I am what I am (Kyle Marks)

This morning I was reading My Utmost for His Highest, which is a daily devotional by Oswald Chambers. Today's reading really spoke to me. It says this:

"The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us."

I struggle with this often. Many people may think I am humble by saying that I am not good at something, when I really I know that I am good at it. But this is like a slap in the face to God, who has given me these abilities and talents to be used for His glory. It is not humility in God's eyes at all. It is dangerous for us to live in this "spirit of poverty," where all we can say is "I'm not good enough," or "I can't do it," or "that could never happen." God, on the other hand, is endless and can do anything in us and through us. So what we find is summed up in what Chambers writes at the end of the devotion:

"There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life."

This speaks of a focused life, which I have learned is the most effective, powerful, and fulfilling life anyone can live. Sometimes I feel like a "Jack of all trades," being good a many things, but great at nothing. My life-focus is too wide. When we are focused, we can do great things, but when we are not, our lives can become useless and sometimes even destructive. Remember that a flood is just a river that couldn't decide where to go. So my goal is to live a focused life, and move beyond just being good at many things and into being great at the one thing God has destined for me to do.

-Kyle

Thankful (Tim Smith)

I woke up on Thanksgiving morning to the sound of my children laughing and playing with their grandparents. Since their grandparents live thousands of miles away, it's always great to hear that sound, and I was thankful.

It was just into double digits in the morning, and I was thankful for the chance to sleep late. The parade on TV was almost over, and since I don't like the parade, that made me even more thankful. I knew I was in for a day that would be dominated by eating a great meal with family and friends, and watching football for several hours while digesting said meal and eating pie, and for all this I was truly thankful.

Thanksgiving did turn out to be a great day at the Smith's, and I was thankful. Black Friday brought my Dad and I the task of hanging the Christmas lights on my house (broken lights caused momentary non-thankfulness) while Julie went shopping with my Mom and Sister and the kids (thankfully not me.) Later Julie and I bought our Christmas tree, brought it home, and (she and the kids) decorated it, and I found reasons, again, to be thankful.

So much concentrated thankfulness. Somewhere late Friday or early Saturday, with the Holiday's turkey and football memories receding into the past, a disturbing little thought began to nag at me--am I still thankful?

Thankfulness is big business in our culture today. Oprah preaches a doctrine of positive thinking including daily thankfulness. Deborah Norville, of TV's Inside Edition, has just released a book called Thank You Power: Making The Science Of Gratitude Work For You. It seems people are attempting to co-opt thankfulness and turn it into something we can use to make ourselves healthier, wiser, or richer.

But I'm not buying. As a Christian, I want to obey the Biblical command to "be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." (1 Thess. 5:18, NLT) Thankfulness that truly comes from the heart is offered in view of what has already been done for me, not as a way to manipulate some future benefit.

So I wonder--am I still thankful? Am I thankful in all my circumstances? If I'm thankful to be a citizen of the most blessed nation humanity has ever known, shouldn't that motivate me to use my resources to respond to a world with entirely too much poverty, disease, and preventable death? If I'm thankful to be one of the tiny percentage of people on the planet to get an American university education, shouldn't that motivate me to use that education to respond to the needs of the lost and dying the world over?

So I'll keep wondering if I am still thankful. And time will tell.

it's not about me. (Kyle Marks)

"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him."

These are not my words. They are the word of the Apostle Paul, from his letter to the Phillipian church. But these things that Paul wrote about and understood are very important to me as a Christian. I hope that one day I will be able to understand this as Paul did. Another translation of the Bible reads "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Paul knew that everything in this life is worthless trash in comparison to greatness of being in a personal relationship with Jesus.

Paul knew that nothing was better than knowing God and putting him first in everything. I, on the other hand, find trouble doing this. Everytime I need to make an important decision, I first consider my own interests in each of my choices, and how much each one appeals to me. This is always my default response, not because I am completely selfish, but because I am not perfect at seeking the Lord's will first, and only his will. Yes, I do ask God and seek Him, but my own interests are still there infuencing what I think.

It is hard for us to live for something or someone other than ourselves. But I think this is exactly what we were made to do. Why is it so hard? Well, it requires humility, selflessness, sacrifice, and submission. It usually requires pain as well, and I have yet to meet someone who gladly welcomes any of these things. When you think about the life of Jesus, it is easy to recognize that he did not live for himself at all. When I struggle to give the smallest parts of my life to God, I see that Jesus gave everything.

So after all this, my prayer is simple: "Help me to live for someone besides myself."

- Kyle