Who's the winner?

Since Wednesday’s “Chick-fil-a Day” I have come to a conclusion.  Satan is the only one who wins in this whole deal.

I’ve said for a long time that this country is in real trouble if our politicians can’t find some common ground to work from.  To give up the us versus them mindset.  If Republicans block anything the Democrats want to get done and the Democrats block anything the Republicans want to get done, guess what.  Nothing gets done.

In the last 4 days I’ve seen every sort of post from people about the Chick-fil-a controversy and the subsequent Chick-fil-a Appreciation day.  And from where I’m sitting it looks like an us versus us situation.  The “Bible Thumper Christians” versus the “Free Love Christians.”  We are so busy fighting about which of us is wrong that nothing gets done. 

I lump myself into one of those groups, and I know people who put themselves in the other. (Though I think we would all argue with the extreme titles I've given them)  And I’ve read the posts from the other group and thought to myself “How can they be so narrow-minded and disagreeing?”  And then today I looked in the mirror, guess who is being narrow-minded and disagreeing too?  If we can’t find some common ground in Christ, then nothing is going to get done.

And then Satan continues to win.

Chick-fil-a Day

So…  Today I went to the mall intending to eat at Chick-fil-a.  I didn’t because I was not willing to stand in line for an hour plus to get my food.  So we’re going to approach the rest of this post with the mindset that my intent was to eat there

I’m not sure whether to be proud of my decision to eat at Chick-fil-a today, or whether I should be terribly ashamed of it.  I may be wrong, but I suspect there is no middle ground on this.  It either is a great a display of my faith, or it is a despicable act of polarizing non-love.  And unfortunately I’m leaning towards the latter.  Don’t get me wrong, I agree with Chick-fil-a and their belief of “a traditional family”  and I feel very strongly about that.  I was saddened that people were “shocked” by this belief of a Christian based business and boycotted them.  But, while I sat there eating my Pizza Da Roma, I wondered to myself; how many people are here to help make up for the boycotting and how many people are here to persecute homosexuals?  And if it is the latter, how does that fit in with Jesus’ example of loving everyone.

In an unrelated incident, I recently confronted someone who used to be a buddy of mine on something that they were doing that was, in my estimation, outside of the Word of God.  I did this with no solicitation on their part, I took it upon myself to write a letter and tell them that they were wrong.  I feel like I did this as lovingly as possible considering, but…  Despite trying to be as caring and loving as possible in this letter, you can imagine how the unsolicited criticism was taken.  Things that were already stressed between us went down hill.  I wonder how much damage was caused when a concerned Christian, who honestly cared, judged someone else.  Now I tell you, I still feel no different that their actions are still wrong according to Gods word, but how did me criticizing them do any good?

We’re called to love everyone.  I’m not sure what that looks like, especially to those who are clearly living in a manner against God’s will.  I am pretty confident though, that being polarizing and taking an us versus them mindset is the wrong way to do it. 

I’ve been getting beaten up pretty badly on this subject lately.  My hope is that in the future, I tend to show Jesus’ love first and not judge.  I read this blog the other day and it really hit home with me: http://lucallen.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/an-open-letter-to-well-everyone/  I just read it again, and it resonates with me even stronger today than it did yesterday.

Let’s love, people.  As Lucas said, “It doesn’t matter who hit first- stop hitting each other!”

The questions that keep me awake at night

I’ve been struggling with some forgiveness issues.  Two separate issues.

First, when have you given forgiveness?  If you can say that you’ve forgiven someone, and feel like you legitimately mean it, have you really forgiven them?  What if hurt or bitterness pops up again?  Can you forgive if the person has never even asked for forgiveness?

Second has to do with the forgiveness of Christ.  Where does repentance fit in to the forgiveness of Christ?  To receive forgiveness do you have to hold to your repentance?  What if you have repentance but then lapse into old sins?  What if you ask for forgiveness fully planning on continuing to sin?

Just some of the questions that have been keeping me up at night…

If you have any thoughts or answers please share.

Chapter Closed

In the mail yesterday I receive the letter that informed me that I am officially not married anymore.  Honestly I expected it much earlier than this, so it certainly wasn’t a surprise.  But yet, it is still very bittersweet.

If you had asked me a year ago today where I would be today, this would not have been my guess.  If you told me 2 years ago this is where I would be I would have told you that you were crazy.  But yet here I am.  It is not a horrible place.  In fact, I kinda like where I’m at.  If I wanna play softball 3 or 4 nights a week, I can.  If I want to sit on the couch and watch a baseball game with a beer, I can.  If I had my choice 6 months ago, I would have not chosen this route.  But you don’t always get to make the choices.  Sometimes you just have to deal with what comes.

