This Is About You ... And Me

This Is About You …

It is often difficult when you are someone whose soul craves to communicate your thoughts and feelings in some way.  The reason it is difficult is that when you communicate your thoughts and feelings, you are opening yourself up to a vast array of hurtful criticism.  You see, the heart that you open to share from is also open to receive back.  It is a rare person who is capable of receiving your heart-felt thoughts in the way that you intended to communicate them.

You may communicate something that means a great deal to you emotionally.  It is with that heart-felt intent that you share your thoughts and feelings.  However, what you may get back in return is some very hateful and hurtful commentary that has little or nothing to do with what you communicated.  Of course, there is always a chance that you did not effectively communicate what you meant, so that’s something to keep in mind.  But the harsh criticism is inevitable, no matter how well you communicate.

My point here is a question … are you willing to risk having your heart ripped to shreds in order to share your thoughts and feelings or would you rather keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself so that you don’t have to endure the criticism?  Let me assure you, if you are someone whose soul craves to communicate something, you can no more hold those thoughts and feelings in than you can hold the sun in your hand.  They will slip out no matter what you do.  There is a price to be paid for holding them, however.  If you stifle your thoughts and feelings... those things you are driven to communicate, holding them in, it will have consequences toward who you are.  If you do that for years and years you will become depressed.  You will no longer understand who you truly are and you will lose complete perspective on what your purpose is.  I could write another article on that, but it is outside of what I am talking about right now.  Ultimately, like stagnant water, if you keep in what you are supposed to communicate, the things that eventually do come out will stink and be bitter.

I ask another question... what if you knew someone somewhere would be helped by something you communicated... would you be willing to risk being ridiculed then?  Would you risk it no matter how much you would be hurt, if you knew that what you said would make all the difference in the world to someone?  

Everyone who is a true believer in Jesus Christ has something to say, whether they want to believe it or not.  It is not just for the preacher to do or some other ministry worker.  It is also for you.  You see, we have something to communicate that every single person on this planet needs to hear and that is the story of salvation that comes through faith in Jesus.  And yet, almost no one tells anyone about it.

If every Christian in this country went out and told this wonderful message to everyone they see, most every church in this country would be completely filled every Sunday.  And yet, year after year churches in this country continue to shrink in size until eventually they close.  It is because we Christians are not telling anybody about what we know.

If all of mankind was dying of some strange illness and we were all on the verge of extinction and you come upon a pond of water that you found out would cure everyone of this illness, would you tell somebody?  Would you really?  I should think you would.  

What so many of us do not realize is that this situation is exactly what we have in the world right now.  People are dying every minute of every hour of every day of a disease called sin.  We Christians have the cure and that is Jesus.  The thing is, we’re not telling anybody.  WHY?  We know the cure for what they have, but we don’t tell anybody.  WHY?  

I used to believe that people got scared and were afraid of what someone will think of them if they speak out about Jesus.  But do you know what I have come to believe now?  The fact of the matter is, we just plain don’t care! Our hearts have become so cold that we don’t care if Aunt Jane or sister Susie or good old Uncle Buck die and go to hell for all eternity, so we say nothing.  I mean, why should I care?  I’m saved and not going to hell!  If they are going … well … that’s their problem, not mine!  Yeah, that’s right … we don’t care.

If we cared even the least little bit, we would make sure we told at least one person every day, but we don’t, because we don’t care.  “Yeah, but I’m too busy!”  Well, Jesus was pretty busy dying on the cross for you too!  Why?  Because he cared for you that much, but we don’t care.  “Well, I support missions!”  Great, you’re doing good things for those missionaries wherever they are, and what they do IS going to your account, but, what are you doing right here?  Our churches are nearly empty every Sunday and they stay that way, because we don’t care.  We should all fall on our faces before God and beg his forgiveness for our apathy and cold-heartedness!

Those of you who know me are probably upset with me right now and are thinking, “Who do you think you are Steve and what have you ever done about this?”  You know what?  I’m the main person I am writing this to.  I’ve come to realize that I didn’t care who died and went to hell.  I didn’t care who burned for all eternity.  Quite frankly, there are a number of people that I actually WANTED to go there.  What a shameful place to be and Jesus help me change and make me care again.  

Surely, there is one person you care enough about in your life, who you want to make sure that they get saved and not go to hell.  You know what, this isn’t about getting them to come to church with you so that they can hear the Gospel message.  YOU TELL THEM!!  YOU!  Don’t wait for years and trying to get them to church.  YOU TELL THEM!!!  We don’t have many years left on this earth to do that anymore, I believe … YOU TELL THEM!!!

God, please help us to care.  Help us to realize that the hour has grown late and now is the time we do what needs to be done.

Wondering Mind...

Wondering Mind...

            For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to write.  As a kid, I would sit and write plays of various sorts.  I also wrote stories, poetry and just my thoughts.  About the only thing I loved more than writing is music, so I followed that more so than the writing, but ended up not doing much with it either.  So here I am, just a month shy of my 52^nd birthday wondering why I never pursued writing or anything else that was a passion of mine. 

