Are we getting it all wrong?

Sometimes, late at night, when it's just me and mind alone, I think. I know that sounds hard to believe, but I do, really! All joking aside, the stuff that runs through my head goes a little like this.....do you really deserve to call yourself a Christian? What exactly about me makes me entitled to such a powerful name like "Christian" ? You know that you are so flawed that even entertaining that thought seems wrong. Now in my Lord's defense, He doesn't let these rogue thoughts go on long. Immediately I am comforted with a real answer to these questions. You are entitled because I say so............I know you are flawed, I made you, and I love you still........

I think that part of the reason I run these thoughts through my head, is because I have a hard time getting it in my head that being Christian doesn't mean being perfect, it means being forgiven. I know in my heart that I will never, NEVER, be perfect, but I will be loved and taken care of. That doesn't stop my head from being ignorantly doubtful. (that's why you give your heart to God and not just your head!)

On a side note, I kinda' feel that it doesn't help that Christianity as a whole puts on a face of perfection. I keep trying to ask myself why I don't seem to have it all together like such and such, when in reality they don't have it all together either. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but how much closer could we all be if we stopped putting on faces, and let people in close enough to know our flaws? Soldiers who come back from war have close, intimate ties to the men and women with whom they served. Not only because they all went through the same Hell and survived, but because they went through the same Hell, seeing each other at their weakest and strongest, relying on each other as if their life depended on it.....because it did. And what is this life to a Christian, if not a war for our souls and salvation? If we could come to truly, deeply know and rely on each other, I believe that our own inner struggles, and the struggles of teaching Christ to others would be so much easier....

So let me be the first, and hopefully not the last to open up ..................I am weak, I am flawed, I struggle every day, I fall short more often than not, I lose my temper, I say things that I don't mean to say, I end up asking for forgiveness more often than anything else..........and I start the next day trying harder to do better.......


OK, so I've rambled on long enough..........so here is some more fortune cookie wisdom for you Zane.......I heard this on the radio the other day " Victory in this life is not the absence of failure on a daily basis, but our victory is in the fact that God will love and forgive you in spite of those failures......"

Eric C.

My big day.........

Have you ever been in a situation, where you really don't want to do what you know you have to do? That was me last night. I did not want to get up for work today. Not just your typical, gee I wish I didn't have to work today. It was more like, my work place is an absolute drain on my life force, and I want to hold on to my soul a little while longer,.......and it's snowing. So I do what any good person does, I turn to God, and I pray.....Lord, if I'm meant to stay home tomorrow, let me know, ok ? Now it may have been that I was being selfish, it's not like I had anything supremely important to do at home today, but something deep inside me kinda' struggled with this. Call off, or go in, call off, go in. So that 's why I left it up to the BIG Guy.

So that was the prayer I repeated throughout the night, as the snow turned to ice and kept falling. And as I lay down for bed, I still didn't really have an answer.

So now it's 5:30 am and I'm up and getting ready for work, I'm still about halfway thinkin'....."you know God, it's not too late to tell me stay home today...." , and as I'm finishing my shower, I'm thinkin' " I guess I was just meant to go in today. "

Fast forward about an hour, and you'll find me in my car nudged up against a guardrail. About 15 minutes into my drive to work, I hit a patch of ice and ran head first at a whopping 20 MPH into a guardrail ( I'm fine...little sore from being tensed up, car needs a little work though). And after I call work on my cell phone to call off, it hit me that at that very moment GOD was saying to me....." Sorry I didn't get back to ya' sooner, go ahead and take the day off, I got this one" I know that God is like, everywhere, and you know, created everything, but as a Comedian, he has poor timing.

Bu seriously, there's a lesson here.........even when everything in you says give up, give in, go ahead shake off the responsibility, life will work out better when you do what you know you should do. I think that it means more to God for you to put out the effort, and let Him help you through it. Now I suppose in my case, just getting up, and attempting to drive to work on ice was proof of effort, and I also guess that home is really where I was supposed to be today.

Let me end this blog with a little bit of fortune cookie wit.......1) Be Careful What You Pray For....you just might get it and 2) When God speaks, sometimes it can hit you like a sledgehammer, other times it's more like a guardrail..........