Author: watchstandpray

204 – Uninteresting Sin

When God thinks about us, He is not mostly interested in how much we need forgiveness from sin. He sees us how an adult sees a child: Filled with potential, mostly adorable, and a future that’s bigger than the past, despite the need for replacing broken things and the occasional spanking.

It is remarkably, boringly normal for new Christians to be over-obsessed with their own sin. This immature obsession centers on the question: To sin or not to sin? When young Christians sin, they feel terrible and wonder whether God will forgive them. Before they sin, they are obsessed with how desirable sin can seem. They’re undone by other people’s sin. It’s embryonic.

We outgrow sin by growing in God. Think about Heaven. This is not thinking about “going to Heaven”, because Heaven is not any destination. Heaven is our spiritual origin, the power in our hearts, and the source of glory that we expand to the world around us. Don’t think about Heaven as some boring, celestial cloud; think about Heaven to understand what God wants you to carry in your heart everywhere you go.

Of course, to understand Heaven you can’t just guess or rely on your own “wicked, little” imagination, and you especially can’t learn about Heaven from sinful pop culture’s fiction about demigods in outer space. You’ll need to read God’s Word to understand Heaven, first through virtue, then through Isaiah’s, Ezekiel’s, Daniel’s, and John’s visions of God—and from the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch).

The more you understand Heaven in your own heart, the more boring sin will seem. Temptation to sin won’t grip you, you’ll just be bored sick thinking about it.

When it comes to other people’s sin, that won’t shock you either. You’ll be sad, but not undone, nor will you have some new, lowly view of people when you learn what they did wrong. In fact, the more you understand God, the more you will understand how incredibly much so many people have been forgiven so immensely. As we mature, God gives us insight about other people’s struggles—sinful or otherwise—as we get bored with any kind of sin and more fascinated with God.

203 – Under Attack, Taking Flack

Sooner or later, if you stand for the right thing, some enemy somewhere will give you retaliation flack. If you never get attacked then your missing something. Good people doing good things draw opposition from bad people who do bad things because good things disrupt bad things. Whatever you’re doing, having opposition from somewhere is the only way to know for sure that you’re on the right track.

When people attack you, it’s not because of your problems. Even if you have a problem, good and healthy people will help you, not attack you. People attack others because it helps them feel better in some twisted way.

Maybe you represent truth that proves others to be lacking, so they lash out. Perhaps they want a rag doll to torment as a distraction from their own problems. Or, perhaps they’re just flustered, having a bad day. But, attacks against you are never because of you.

When you’re dealing with an assailant, normal rules of “charisma” might not apply. There is a place for listening to people and arguing in other people’s favor as good manners in social responsibility. If you’re reasonable then reasonable people will listen to you because reasonable people like to listen to reasonable a person. But, this only applies to reasonable people talking to reasonable people.

If someone isn’t reasonable and they are attacking you, whether in broader hostilities of life or merely in conversation, hostile or passive-aggressive, they probably have diabolical issues and you are neither their first nor their last prey. “Being reasonable” and “having honorable manners” will not work with them. No matter what you do, no matter how kind you are, they will be angry with anyone who stands for the right thing when the right thing gets in their way, especially if they have a secret covenant with a secret sin.

When assailants reveal problems, perhaps exploiting their—or someone else’s—victimhood as passive-aggressive blackmail, that’s your safe rout. Answer, “It sounds like a big problem. I wish I could help, but I should stay back while they figure things out.” That’s exactly right. Keep back. Don’t persuade and don’t mess with people who somehow attract diabolical problems.

202 – Insecure Psychology Reversed

Too often, we say and do the opposite of what we actually think and want. Insecurity drives us to push away someone we want as a friend, perhaps with an insult just to start small talk. We may respond negatively with, “I hope not too often,” when invited to visit regularly.

