Just some random thoughts to share.
Tonight, I went to Borders and then to the beach, a pretty typical Friday night for me. There's something about the ocean that helps calm my soul and helps me sort through stuff that's been going around in my mind for a while.
Still not sure what I want to do next year. I could either go around the world with my friend Matt, or I could do Mission Year for a year, which is where you live in the inner city for a year in Christian community. Both seem like great options, so it will take some time to decide between the two of them. I do know I want to take a break from the current job of teaching and just try something else for a while...call it a quarter-life crisis if you will. I've heard a lot of people go through this, good to know I'm not alone. Something in me longs for more adventure then just settling down and living the typical American dream, whatever that is. It just seems so boring to me at this point. I'm sure at some point I'll probably long for that type of security but right now I almost despise it. Maybe that's a young man's curse of some sort, or maybe everyone else has just settled for a boring life.
Speaking of life, I want mine to count for something. Lately, I've been thinking of that quote, I think by Rob Bell, about how if the city closed your church doors, would anyone protest who wasn't a part of your congregation? On a smaller scale, you can apply the same line of thought to yourself...if you left your current city, would anyone notice besides your friends? Not saying you have to be famous or anything, just that we should be serving in such a way that it makes a difference in the lives of those people who we're serving. We need to see them as valuable human beings, not a project. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks that way sometimes, but I find it difficult not to view people as projects sometimes. Furthermore, we need to see people as Jesus, for in fact we serve Him when we serve the least of these. Why is it then, that the Church is not known for serving? Where have we gone wrong? Do we simply serve ourselves time and again? We all have needs but isn't the point to love your neighbor, even if they're not in your church?
Self-discipline is proving difficult. That has never been easy for me, but it seems like I've been struggling especially lately with it. Sometimes I'm really consistent at working out, and other times I'm consistent at reading, but rarely am I consistent at both for some reason. I have a huge problem with time management and that's part of it but sometimes I think I'm just absent-minded and forget to work out before it's too late. There are so many things I want to do with my life, and to achieve those goals I'm going to need self-discipline. I want to become a better teacher, that takes self-discipline. I want to lose about 10 or 15 pounds, that takes self-discipline. I want to finish reading the Bible this year, that will take self-discipline. Maybe a good definition of self-discipline is doing what you need to do to reach your goals, even when doing that thing proves difficult or you're not motivated on that particular day. My parents are two of the most self-disciplined people I know, not sure where I fell off the boat.
I'm trying to declutter to the point of only having enough stuff to where it all fits into my honda civic. It will prove difficult I'm sure but I think I can pull it off, minus my bed and coffee table. Some stuff I can take home to Illinois sometime on a road trip, and other stuff I need to give to Goodwill or just throw away period. I hate having a lot of stuff. Compared to most people I know I hardly have anything but it's still way more then I want. It just gets in the way I think. If we have a ton of material possessions, are we as free as possible to serve others? It may not seem like a big deal to have a lot, but how much of our lives are devoted to working, working, working to pay for all our little luxuries? Do we need that high-def TV in our living room with the 500 channels that we pay a premium for? For me the hard part is getting rid of a bunch of my books. Thankfully I've already gotten rid of a ton of them by giving them to my friend Matt who took them down to Ft Myers to share with other missionaries. Hopefully they'll do more then collect dust like they did while I had them here. I just have such a hard time not buying new books. I love being challenged with new ideas and expanding my mind in the process. Usually though, I only get about halfway through a book before I lose interest and pick up the next book. I always intend to get back to the original book but rarely do that in practice.
Well, that's all for now...it's late and I need to go to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment