Saturday, December 20, 2008

Structure?

I generally tend to have a negative view of structure. I don't like to have thigns i have to do. However, at other times I realize structure makes some things easier. For example, I decided to kind of chill this break rather than go on some kind of service trip.

I find alot of joy in doing service trips though, traveling with people, serving people, learning and growing in that way.
I know there are many things I could do to serve here and things I need to get done and other stuff, but without the structure it is sometimes difficult to motivate myself to do things. So, maybe i need to be more motivated so I can avoid structure or I need to learn to embrace structure.

Or maybe I need to be able to thrive in either situation. Well, God is helping me with self-discipline and motivation, but I think it will be a long process.
I'm not too worried. I don't really know where my life is headed, but as long as God's in charge it will be pretty good.

Speaking of God, I am reading through the Bible, doing one of the year plans. I started it in October, so it's not as if I am almost done. I am actually in Joshua. good name. but what I was going to talk about is from Dueteronomy.

I dont know if I spelled that right.

Anyway, I was reading about the blessings God would pour out on Israel if they obeyed him and the curses if they didn't and it was pretty intense, a couple of the curses causing good men to eat their babies, and being infected with every single disease.

It really made me think about the fear of the Lord. I think I forget about that often. It was a good reminder.

But then I watched a movie called Joshua which is about Jesus (with the name Joshua which comes from the same name as Jesus) coming back to earth in human form and showing how he would be. It is an interesting movie, but one thing I didn't like about it was at one point the Jesus figure seemed to say we shouldn't fear God because God loves us all.

I guess as long as i can remember I have thought we should recognize God's love but also fear him. I don't know if I have ever completely comprehended the fear part. well, actually, I don't think I ever could fully comprehend any part of God.

Then I was talking to Kassie about it, and just how God can do what he wants and she brought up a story of the earth opening up and swallowing a family, which I don't really remember so I can't give details but it reminded me of Ananias and Saphirra (sp) who were each smited by God in the New Testament.

anyway, those are just some recent thoughts. God is powerful. I am glad he is good.

1 comment:

Kelsey said...

Yeah, I think it's like the Narnia series, where God's like a lion -- a loving lion, but still a lion, the king of the forest and someone to be feared.

And I agree, it's hard to look at things like God making the earth swallow someone or God smiting people and still say that God's not someone to be feared.

As far as structure goes, I'm somewhere in the same boat as you -- I don't necessarily like having every part of my day scheduled, but sometimes without any structure, I find that I just waste a lot of time doing nothing. Or like today, I waste a lot of time making tortillas and salsa and scalloped potatoes. There's something to be said for stay-at-home moms when they spend their time cooking, only for it to be eaten up. It's kind of sad looking back at the day and realizing I ate all of my day's accomplishments and have nothing to show. But I digress... actually, I think I'd have to have a point in order to digress from it, and I'm not even sure I got that far.