            I always was a people pleaser of sorts and I don’t understand where that came from, other than perhaps my desire to be liked.  That said, I tended to do what someone else thought was a good idea for me to do, rather than what my heart was telling me to do, so I have found that I don’t like my life very much and I don’t truly know who I am.  Perhaps I do know who I am, but it’s buried down in my heart somewhere, because I have repressed it so much over the years trying to be something I am not. 

            I suppose a part of it is not knowing how to make a living from what I love doing.  So many people love to write too and that makes me no different than any of those people.  How do you establish a voice that rises above the crowd and make it so you can make a living from your writing?  How do you follow your heart and feel good about it, when you don’t have enough food in the house, or your utilities are turned off and your rent is 2 months past due?  Most of the things I’ve been really good at, one cannot possibly make a living from for the same reason… me and millions of others trying to do the same thing.  I’ve never understood how to start.

            The only thing I have felt more fulfillment from than writing, was when I was preaching on a regular basis at New Hope Worship Center when I was pastoring there.  I have never in my life before or since experienced that kind of fulfillment, which is what made it so hard to understand why it was taken away from me.  I have always thought that living a life of fulfillment was to be desired and sought after, but for me, it seems that was not the case.

            From life’s circumstance the last few years, I have somehow lost that desire to ever preach again.  And even if I did get it back, I’m not sure if I could do it again.  However, I know that if God still desires me to, he will enable me to do it again ... I very much long to have that kind of fulfillment again. 

            A couple of years ago, I had a psychiatrist tell me that I live too much in my mind and not in the world.  I understood what he was saying and he was essentially correct, however, it struck me as an odd thing to say too, because every great piece of literature was created in someone’s mind and the author had to live there in order to create such a story.  Had not J.K. Rowling imagined in her mind about Harry Potter, where would she be now?  Had not Mark Twain imagined the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, would we have known about life growing up on the Mississippi River?  And that says nothing of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis and the worlds they created in their great fictional works.  These are all places that were developed by living in their minds … presumably.

            So given that, I can only surmise that the difference between these authors and me is that they actually wrote what was in their hearts and minds, whereas I have not.  So, I’m going to strive to make the practice of writing every day.  I’m going to do what I dreamed of doing my whole life and that is simply to write.  I feel I have so much to say.  I wonder if anyone really wants to read it or hear it, but at this point, I don’t think that part matters anymore.  That has always been my worry.  Instead, I’m going to write for my own sake.  No longer am I going to ask myself “What’s the point?” or “Why bother?”  I’m going to write simply because it gives me joy. 

            Just like with most writers, I long to be able to make a living from my writing.  I can say that this is one of the things I want most in the whole world.  I am also going to seek out ways to do that.  With the way things seem to be to me these days, most everything I would seek to do seems to have a massive degree of meaninglessness to it.  I feel that up until now, I have lived my life to just make a pay check.  I want the rest of my life to have purpose and meaning to it.  I want to serve God with my work and have a passion for what I do, rather than have to drag myself out of bed every day and come up with a good reason to go to work.  Ultimately, I want to be fulfilled with my life.

            So many times I’ve heard people say, “Well, sometimes you just have to do what you don’t want to do.”  Okay, I get that, but what about when you don’t HAVE to?  I recently read a list about what successful people do.  One of the things on that list that stuck out to me said that they don’t do what they don’t want to do.  I found that significant, because it seems like I’ve been doing lots of things my whole life that I didn’t really want to do.  Admittedly, there have been times that I started doing things that I thought I wanted to do, but as I got into what I was doing, I found I didn’t really want to do it after all, so I backed away.  Consequently, that got me labeled as a quitter, but on this side of it, what of it?  The thing I did not do to balance that out though, was to pursue the things I really wanted to do.  All I did was pick up the next thing I didn’t really want to do and ended up doing the same thing.

            I have to say that looking back, I did like doing Christian Radio a lot and wish I had not made the stupid mistake of walking away from that, but given the circumstances, I likely would have ended up having to walk away anyway.  That said, I think it’s indicative of the fact that I am actually a communicator.  My heart, mind and soul knows this, but I’ve never had much to communicate, which is odd, considering I feel that I have so much to say.  I’ve tried sales and I really don’t like bothering people to do that.  Plus, it seems like you’re almost required to lie in order to make a sale.  I just want to communicate.  I like talking with people and relating to them and sharing in the experience of the communication.  The only thing that this really relates to, to me, is writing.  So what do I write about?  What do I communicate?  I think Jesus is the best topic of all, which goes without saying, so that’s part of it.  What else?  That’s the issue.  I suppose it can be nothing more than my thoughts or feelings at this point.  As more comes along, I will do more.  Finding where that blog website I started a few years ago is a starting place, I think too.  Perhaps build an audience as I can.

            So there it is.  I’ll pursue being a writer and see what happens.  Now to figure out how to make some money so I can pay the bills and eat while I do that.