re constantly asking God to open doors for us. I think that rather than asking for open doors, we should be asking God to shut doors... or rather in my life there are just so many options, possibilities, and things that I could do but I can’t simply do all of them and fewer choices would be better and easier. I want to empty my life of all the extra things I’ve gathered to myself ‘just in case’ something happens’. I’m bogged down because the possibilities that I’ve stored up, especially in the instance of my clothes and my art stuff. I have so much clothes that I couldn’t possibly wear all of them, I actually only wear a very small amount of the clothes that I own but I play the what if game and so I build up safety nets, collecting clothing articles for every situation and circumstance possible ‘just in case’. It’s exhausting catching up to it all and realizing that most of what I wear everyday can be converted in some way in a different order to fit the circumstance so why do I need all the clothing options? I don’t.

I took the thing of just do something to a level of seeing that I have freedom in God to choose what I want to do and so I just have to choose something. Well I did that and now realize as I try to up-right my life that I was on a different path than one I had wanted. I took it to the extreme and picked a path that was what I wanted to do but not along God’s will. It was an open door in the sense of options between God and world, not a freedom of choice between 2 things that can glorify God. I turned from God in an unintentional way and yet at the same time I think I knew subconsciously that I was just dropping off of the God path to try out something that I liked and wanted instead.

A few Sundays ago, the high-school group at church were in Ecclesiastes where it talks about how everything is meaningless and then talking about grace and how if we know God’s grace, we will be ever joyful all the time. How things are only meaningful when you have God at its center and the constant drive of furthering the kingdom and such, constant striving for and toward God. Words are just symbols, they are meaningless until we give them meaning, until we make them something. In the same way everything is meaningless until God is at our center and the center of everything and gives our actions, success, failures, time, anything and everything a meaning which is Him. He is our meaning and everything’s meaning and if he is not then that it meaningless. Then a passage was brought up in Matthew talking about how God provides for the bird and flowers and yet these are the least of things so we should not worry about food, what to wear or any of that. Keep it simple. Don’t get bogged down, rely on God for everything and trust in Him.

No promises about it being easy. I guarantee that it won’t be. The question is this. Is something worth believing in and following if you don’t have to strive to achieve it? Is an effortless faith really faith?

Take care and have a wonderful day.

The Creator's Love: Conditional or Unconditional?

I am currently reading a book by Erwin Raphael McManus called Soul Cravings. The section I just read is titled 'What must I do to be loved?' and it talks about how we fail to grasp and understand the fact that God's love is unconditional.

If we allow ourselves to believe that God's love is conditional then we are all in a lot of trouble.  

The idea that God's love is conditional becomes the base line to all religions. The concept that God loves but on condition so if we meet the conditions we gain the love. Love is something to be attained. Forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, grace are all different words we use but that all mean love. In this, all religions appear to be the same. They give God a name and a set of rules that we are to follow in order to gain his forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, grace -- LOVE.  I think this is why a lot of people see religions as a lot of different ways of getting the same thing. Some girls want flowers and chocolates, others want fancy dinners, and there are some who want meaningful conversations. What is it all in search for? To be loved and find love. Some people pray five times a day, others have rosaries, memorize incantations, burn incense, light candles -- all for the same purpose: the acceptance of their creator. 

Based off of this, it is absurd to think that any religion would somehow get us closer to God. It's like falling in love with someone who has no interest in you. They like the attention you give them but have no intention of returning it. It's a one-sided relationship. They like you pursuing them so they get the brilliant idea to become more elusive so that you pursue them even more. If the concept that God's love is conditional and we must follow a set of rules in order to receive it and be accepted, it is better to say that God is some good-looking, smug, arrogant divine being who loves being the center of all our attention and affection.

The truth is that God's Love is unconditional. This is where a lot of people have a problem with Jesus. For centuries the church has been telling us that God's love is conditional, that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. Prime focus has been on the sin problem rather than the love problem. This is the only way control is maintained over our lives because if love really is unconditional, what is going to keep us all following the rules? Don't we want people to be good above all else? Where the government has failed, religion has accomplished with an astounding amount of effectiveness:  Keeping people in line.

What if people discovered the actual message of Jesus Christ -- love is unconditional? what if we learned that God is not waiting for us to earn His love but that God has been pursuing us this whole time with His love? That God is passionately pursuing us with unconditional love, and we don't need to do anything to earn it, we just need to accept it?

Unfortunately it's not that simple. You see,  we choose a life of slavery mastered by rituals and legalism over a life of relationship and love. Why? Because we believe in conditional love and doubt the existence of unconditional love. This is why religion works.

There are those who fall into the traps of people who say they speak on God's behalf and that He is waiting for us to pay His ransom so that we can receive His love. Do not fall into the the trap and be duped into thinking that if you give enough money, God's love will be unlocked. Whatever kind of love you can purchase is not the love your soul longs for. If you have to buy love, it's not even worth the price.

Our dilemma: we can't earn love, we cant buy love, and we can't live without it.

We know deep inside our souls that love is unconditional and that if something is claiming to be love but is conditional, then it can't really be love. We know that if it is unconditional, we are neither the sources of it nor the instigators of such a love. This is another piece of our conflict: we want what we do not and cannot give. We long for what we seem incapable of producing.

How is it that we hold on to such a strange idea of unconditional love when we cannot even fathom it? And if love is such a profound emotion why and how is it that we love absolutely everything and anything?
     we love movies
     we love ice cream

     we love sunny days
     we love flying kites
     we love going to the beach
     we love coffee
     we love weekends
 
I think the fact that we love the most meaningless of things tells us more about our capacity to love than we think. What we have described as love has become something so thin and superficial that pretty much anything qualifies as love. If we really knew love-- real, deep , profound love-- then perhaps we wouldn't really love coffee or chocolate.
 
While God may appreciate these things, as the Creator, creation is not the object of his affection. When it comes to love, we exist in a unique category. There are a lot of things that are dispensable to God, he can just re-create them again. You, me, the kid next door, the lady at the cash register, and every other person in this universe are not on that list. Each and every one of us is unique and irreplaceable. "And We are beautiful, fearfully and wonderfully designed. Uniqueness."--Propaganda(spoken word artist)

YOU are the object of God's unconditional love.
Embrace it and spread the news.