Struggle Is Funny

Thanks StrengthFinder 2.0, for helping me come to understand my Restorative, Harmonious and Intellectual qualities.
Thanks for not pointing out my inherent weaknesses and tendencies toward idol worship, crippling comparison of myself to others and love of my job before my love of God.
Man. 

Sometimes, you have to face your Ugly.
But sometimes you can spend days, weeks, even months occupying yourself with busyness or believing your own lies to keep yourself from having to face your Ugly. Yesterday, I feel like God forced me to. Thank God. I'm the type of person who will resort to every last form of relief before I resort to taking refuge in the Lord. I don't know why this is, but it's always been that way. I guess that's what you call human nature? Maybe. Anyway, yesterday, after what seemed like I was being "caught like a bear by the feet with his hands in the hive who complains of the sting" (I was doing something that was not wise, all the while whining to God about how unhappy I was), I was hit with how good I am at ignoring bad and uncomfortable things, and covering them up with forms of escapism. I mean, I'm really good at ignoring things. And escaping. It's kind of scary. I never thought about it before, but I see it all areas of my life. Socially, spiritually...even with the way I eat. So yesterday I actually sat down, very unwillingly, whining and frowning at having to face my own Ugly, and I searched my heart and mind for discomforts and anxieties and concerns, and ended up pinpointing about 6 different things that were what I considered to be significant problems that I had subconsciously been ignoring. 6. That's a lot! If you're defining them as problems that would cause stress and distraction in life. I know everyone has problems at any given point, but for some reason I have the concept in my head that being problem free = being holy, therefore I've been ignoring my problems.
And not without cost.
Because with it, I've developed about 6 or so habits, or compulsions, that are outlets for me do deal with this stuff I'm not actively dealing with. Isn't that funny? Seriously. I think it's kind of amazing. If we don't acknowledge and work through our struggles, they'll surface anyway without our consent. There's no way to avoid struggle or pain.  Because in one way or another--you'll end up having to deal with them. And if you don't deal with them right away or in good time, they'll will come back up with a few pals you'll have to deal with them, too. And those pals bring pals, and their pals bring pals...and it ends up being a party.
So acknowledge it and nip it early. And most importantly: love your struggle and your pain. Because Our God is a god of struggle (see: the story of Jacob). He obviously loves both of them and sees their value or he wouldn't have wired our minds and bodies to force us to face them.
So, as it is with everything:
Praise God.

Be Careful

Greed, fear, hate, selfishness, gluttony, intentional ignorance, and the myriad amount of silent, quick-spreading evils are best established through passivity and negligence of the highest form of Good and/or thinking we already know what that Good is.

Disarmed.

God, God, God.

That's all the words I can seem to muster lately when I pray or worship or stand before God.
Our God is huge. And all encompassing. Completely unpredictable. and 100% NOT formulaic.
I'm frustrated lately because I'm a very formulaic and step-by-step person. Normally, you do such and such, to get such and such. It's logic. It's the law of Causation.
But God does not work this way. And I think He ups his mysteriousness and unpredictability and evasiveness even more so to those who have problems with formulaic religious thinking in order to show them that He is not this way. His arm is the one thing in the life of an analyzer/controller, that they cannot through will, force or manipulation of any kind, twist. And to us analyzers/controllers, that's disarming, frustrating, infuriating and exposing of our true nature.  It's something ugly we don't like to see. We can petition, we can ask, we can plead, but nothing we do with intentions of boxing Him in will ever work.
So, given that, I'm finding that during prayer, I can repent, I can praise, I can ask, I can do anything, but none of that will guarantee He will speak to me.
During worship, I can pray for humility, I can pray against pride, I can sing through gritted teeth, but none of that will guarantee I will meet with God and give Him the praise He deserves.
In my day-to-day, I can begin with meditating on His word, appreciating His creation, listening intently to my neighbor, preferring others above myself, but none of that will guarantee that at the end of the day, I glorified God.
I don't get God. If God was religious, this whole thing would be so easy. All of the above would be completely successful. But it's not. They're all good things, repentance, praying against pride, preferring my neighbor, meditating on his word...they're all beautiful and gifts from God. But if we cling to these things as ways to manipulate and 'get to' The Father, then we lose the beauty and the wonder of the fact that He is like wind through the trees: there for a few seconds then gone. Moving and invading the surroundings, then off to affect something else. Tangible on your skin for a split second, then He disappears. You try to catch him, but instead He flows right through your fingers. Who is this God?
I'd like to say that lately I'm in wonder of the evasiveness of God. But I'll be honest and say that I'm frustrated. God makes no sense. Ritually, I'm holy. Spiritually, I don't feel so holy. But yet, He loves and He gives life to me, slowly and subtly, despite the fact I'm frustrated and irritated with the most beautiful part of His being! If that's not anti-formulaic and upside-down, I don't know what is.

God, God, God!

Christians Need To Be More Offensive

 Trying to find God truly is like trying to catch vapor or the wind. Every time you think you can pin him down or label him or catch him, he slips right through your fingers, yells "gotcha!" and scampers off in a random direction, leaving you bewildered and questioning the things you think you know about him.

I was reading the beattitudes yesterday and came across this one--
Luke 6:26--"Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way."

This is one of those verses that makes me think, "What the hell am I doing with my life?" I don't even have one enemy (to my knowledge). Does that make me a poor catalyst for the kingdom of God? After reading through the rest of the beatitudes (Luke 6: 20-38), and seeing the verse in it's context, it's pretty obvious what Jesus is getting at. Being a follow of Jesus comes with strife, difficulty, sacrifice, death, mourning, hunger, and more. It is not easy. But when we can engage in the difficulty and find the face of Christ in it--that's when the true blessings of Christ are received. So, I got to thinking about verse 26, specifically. I got to thinking about Jesus and how "he did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword Mt. 10:34)". And how usually, after preaching, everyone wanted to stone him or kill him or throw him off a cliff. When we read the things he said now, we think, "That's not even shocking or offensive, why was everyone freaking out so much?"  It's because everything he was saying during those times were things that were disturbing, realistic, dynamic, unprecedented and raw. Aka--truth. Anyway, you guys all know these things. But here's my question and conversation starter--

If Christ, when he came to Earth, came to bring truth, which caused division and upset...as Christians, wouldn't he expect us to do the same? Not going around picking a fight (that's just stupid and arrogant), but speaking truth when truth is needed. When truth needs to be spoken and represented in a situation. How often do we, because of our fear of being seen as "pushy Christians", pull the "grace and forgiveness" card and keep quiet and peaceful, when raw truth is necessary? What's so bad about offending/getting offended? It rustles feathers, it stirs uncomfortable feelings, it makes people think. If anything, that's good. Great, actually. What am I getting at--If we can't be the kind of followers of Christ who aren't afraid of division, then we can't truly follow him. Because he was offensive.

The second level to this question is, if Jesus' preaching  Jew and Gentile equality, or grace vs. law was enough to get him thrown off a cliff in his day and age, then what is the equivalent to that in our day and age? What truth that needs to be shared would make people so uncomfortable and offended that they would want to punch you in the face (and I'm talking about TRUTH from God, not something out of our own perception and pretension)? Pray about it. Ask God to help your thinking and actions to be ever evolving, creative, new and truth-filled. As him to help so that you can be a tool to bring the kingdom of heaven to Earth. Because as unchanging and steadfast as our God is, he's also fiery and an advocate for change and new-ness. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have sent Christ. Lets celebrate that facet of our God and dwell in it.

Relative Sin

As I'm getting to know Jesus more, I'm trying this thing out where I question all of my motives and thoughts about who He is and make sure they're not being born of tradition or common thought, but of my own biblical and Spirit-led search and revelation. It's a good thing because it opens up doors to very beautiful parts of God, but it's also scary because it's shaking up the things I think I know about God and introducing things that can be somewhat uncomfortable and hard to swallow. I'm discovering that God is nothing like we think he is. But that is another topic for a different day. What I really want to talk about now is sin, and how it relates to what I just mentioned. And how steering away from tradition is bringing up the term "relativism" in my pursuit of Christ. I understand that most Christians see relativism as very dangerous and misaligned with the character of God because it suggests vague guidelines vs. foundational truth.But I also understand that God relates to individuals in very different ways. And if sin is something that separates us from God, isn't it possible for some of that sin to be relative? Because different people relate to God in different ways. Example: I have issues with food and if I allow myself to binge on sweets, it dulls my senses, it's escapism, it's an unhealthy way to deal with deeper crap going on: it separates me from God. But for someone else, binging wouldn't necessarily separate them from God, it would just make them feel sick. So binging is sinful for me. But for someone else, it's just a lighthearted unhealthy choice. I get that there are obvious sins that separate everyone from God, no matter how the individual relates to him. But I know there are others that are different.

Thoughts?

The reason I posted this in the first place is because I'm noticing that it's getting harder and harder for me to define what sin is in my life. I'm also noticing that the topic of sin is becoming less and less discussed because it ignites a sense of legalism and no Christian hipster wants to be seen as a Bible thumper, so I'm seeing a degeneration of morale among Christians my age. Because we serve a "forgiving" God. We  misinterpret his forgiveness and use it as a loophole for sin. This is nothing new, Paul talked about it in Romans 5&6. But "love" and "forgiveness" are not excuses to compromise truth or morals. So, to tie this in, what are those truths and morals, and can they be relative? and, to relate to degenerating morale, just how angry does God get when we know what we're doing is wrong, yet we keep on doing it to convey a liberal Christianity? And how much room does he give us before he holds us responsible and begins punishing us for that behavior, calling it repetitive and conscious sin?