Be still and know He is God

There’s a song by Tree63 called “Now My Eyes Are Open” that starts off:

You opened up my ears to hear
The imperfections of my heroes
And those I held up to the sun
Are cracked and broken, every one
They spoke words of fire
They held my desire
But just because they look like You
Doesn’t mean they honour You…

I have been shown time and time again how we are not put our trust, our hope, in other people. I don’t even mean that in a pessimistic sort of way; God designed us to need and desire friendships. But to base our happiness, our hope, our joy, on the actions of another human, or even – especially – ourselves, is foolishness, and it is a mistake that I have made too many times. I have trusted people with my emotions, and every time I have been disappointed in some way. I have trusted myself to respond appropriately to those hurts, and again, I have very frequently disappointed myself. So quickly human relationships can disintegrate into back biting, revenge, and lies, even within the Church. We are not to base our image of God on any man or woman, no matter how godly they might seem.

So after time and time of being hurt, I ask God what His Will is. Will you show me, God? Will You give me a sign? A prompting in my spirit? A Word spoken in season by your messenger? And all of these things He has done for me in times past, but He does not seem to be doing that now. He has told me that He will show me His Will, so I keep hounding Him like a 4 year old hounds his parents when he wants something from them when they’ve told him to just wait. His response to me has been to wait, let Him make my paths straight, and He will show me His salvation. It is not exactly the silence of God, because He simply told me to wait, and to walk the path He has set before me.

Pastor gave a message today about how even though we may have moved past certain hurts or failures in our past, too often we don’t move beyond them. The reason we don’t always see where we are going is because we are always looking in the rear view mirror. We can only see the road in front of us if we’re looking in front of us. As Pastor said, isn’t God bigger than our past, than the wounds we’ve received, than the mistakes we’ve made?

In the end, He has simply reminded me of Psalm 46:10. “Be still, and know that I am God.”

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how to know you have a good woman

This is just a short list of a few ways you can tell you have a good woman.

• She brings you coffee every morning before your eyes are fully open.
• She makes the bed after you run off to work, and leaves a note hidden on the pillow for you to find that night.
• She never gets tired of scratching your head.
• She knows exactly where you’ve left your keys/glasses/wallet, etc.
• She listens to you ramble about work or other stupid stuff even when she might have no clue what you’re talking about.
• She believes in you even when you feel like no one else does.
• When you break her heart her only response is “I love you.”

This list is by no means exhaustive, but I have to head off for work. More will be coming soon.

Thank you, Cheri, for your love.

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the disappearing man

Okay, after all the rather intense blog entries lately (intense for me, anyways), I decided to write about a rather emotionally inert topic: Weight Watchers.

I finally bought some size 34 jeans and khakis. I haven’t been in that size since my sophomore year in high school. Since August 7 (at size 40), and as of my last weigh-in on Monday, I’ve lost 35.8 pounds. And that’s off my post-divorce weight; if you consider my weight from then, I’m down almost 55 pounds. I definitely like the attention it brings, too.

But with that said, I can’t write a blog entry without making at least *some* bigger observation. Why is it that when someone looks better we treat them better? And I’m not just talking about just with flirting or romantically. Even friends seem to treat you with more respect when you’re in shape. Am I any more of a person now than I was when I was overweight? (I guess really I’m less of a person now… sorry, couldn’t pass that one up). It’s strange to see how some people I know wouldn’t give me the time of day before, but now they act very friendly towards me. I’m still trying to figure out how I should respond. Is it really that engrained in our physical and psychological makeup to act this way towards others, or is it just another example of hypocrisy in modern culture?

In any case, I like looking good… 🙂

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