I once saw a list of titles, and at first I thought it was the words to a hymn... You could really compose a hymn from hymn titles... Would that be a superhymn?
I walked past a laptop screen and glanced at the playlist, and this one title stood out so much I don't remember any of the others.
What If His People Prayed?
It chilled me to the bone. (Okay that's an exaggeration). I was really touched and compelled by it. I was reminded, as if by a blast of cold air, that we really need to pray.
I'm a selfish prayer. I pray about my faults and needs and wants. I pray briefly, unless I'm upset. I do pray for others. But not a lot. I guess I feel that there's not much to say. I am more acquainted with my own problems than with theirs. "Help me with this this and this please, help so and so with that, and thos people with that. Thank you."
Of course I don't really pray that disrespectfully, but you get the idea. Now, I don't want to confess feeling guilty just after a post about unneccesary guilt... and I don't feel guilty about the way I pray.
I just feel that I have underestimated prayer and that I can pray better. Not longer because 'do not pray like the nations for they make long prayers, and your Father knows what you need before you ask Him' and 'they make long prayers and devour widows' houses'
Maybe more.
More thankful.
For more people, for the persecuted church, for my friends who are struggling, for Israel.
I think I am too tired to pray right now... Tomorrow I'll be too busy... or not!
Saturday 26 November 2011
Guilt
Guilt makes up such a great part of our lives. I don't know about men, but women tend to worry about what they do.
Yesterday I was sitting in the company of some mothers, some with little children, and I noticed how guilty some of them feel. Okay, maybe it was just two of them. One felt guilty because she doesn't give her children enough opportunity to paint pictures. The other because she fed her child when he was tired and then he got sick.
We feel guilty so easily. We feel guilty about say, things we don't do, that we might feel just as guilty about doing. If mother one did let her kids paint pictures a lot, she might feel guilty about 'indulging' them. Mother Two might possibly have felt guilty if she didn't feed her child because she might have felt she was just avoiding a difficult task. And children have to eat!
I feel a bit guilty about going to study at a great university. I don't know how I would have felt had I not gone. Maybe guilty that I am not using my opportunity, that I am not being a good steward of my opportunity. Maybe guilty that I am taking a low-skill job from someone who never had the chance to study.
When I think about this I still feel bad about my decision. I don't know who to listen to. I don't know whether to listen to my guilt-ridden concsience or the mature believers around me who tell me to 'walk and not stand' and not to be silly, and that I should take the chance to get an Education, because not many people do.
But this post is not about me. It's about guilt.
How biblical is guilt anyway? Guilt about sin, yes. But guilt about painting pictures and going to study?
Can anyone out there give me an answer?
I'll go pray about it.
I am so tired about feeling guilty about decisions and second-guessing myself.
I even have second thoughts about this post. Why, I don't know. I didn't lie. I'm not plagiarising.
I don't want to delete this post and not publish it. Aghhh, this is so paralyzing.
Edit: I prayed about it. Now I can post it. :)
Yesterday I was sitting in the company of some mothers, some with little children, and I noticed how guilty some of them feel. Okay, maybe it was just two of them. One felt guilty because she doesn't give her children enough opportunity to paint pictures. The other because she fed her child when he was tired and then he got sick.
We feel guilty so easily. We feel guilty about say, things we don't do, that we might feel just as guilty about doing. If mother one did let her kids paint pictures a lot, she might feel guilty about 'indulging' them. Mother Two might possibly have felt guilty if she didn't feed her child because she might have felt she was just avoiding a difficult task. And children have to eat!
I feel a bit guilty about going to study at a great university. I don't know how I would have felt had I not gone. Maybe guilty that I am not using my opportunity, that I am not being a good steward of my opportunity. Maybe guilty that I am taking a low-skill job from someone who never had the chance to study.
When I think about this I still feel bad about my decision. I don't know who to listen to. I don't know whether to listen to my guilt-ridden concsience or the mature believers around me who tell me to 'walk and not stand' and not to be silly, and that I should take the chance to get an Education, because not many people do.
But this post is not about me. It's about guilt.
How biblical is guilt anyway? Guilt about sin, yes. But guilt about painting pictures and going to study?
Can anyone out there give me an answer?
I'll go pray about it.
I am so tired about feeling guilty about decisions and second-guessing myself.
I even have second thoughts about this post. Why, I don't know. I didn't lie. I'm not plagiarising.
I don't want to delete this post and not publish it. Aghhh, this is so paralyzing.
Edit: I prayed about it. Now I can post it. :)
Monday 21 November 2011
Monday 14 November 2011
happy again
I am over it. That mopey-ness.
I saw a teaching opportunity in Nepal, which was encouraging.
And overall I'm a little more cheerful than I was when I wrote that last post.
:)
I saw a teaching opportunity in Nepal, which was encouraging.
And overall I'm a little more cheerful than I was when I wrote that last post.
:)
Friday 11 November 2011
University
It's a privilege to be able to study, to get a degree and an education.
I'm afraid I'm not very excited about it. I like studying. No, make that I like learning things for the first time. I just have this unhappy feeling about going to university.
It's probably stupid.
There are several reasons for it, I guess.
1) I'm not sure that I'm going to enjoy the program I applied for. I think its the- no a -right thing to do. BEd will enable me to make an impact. Teaching is a people-related vocation. It will get me places, because many countries need teachers. Apparently the Primary Education Degree course is not challenging and may even be boring.
The subject I like the most (at school) is Biology. I don't want to do a BSc however, because I don't want to become a research scientist (and work with test tubes) or a High School teacher (and work with rebellious teenagers).
2) I was intending to do something exciting in my (now non-existent) gap-year. I wanted to go volunteer overseas, or even in this country, where there was need. Nothing exciting worked out (not even anything unexciting worked, come to think of it), now I default to university. I hate to default. It seems such a compromising cop-out. Better than hanging around at home, I guess. That would be bad.
It feels like I have waited for God to show me what to do, he hasn't, now I do what everyone else does. It feels wrong. Thankfully I don't just go on my emotions. I don't know what to go on at all though, besides my parents' approval and encouragement.
3) I feel quite plain and unpopular. I feel that everyone around me will have nice hair and fashion sense, and no-one will know my name. I'll fade into the background like an appendix (no-one knows what it's purpose is).
I wonder what is the matter with me? Why can't I be all cheerful and positive about this?
Maybe I'm just tired.
I'm afraid I'm not very excited about it. I like studying. No, make that I like learning things for the first time. I just have this unhappy feeling about going to university.
It's probably stupid.
There are several reasons for it, I guess.
1) I'm not sure that I'm going to enjoy the program I applied for. I think its the- no a -right thing to do. BEd will enable me to make an impact. Teaching is a people-related vocation. It will get me places, because many countries need teachers. Apparently the Primary Education Degree course is not challenging and may even be boring.
The subject I like the most (at school) is Biology. I don't want to do a BSc however, because I don't want to become a research scientist (and work with test tubes) or a High School teacher (and work with rebellious teenagers).
2) I was intending to do something exciting in my (now non-existent) gap-year. I wanted to go volunteer overseas, or even in this country, where there was need. Nothing exciting worked out (not even anything unexciting worked, come to think of it), now I default to university. I hate to default. It seems such a compromising cop-out. Better than hanging around at home, I guess. That would be bad.
It feels like I have waited for God to show me what to do, he hasn't, now I do what everyone else does. It feels wrong. Thankfully I don't just go on my emotions. I don't know what to go on at all though, besides my parents' approval and encouragement.
3) I feel quite plain and unpopular. I feel that everyone around me will have nice hair and fashion sense, and no-one will know my name. I'll fade into the background like an appendix (no-one knows what it's purpose is).
I wonder what is the matter with me? Why can't I be all cheerful and positive about this?
Maybe I'm just tired.
Tuesday 8 November 2011
more poverty
Saw one of the wealthiest townships I know of yesterday. It's quite picturesque really. It's easy to forget that it's not so much fun really, living there.
I saw, to my surprise, ahouse shack made of a Golden Harvest sign! That's called being resourceful... It was quite a pretty shack. Not like some of the others...
Those people make me think that affirmative action is a good thing. Maybe not so much in its application, but in theory its definitely fair.
I know its racially discriminatory. But it just so happens that our social classes are divided by race (mostly anyway). Blame apartheid. Or blame that for apartheid. Wait no, blame someone else.
Anyway, the point is, race is connected to riches in this country. It's just how it is.