More so when younger, we all misbehave, break things, run away and ask not to be followed, be unbecomingly rude, or even get violent—and it’s all as a cry for help. Attempted suicide can be a call for help, particularly in public or if the attempted method didn’t have much of a chance of succeeding. If this is you, understand that sending any of these “reversed messages” are not likely to be interpreted correctly except by a very few. Even people worthy of your respect might not understand.

Get comfortable with yourself, accept yourself, learn to invite and speak constructively; teach others the same. It takes time for everyone to learn; especially the most “positive” people became that way by intent and practice.

It goes without saying that suicide is no good answer; “crossing over” is one appointment you don’t want to be early for. There is much written by countless counselors with differing opinions, but don’t presume any instinctive response to be correct when you learn about a suicide. Everyone needs good, professional counsel with this matter, including friends and family, perhaps therapy or just someone to be authentic with.

But, if you’re not the person sending “reversed messages”, learn to identify it quickly. Don’t try to interpret others by their words, rather by what they imply: a call for friendship. Others may need some space, meaning “friendship at a distance”. Sometimes love means making it clear that people standing by themselves across the room are accepted right there at the same time as they are welcome with the group.

You might grab an article on this subject, ponder what you’ve seen, or discuss with friends from younger to older. Learn to identify insecurity quickly and train yourself to give a smile without feeling insulted. Those are moments when your own confident kindness can lift the spirits of those who need it.

201 – Rest in God to Grow What’s Around You

God is not slow, though with a short attention span, it can seem like He has forgotten all about us.

God is above all of our circumstances, though He is also in those circumstances with us. The Bible teaches that God is “near to the broken-hearted”. Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died. Having lived and suffered on Earth, Jesus knows our situation. Yet, Jesus remains beyond the ability for our circumstances to destroy him. God can stand and observe our situation without limit, not because He doesn’t see or doesn’t care, but because He is strong enough to be patient. He doesn’t need to quickly finish so He can go sleep or grab a snack or visit the WC.

As a child I asked why we need Satan. Now, I have finally come to understand that God will never rid Earth of Satan—we will. God is patiently waiting until that time, preparing us for that time.

Most people have not yet worked out their stance with Satan. They say they want to do good, but then they go do something wicked. People complain about corruption in government and business, but then they go and do morally corrupt things to their families and among loyal friends. God asks us the same question every day, “Why do you allow evil in your world? Are you ready to get rid of it yet?”

Once we finalize resolve in our answer, God will give us the tools to put Satan and his servants into the fire forever. But, we aren’t there yet. We’re still making up our minds, so it seems.

Every day, at least try to act like you have made up your mind about getting rid of Satan. Do what is good, make the world around you a little better, let your life be a reason for people to make up their minds about God. While we take our time and sort out which way we want to go, God will be there, patiently watching, patiently nudging us in the right direction, and, when necessary, patiently giving us a catastrophe here or there to help turn our short attention spans back toward His everlasting patience.

200 – Mercy & Grace

Laying down the law requires mercy and grace. Laying down the law without mercy and grace only does more injustice.

When a new rule, policy, law, standard, guideline, or other protocol gets implemented, people who have operated by previous guidelines get outdated. In society it’s called “gentrification” or “political oppression”. In software it’s called “depreciating” and “legacy versioning”. In legislation, America knows it as “prohibition” or “war profiteering”.

When a new rule doesn’t help people make necessary changes to adapt, those people are forced into an artificially created “criminal class”. What they do isn’t unethical, it’s only “illegal” because of a so-called “update” to the law. Papers got shuffled around; now old business owners are “outlaws” merely because of a change in syntax.

This is the method corptocrats and fascists use to fight against their business opponents: Simply promote a change to the law, make it look “wonderful”—such as helping the environment or being charitable—, and structure it so some small technicality “just so happens” to make life difficult for your business competition. It’s an actual tactic employed by dishonest companies in the dark world of “dirty pool business”.

