Faithful

Someone once used the word faithful to describe this blog. 

Honestly, these posts come at a time of realization– usually the end of the track where I have fallen, or at complete random– in a period of stagnancy in my walk. These are inspirations that push me forward, out of times when I have been weaker. 

Just thought I'd address that. 

Now onto a struggle I've been facing recently. 

I've only on extremely rare occasions considered myself a "fun" person. When I was about eleven or twelve I often asserted an air of superiority over my older cousins, where I would insist on them being more serious in their actions, games and conversation. I often got "stop acting so mature", in response. I received a similar comment from my boyfriend a week ago regarding my views of fun relating to maturity. 

My views of fun have been influenced by conservative notions drilled into my head since young, and the current cultural view of having fun in North America. However, I would like to add one more point of view to the mix– God's. 

I believe God has a sense of humour. Out of everyone you can pick, who would understand joy and laughter more than He? God created pleasure. He took great pleasure in spending time with Adam, with enjoying His creation. Our culture encourages enjoying time with friends (this can sometimes include a more self-centred approach: I want to hang out with others so I can be happy). God encourages fellowship (I want to develop these relationships between her/him and myself, in God). His is a pure and eternal lasting kind of pleasure.

God's sense of fun isn't rigid, or boring, or humourlessly distasteful as I was quick to determine it to be. In the name of morals, I had a skewed view that in order to be appropriate and faithful, one had to silence jokes of this world, puts a stop to their ideas of fun. However, this was not necessarily true in every case. 

I needed to ask myself about truth. True joy, true enjoyment, comes from the Lord. Does the way our temporary culture encourage, portray and reflect God's true joy? Sometimes it could. Sometimes it doesn't. I need to discern between the two. And finally, ask myself how we can choose to manifest God's true joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, goodness, and faithfulness in our interactions in the time we spend with our friends and others that we meet here on Earth. 

I don't feel like I have to be a fun person, but I know that I want to be a person who takes joy in interacting with others, takes pleasure in enjoying our fellowship and activities together, and hopefully our conversation and time together will be able to reflect God's love and care. 

A Reason to Smile

My faith gives me so much, I don't even fully comprehend it. Loving really does give you so much strength, and my belief gives me a lot of understanding. I don't think I've ever grasped how much God's given me before. And I'll still be continuing to learn as time goes on.

I also never understood how our Christian communities helped us. There was so much political drama and hypocritical junk going on. Truth be told, I was sick of it. I haven't really ever supported Christian community. But I was wrong on a few counts. Yes, we're hypocrites and we will continue to be sinners always. We fail, and we disappoint, but that's where I have to pray for my community, for my Church. I often forget that it is a spiritual battle that we fight in our daily lives that we neglect to realize or remember. Our supporting and loving one another (as we would ourselves) makes us so strong in ways we don't even realize till we get a glimpse of how the world deals with their problems.

I am so so blessed. And thankful.

I also realized one other thing today. What keeps me joyful or happy each day. What is my reason for being positive.

I know, and can define, at this point in my life, that what keeps me going day after day is knowing that my life is precious. My life is obtained and someone actually loved me; thought I was worthy enough– made me worthy enough: to rescue me. Bring me back from an eternity of death. What keeps me going is knowing that I’m loved, and knowing that at the end of the day, I’ll be reunited with that Lover, and till then, with all my heart and gratitude and love, I’ll do anything for Him, because I love Him. I don’t have to work towards anything, but I work, not because I have to slave away all my life to achieve the reward at the end, but because I’m a willing slave for love, for my Lover, my God, my Friend and King.

And life is so sweet. Even when its bitter.

Hallelujah!