keep your eyes on Me

In the lives of those that follow there is going to come a time When rhythm starts to stumble and singsong swallows rhyme When imaginations crumble, false foundations turn to dust Towers fall to piles of stones and girders into rust Til you let the blood of Jesus wash the rubble from your mind And your eyes again can see the one you almost left behind When theology's in tatters and reason is absurd Still your soul in silence and listen for His word So many turns, so many ways, so many voices cry Standing at the crossroads watching time go flashing by Indecision paralyzes, it's the fear of choosing wrong But waiting is a step itself, and you're wondering too long So again you search the scripture, and again you ask your friends But last of all the One who knows the beginning from the end In the clamor and confusion and the blindness of your choice Still your soul in silence, and listen for His voice.

by Don Francisco

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. :)

Salvation

I have been pondering this subject for a while. Struggling with it, analysing it, and worrying about it. I had many questions about it.

What does 'by grace alone' mean? That we have no part in it? But aren't you supposed to believe correctly? And is believing correctly all there is to it? How does believing correctly change you? And wern't Yeshua's followers required to give up everything? How come we don't have to give up anything?

What are we saved from? From Hell? Why would Elohim want to chuck us in Hell because we don't realise an important truth? Is everyone who doesn't say the Sinner's Prayer going to Hell neccesarily? What about the Jews who have been blinded so the Gentiles can have a chance? (Romans 11:25-26)

That you cannot earn your salvation makes even more sense when you consider that we are saved from sin. Not the punishment for sin (although that too) but sin itself. How can you be saved from sin by not sinning? That doesn't make sense.

Also, we are saved because Yeshua died for us, and rose again. No-one on earth made Him do that. More importantly, he didn't rise from the dead because the disciples' belief was great. No-one on earth, by their virteous lives and great faith in Elohim, made Yeshua rise from the dead. Elohim rose Him so we could have life and life abundantly.

What I learnt recently: Don't try to be perfect. Let Elohim rule your life for you. He'll fix you, you won't.