I feel that I have dealt with what has been thrown my direction well.  I could have gotten depressed and felt bad for myself.  I could have shrinked away from life and just went through the motions.  But I didn’t, I chose to grow through this.  I’ve learned to trust God in this that he has plans for me.  And that those plans are what he sees as best for me.  I have learned who my true friends are and appreciate them beyond words. 

But with all of that said, 11 years of life just don’t go away in a few months.  There are still days when I wish that I had someone to come home to and just be with.  There is something to be said for having someone who you can just sit with and be happy.  There are times that I wish I had someone there to share my ups and downs with.  There are nights that when I go to bed I wish I had a set of cold feet up against my leg.

But that will come again.  The old chapter has ended.   A new chapter has opened.  Eventually this chapter will end, and another will open.  Who knows what the next new chapter looks like, but I know what this chapter looks like, and it’s not so bad.  Hopefully that next chapter is even better.  My prayer is that when the book is complete that I end up being the hero of the story and not the villain.

Long time no blog...

So it’s been a while since I blogged.  But for most of that time, nothing exciting really happened.  That changed a lot within the last week or so.  Last Saturday I moved into my apartment.  It’s a big 1 bedroom in Bloomington.  It has a nice little patio out the back door with about 20 feet of grass and then a small wooded area.  When I got home tonight and was walking in there were 2 deer in my back yard. It will be perfect to just go out the back door and walk the dogs (which I get back on Sunday).  On site it has a 24 hour fitness center, which includes a racquetball court (no need for a membership to the Y anymore), and an indoor heated pool and hot tub.

When I moved in I adopted one of the cats back.  I had stopped into the shelter a couple of weeks earlier and asked them if they still had any of them, they still had all 3.  I asked them which was the least likely to be adopted and they told me Spazz.  Apparently he was very stand offish and wouldn’t let people pet him.  So he’s my new roommate.  I was worried about how he would adapt, because I was never his favorite, but he has adjusted quite well.  He always wants to be in my lap and sleeps in the bed right next to me at night.  I suppose it’s possible that between me being the only person here and it being much better here than the shelter that he has no choice but to like me.  Here he is wanting to take a nap on me during a lunch.

I kinda figured that when I moved into my apartment and was living by myself I would feel sad or lonely, but it hasn’t been that way.  Granted I haven’t even been here a week yet, but it feels pretty natural, for the time being.  To be honest this is really the first time I’ve been out on my own, all by myself.  Even in college I was in the dorms.  I really am quite surprise how well I’m adapting and how natural it feels.   I’ve had little opportunity to entertain yet, so if anybody is ever in Bloomington and wants to come chill with me at my apartment give me a shout.

A confession...

So, I have a confession.  It really pains me to admit this.  Months ago, if someone confessed this to me I would judge them.  And to be honest, I probably have judged other people for this already.  Before I started, the idea of it just felt wrong, it almost repulsed me.  But…  Now that I have tried it, I’ve found that I really like it, and I can’t seem to get enough. 

As you may have (or likely haven’t) noticed that I haven’t blogged for a while.  It’s because a big part of my free time has been occupied with this thing.  It seems like every time I sit down with free time, I just turn to this.  So here it goes:

I love the Harry Potter books.

I just can’t put them down.  I started reading them because I’ve been badgered by so many people that I needed to read them.  So, to appease them I started reading the first book.  Really, it was my thought that I would get through the first book and then be able to say I gave them a try and hated them.  But I don’t.  In fact I quite enjoy them.  The subject of Wizards and Witches has never interested me in the slightest, but despite that I really like them.

So there it is, my deep dark secret… (or at least one of them)

Learning to Ride a Bike

So I haven’t blogged for a while.  A lot of that has to do with a fear of laying it all out there.  It’s hard to come up with topics that you can share a little bit of yourself, but still not really expose too much.  Well, I guess I’m going to try to take a step out of my comfort zone here.

You wanna know what scares me?  At some point in the future, (which I don’t know when will be) I’m going to start dating and looking at starting relationships.  Actually, this doesn’t scare me, it terrifies me.  Some will think that this doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal.  But they don’t really know much about my past.

To be honest, I’ve only been in one long lasting serious romantic relationship.  And even thinking back about it, I’m not really sure how it developed, it just did.  I don’t really remember analyzing things and trying to figure out where I stood and where I thought it was heading.  Will I know if/when a woman is really in love with me?  Thinking about my past, I don’t feel like I will. 

Because I have this fear of not being able to read where I stand in a relationship, I’m scared of not knowing if something is there or not.  People have told me, it’s like riding a bike, it’ll all comeback once I end up there.  My fear is that I haven’t learned to ride that bike yet.  I’m 33 now, and I don’t want to skin my knees trying to learn. 

That’s what scares me...