Posts Tagged God
Things look different around here
As you may (or may not have) noticed I’ve redone my layout. What are your thoughts? Digging it? Think it’s the pits? I grew discontent with my old layout (don’t we all) so I drew up a new one and made it happen. I think that tends to be the way I am with life: always refining, changing, and evaluating, hopefully in a positive direction.
Get ready for a new era of PhilipGrey.com, watch out.
Talk About God
I made this flyer for a bible study in one of the dorms on campus. I just wanted to emphasize (clearly) how all it is talking about God.
I attempted to lead a study in this particular dorm for a few years, and it was a bit difficult to say the least, particularly with the college-aged demographic. I’d go to dorms and talk to students and share my beliefs and try and explain to them where I was coming from. Some would agree with me, some would politely disagree (some not so polite, but I can respect that), and there was another crowd who would smile and nod just long enough for me to leave so they could move on with their lives.
And it was really hard for me.
It’s just really hard because I just know some of these people think I’m silly and that I’m stuck in a fairy tale and out of touch with reality and that ultimately my God is those same things.
My faith and my God are nothing like this.
Don’t you wonder why the world works the way it does? How in the world does it make any sense that we live on an Earth that is so strategically placed that given a few degrees of changed tilt or distance from the sun that we’d be screwed? How absolutely incredible is the sky when you look up at it? We call the sky endless but think it’s silly to suggest a God that’s bigger than us? And we consider ourselves gods?
Sit back and think about where we are right now. Take a moment to look at your hands and feet and how everything works flawlessly. Think about how you were born… your parents and their parents and theirs and theirs and theirs; it all had to work out in such a perfect order for you to come to be. How in the world could we deny that? How foolish are we to think that we have any say in the matter? We’ll follow scientific laws until we’re red in the face, yet attribute our entire existence to immeasurable chance instead of something bigger than us?
These are the kinds of things that I wish people were talking about. It just all doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, so how can you not consider a God who doesn’t “make sense” to the world. We are so incredibly blinded by the day to day that we lose sight incredibly fast.
Please take a second today, regardless of your “beliefs” to take a step outside of yourself and see how absolutely ridiculous this “life” thing is.
How comfortable are you?
i’ve been thinking about comfort quite a bit lately. i live a very very comfortable life and i think that allows my relationship with God to sometimes take a backseat.
here’s the test: when’s the last time you said “i cannot live without _____”. what is it for you? a grande caramel frapp from starbucks (no whip)? your iphone? a super comfortable bed? chipotle? more often than not, it’s going to be something that you actually could live without, which i’m sure we’re all aware of. i mean how many times do you say “i cannot live without SHELTER” or “man, it’s a good thing I have FOOD because otherwise i wouldn’t be alive”. we all have things we “need” in life to be happy, but in reality most of these things we don’t actually need at all. and this isn’t a rant on materialism, because i think God can bless us with an abundant life (not by our deserving of course), but it’s how we react to what we have and realizing how these things place in our hierarchy of what makes us comfortable and content.
let me give you an example. i am a suburbs kid who doesn’t really enjoy the outdoors all that much. basically, i’d take a night in over a night out any day of the week. i’ve never gone “real camping” in my life (aka no toilets, lots of bears, etc). so i’ve come to really value showers in my life. every morning i absolutely have to start it off with a shower or my day is in ruins. i can’t remember the last day that i didn’t take a shower (probably years and years ago). okay now contrast this with my relationship with God. my relationship with God fluctuates like it’s no ones business sometimes. i can definitely remember tons of days where i didn’t get in the word or connect with God in any way. now, think about how crazy that is. i see this thing of taking a shower (which obviously is a great thing to do) as one of the most important things in my day, but then THE most important thing of all i tend to miss out on some days.
it’s not a bad thing to be comfortable, but the point is that we tend to rely on the summation of all of these other things to keep up comfortable when really, the thing we need to be relying on most is God. what if instead of people saying i need this or that worldly thing to get through my day, we we’re saying “the only thing i really need to get through my day is my God”. i’d humbly like to suggest that your comfort and satisfaction in life would be ten times than what would be without Him.
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