It's just ridiculous to the poor to get an education on par with the rich. They don't have the facilities, and their communty doesn't have the education. Even if one should be super motivated to get a tertiary education, how would he do that? He doesn't have the funds, and not everyone gets bursaries. Even secondary education is few and far between. Never mind all that. Come to think of it,** even basic literacy is scarce.
So a qualification cannot be the only ruler. Backround has to be taken in account. It's much easier to judge a person based on their skin colour than to research their family history.***
* There are many exceptions to this rule.
** Yes, that's why I blog. To think.
*** Not that I'm at all for 'the easy way out'.
I saw, to my surprise, a
Those people make me think that affirmative action is a good thing. Maybe not so much in its application, but in theory its definitely fair.
I know its racially discriminatory. But it just so happens that our social classes are divided by race (mostly anyway). Blame apartheid. Or blame that for apartheid. Wait no, blame someone else.
Anyway, the point is, race is connected to riches in this country. It's just how it is.
It's just ridiculous to the poor to get an education on par with the rich. They don't have the facilities, and their communty doesn't have the education. Even if one should be super motivated to get a tertiary education, how would he do that? He doesn't have the funds, and not everyone gets bursaries. Even secondary education is few and far between. Never mind all that. Come to think of it,** even basic literacy is scarce.
So a qualification cannot be the only ruler. Backround has to be taken in account. It's much easier to judge a person based on their skin colour than to research their family history.***
* There are many exceptions to this rule.
** Yes, that's why I blog. To think.
*** Not that I'm at all for 'the easy way out'.
Friday 4 November 2011
poverty and riches
As Jesus looked at him, he felt love for him and said, "You lack one thing. Go, sell whatever you have and give to the poor[... ]" 22 But at this statement, the man looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard is it for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide yourselves purses that do not wear out Luke 12:33
Why are we so rich? I'm not challenging or judging anyone. It's just a question. Should we be enjoying our money so much?
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard is it for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide yourselves purses that do not wear out Luke 12:33
Why are we so rich? I'm not challenging or judging anyone. It's just a question. Should we be enjoying our money so much?
dream future
I have no idea what to do next year.
I don't know if the specifics matter to God. I have a feeling they do.
I don't think I am at all suitable for mission outreaches, but that has to change. I hope they change soon enough.
Anyway, this is what I want: (it doesn't have to happen that way, but it will be nice if it does)
This is what I need:
Oh, wait, I do know.
Wait. Pray.
I don't know if the specifics matter to God. I have a feeling they do.
I don't think I am at all suitable for mission outreaches, but that has to change. I hope they change soon enough.
Anyway, this is what I want: (it doesn't have to happen that way, but it will be nice if it does)
- I want to have an adventure.
- I want to experience a really different culture.
- I want to do something useful and good.
- I really don't want to be bored or waste my life.
This is what I need:
- Strong faith.
- A relationship with Yeshua.
- Supernatural love for those He loves.
Oh, wait, I do know.
Wait. Pray.
blogness
The reason I don't blog much, is not that I don't think much. I do. I have lots of things mulling around in my head. However there's not much of all that that I want to say.
Some of the things I think are downright heretic. It would be nice to get rid of them, but this is not the place. I can't voice my heretic thoughts where someone might hear them, because it might very well be wrong to say.
Other things are just too personal. I appreciate honest blogging because it causes me to see that I am not alone in being imperfect. But I'm not doing that. Call it insecurity if you like.
So that's why I don't blog a lot.
There are some things I think that I might want to say on this blog, but I'd rather say it to a person who can reply, instead of leaving it out there in thin air for people to smirk at. I'm not accusing anyone of smirking. It's just a word that fits.
Some of the things I think are downright heretic. It would be nice to get rid of them, but this is not the place. I can't voice my heretic thoughts where someone might hear them, because it might very well be wrong to say.
Other things are just too personal. I appreciate honest blogging because it causes me to see that I am not alone in being imperfect. But I'm not doing that. Call it insecurity if you like.
So that's why I don't blog a lot.
There are some things I think that I might want to say on this blog, but I'd rather say it to a person who can reply, instead of leaving it out there in thin air for people to smirk at. I'm not accusing anyone of smirking. It's just a word that fits.
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