The Body of Christ

     I used to get drunk - completely wasted - all the time.  It was what I did to escape reality.  It was almost the only way I could make it through each day.  Times seemed hard, like everything was against me, and I just couldn't win, no matter how hard I tried.

     Now I don't get drunk, and I don't have to escape reality.  Now I know what reality really is.  I can make it through every day, no matter how rough it seems, and I give all of that credit to God.  Sure there's times when I still get angry or down, but if it continues on, I know it is because I am not focusing on the right thing.  I no longer have to make it through everyday alone.  I have Jesus with me always, and not just Him alone, but the friends, or as He says, the brothers and sisters God has given me in Christ.  PEOPLE I can talk to.  Real life people to connect with, who know Jesus, know God's word, and deal with some of the same things I deal with.

It's, refreshing, relieving, and very helpful.

     Over this past year, I have separated myself from these wonderful people God has placed in my life.  Yes, I talked to people, smiled and held real conversations, prayed, laughed, and cried with them, but I never let them in.  That HURT!  I became very lonely, right in the middle of everyone I know, and that was not good.  Somehow, I managed to isolate myself right in the middle of a crowd.  I was struggling very hard emotionally.  I could look around and see things were not too bad in my life and my family, but I felt like everything was horrible!  Deceived by my feelings, and tricked into believing it was all real.

     What happened is that I wasn't trusting anybody.  At least not enough to let them so far in that they could get to know who I really am.  I didn't want to get hurt like I have with so many relationships, so I purposely kept a wedge between them and myself all the time.  The thing about it is, I didn't even realize I was doing it.  I prayed with people wholeheartedly, I had no problem passing by genuinely smiling, saying "hi", shaking hands, or telling them about my family briefly, but I "knew" that I couldn't let anyone in on how I really felt if I was having trouble in some area or areas of my life.  That's where the snowball began.

On top of all of that, I would almost never make time to actually visit people, have their families visit with mine, or make time to just get together and relax to watch a football game and have a good time.  I always felt I was too busy.  Like I had to work.  If I wasn't working, I felt I had to help with the dishes, or do something at the house.  If not that, I felt like I better spend time with my kids, and if not them, then I felt I needed to spend time with my wife, or I had better be learning about God or praying.  For some reason I felt like if I was relaxing, I was doing something wrong, and everything felt very grudging.   I felt like I always had to be doing something. I was being very selfish, but at the same time,   I completely forgot to take care of me.  I forgot that I need time to relax.  Time to pray because I want to.  Time to watch a football game, or hang out and joke with my friends.  Have some real deep down conversations, and let people in.  So what if I get hurt by them?  I'll never know if I don't try.  

So now I'm letting people in.  I quit being scared anymore.  I can even laugh and joke with my wife much more often, and that's important, and not to mention - FUN!   I am not trying to be all selfish here and say that everything is all about me, lol.  It starts with me though.  On the inside of me, because what's on the inside is what's going to come out.  I really intended for this blog to be different today, but I think Jesus just helped me out even more while I was writing this.  God is awesome, and always setting us free.  I thank Him for that.  I'm realizing that  I need people, and we can't do this on our own.  I look at the Bible and see that 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 is all about the body of Christ.  It describes how each Christ follower is a part of the body of Christ, and we all need each other and should have equal concern for each other:

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. "  (1 Corinthians 12: 12-14). 

It later says, in verse 20, "As it is, there are many parts, but one body."  I  am now just really starting to understand this.  Christians were not meant to isolate themselves, and I am so glad to be a part of Christ's body, and attend such an awesome church like Crossroads in Lafayette where there are so many loving people reaching out and reaching in to help change lives all the time.  I thank God for what He has done and continues to do for me and my family.  I am so thankful for all the great connections He has given me with people, and I am working on reaching out more, and letting people in.  It's what we're called to do.  I keep thinking that isolating yourself the way I talked about is like tying a string too tight around one of your body parts, and if you left it there for too long, that part would eventually turn colors and fall off because there is no blood flow.  I don't want to do it anymore, and I hope no one else does either.  I hope we can all learn to love the people God has put in our lives, and stay connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  After all, they may just be the answers we've been praying for!  

MISSION: DEFINITELY POSSIBLE!

     So I've realized recently, that all my life, writing is something I've always enjoyed and wanted to do.  I think at 29 years old, I just realized why I never understood when everyone else complained about writing a paper or having essay questions on tests, lol.  They never had enough to say.  My only problem was, "How am I going to put my answer in THAT  little space?!"  Now I get it.  I love writing, and always wanted to impress the teachers by getting my point across. 

     Now I'm all grown up and still want to get my point across, and still feel this burning, yearning, leaping inside my heart to write.  Write what, though?  It's part of what I'd love doing for a living.  You know how we all have that something we would do for a living instead of our actual job if we could?  Yeah.  Well for me, that's writing.  Or a big part of it anyway.  I have millions of things running through my head to write about, at all times.  Even as I write this.  The only problem?  Oh...I've just been scared.  Scared you won't care about what I write.  Scared that the first thing you read by me won't be my best, and will turn you, (and everyone else), off from ever reading anything I write again, and thus you'll miss what really is my best one yet, stopping the word from getting out about how good it was.  Or scared of offending you.  I never want to do that.  Then you might say how bad my blog is, or get the complete wrong impression about me, and we'd never get the chance to meet and talk about it.  Of course, it all balls down to not wanting to have a faux pas in anything I do.

     So here it is.  Another blog.  I'm putting everything on the line.  The fear of failure is just going to have to go away.  Just like anyone else who has ever done anything great, they had to start somewhere.  If all my writing ever does is give one person a chuckle, or lets somebody know they are not alone in the way they think, or gets someone to scratch their head and say, "Hmm, I never thought of that", and gives them a new idea, GREAT!  My mission is accomplished.  Hopefully, one day my writing will help change the world.  I believe if I keep stepping out and writing, that change just might be beginning right now.  Maybe someone else realized they are not the only one who woke up this morning scared to put themselves out there and put their dreams on the line.  It all starts somewhere.  A million sayings come to mind right now.  "You have to crawl before you can walk."  Don't believe me?  Why don't you come visit?  I'll let you see my little 11 week old son who I know will be able to run track later in life if he chooses to, but last night, he was just making his first attempts to learn to crawl. 

     That's all I have for now.  I hope you laughed or scratched, or something.  If you've read this far, thanks a million!  Today is a great day, and I hope you get to enjoy it!!  God bless you in all you do!  Feel free to comment and tell us what your dreams are, and what is your progress in accomplishing them.  Again, thanks a million, and have a great day!      

"Have You Ever Thought About"

Have you ever thought about what you would think about if you ever had the time to relax and just think?  What would you do?  Would you think about the good things in life, or how to change what is not good in our world?  Would you let the positive things run through and bring you peace? You couldn't and shouldn't let the negative things take you down.  Would you take your thoughts and make them captive to God's Word?  Bring them up and bind them to make them positive?  Would you decide, "Hey, I'm not going to be conquered by my thoughts anymore!",?  I know I am tired of being destroyed by mine, so I am building them up and turning them over to God.  I am reading the Bible and learning what God thinks of me.  I am seeing that He thinks quite a bit of me - AND YOU!  He loves each and every one of us very much!  So I refuse to be living in defeat everyday anymore, but instead, I will be living in victory because I will be turning everything over to God!  Amen!