Folk from religious “recruit numbers for the weekly meetings” clubs often allow rules to oppress other people, but without knowing it. Rules are good, but not merely for the sake of rules. Rules are designed by God to bring justice and rules are only good in as much as that they bring justice. Formal religions often teach rules as “shoulds” rather than rules as a practical benefit to promote life and justice. Don’t get caught in the trap of imposing injustice through an intrinsically motivated value on rules.

As long as you see rules for their practical outcome, you will appreciate God’s Word’s rules—assuming that you properly understand the actual “Biblical” rules, not some religious group’s reversioning of God’s Word’s rules. This will help you to give justice by applying rules through grace and mercy.

Give people time to adjust to new rules. Governments should offer to purchase any equipment people bought for doing business under old rules. If you are the business, reinvent; businesses that refuse fail. That’s how ketchup was made.

199 – Never Cancel Easily

We never know how long rain will last. It can come and go within minutes. Cancelling an afternoon ballgame due to a morning sprinkle might mean missing out on one of the sunniest afternoons all year.

God disguises His best parties by making it look like they will need a rain check. Sometimes, the party is at home on the rainy day because rainy days actually do happen. But, they don’t always happen. In fact, making it look like it will rain just before—well, just before it doesn’t rain… Think about it. That builds suspense.

Good performing artists will spend a minute or two boring an audience before pulling out the best act all night. This makes for a very entertaining show, notwithstanding that it proves the performer has excellent showmanship. That performer knows what is boring and what is worth watching and isn’t afraid to perform either, just to show that the performer knows best.

A hike in the mountains may seem the most boring just before the summit. Spelunking in caves is 90% boredom and 1% awe—the remaining 9% is spent wondering whether the trip was worth it and likes to come just before the 1% proving that it was.

That doubt—that feeling that you’re in the wrong place—it almost has a mind of its own. It will sneak up on you, trying to make you miss out on the best life offers. It will make you want to get up and leave before the best speaker takes the stage or run to get a hot dog just before the batter smacks it out of the park. That boredom almost has an artificial intelligence trying to game everyone into missing out, protecting the last doorway of the adventure with a sad jester preaching a fake message of despair. “There’s no hope,” he whimpers behind crocodile tears. “I thought I would find it, but opening that door ruined my life and now look at me.”

God put those jesters there to protect His treasures, reserving His best for those who know when to keep watching, long after the crowds think the show is over and everyone has left the theater.

198 – Gadflies

Don’t turn tone and style into your man made moral code. Some things can’t be done with textbook diplomacy, the only right way to do those things is to do them. There isn’t any way to do those things in a way that will make all of the non-doers happy.

It’s very easy to sit in the bleachers, see the entire field, and try to teach the coach how to teach the players he practices with fifteen hours each week—after watching a game for only thirty minutes. But, those who are actually in the game keep their peace.

Doing something “the right way” requires doing it. The man who thinks someone else does a thing the “wrong way” when hasn’t done the thing at all clearly did a worse job because he didn’t do it all—someone else did it—and therefore he certainly wasn’t able to do it the right way because doing a thing the “right way” begins with actually doing the thing at all.

Salt is supposed to be salty. We need salt, but it’s easy to complain about it. That complaining attitude creeps up inside all of us at one time or another. Police that tendency. It lulls people into comfort, then complacency, then disarray, then hopelessness. Salt haters end up with bland and boring lives; in business, blandness leads to bankruptcy.

Gadflies are a blessing bestowed upon society because they provoke us to action. Gadflies are especially good at rudely buzzing in our ears when we shouldn’t have been sleeping in the first place. And, most wonderfully of all, they bite us when we are so concerned about doing something “the right way” that we just stand there and do nothing at all.

Nature’s gadflies bite the slumbering horse, making it jump into action. They illustrate society’s thought-provokers like John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul. Prophets of the Old Testament told the provocative truth. God sends gadflies into society and is pleased with them.

Gadflies take many forms, from writers to local prophets today to outspoken voices in media and politics to witty graffiti artists. God created gadflies as a reminder. Never be irritated with reminders merely for existing.