The Time of Your Life

I just got done watching In Time, a new sci-fi action movie where people stop aging at 25, but only have a year to live...unless they get more time, which is the new currency. The heroes, one from the slums and the other the daughter of one of the richest men in the world, set about robbing banks and distributing the time to the poor. Basically, a futuristic Robin Hood story.

One of the lines in it is, "You can do a lot in a day." That got me thinking about how much I do in an average day. In some days, I can move mountains. In others, not so much. What if I only had one day left, though? Would I waste it? Would I have a leisurely breakfast, set about my normal day, and then end it by watching a couple sitcoms? No. I'd spend some of it contacting those I care about one last time, and the rest doing everything I could to make a difference.

I'm pretty sure I have more than just one day left. And maybe that's the problem. Or part of it anyway.

The other part is I don't get the urgency of my calling. I honestly believe that my calling is to help people learn who they are in Christ, yet I don't seem to get how much they need to learn it. The reason I had to edit my confidence book is because someone I used as an example was offended at what I'd written about them. If this person really understood the message, they would not have taken it as an accusation and, more importantly, wouldn't have been bothered by it even if I had meant it as one. (I had meant it only as an example of why I became what I was, not to point fingers. I never even placed blame, but what I had written was seen as such.) I don't mean to sound condescending in any way, but there are Christians who need to find out who they are in Christ. Knowing Christ is only half of it, and so many Christians live only half the life they're supposed to. Every day, they're struggling with their issues and I have help to offer, help that I need to offer as much as they need to get it.

The point of this post isn't that you need help if you're reading this or anything arrogant like that; it's that the world needs you to do your calling. In the movie, those people would have died without getting more time. It made them slaves to whoever had the time to offer, much like people who are unconfident are slaves to those who make them feel better about themselves. The poor needed the system to be changed, and two people set about changing it. What kind of difference would you make in someone's life if you pursued your calling like you only had one day left?

And that is why you need you to do your calling every bit as much as others need it. We aren't here on this earth to live for ourselves, but to find something greater than ourselves. If you're a Christian, you've already found something worth dying for. Now it's up to you to do something worth living for.

Learning Curve, Part 2

I figured out why, at least in part, I have such a shallower learning curve for life lessons than I did for math ones. The answer is simply that I don't want to learn them as much. With math, I wanted to learn as much as I could as fast as I could. It wasn't even to show off or to feel smart; it was because I liked the challenge and saw the beauty of math. I wanted to learn almost everything I could.

Also, life lessons are often seen as humbling experiences. We can see sometimes how they make us stronger, but we still see the potential payoff in ignoring the lessons we've been taught. For example, "I know I've spent too freely in the past and it's caused me to barely scrape by, but this concert is for my favorite band. I can't pass up buying a ticket, even at $100."

So with math, I saw no payoff to not learning (since even playing outside paled in comparison to going through math problems to me; I know, I was an odd kid.) and I wanted the lesson because I could see the benefit. With life lessons, the payoff is more readily seen in ignoring them, and then the lesson is humbling once I have ignored the previous lessons.

This leads me to the next question: how do I want the things of God more? How can I want them enough to be willing to learn my lessons through instruction and study rather than experience or, worse, not learning them at all? It may be a little longer before I come up with an answer to this one...

Learning Curve

I enjoy math. The answers are either right or wrong, with no gray area. There can be multiple answers to some problems, but most have only one solution. Yet, there is a beauty in the math that I think a lot of people miss. There are just so many ways there are to come to that solution, as well as all the patterns that develop even in the most mundane things. 11*11=121. 111*111=12,321. And so on.

I remember learning multiplication when I was a little kid. I already knew addition and subtraction, so after my mom taught me multiplication, I asked if division was simply the opposite because it made sense to me for it to have an opposite, since addition did. She said yes, gave me an example, then gave me another one with longer division and that was it. My learning curve was very steep.

Well, in math, anyway. In life, it seems to be a different story. I've learned about God's goodness over the past few years and how futile it is to fight against God. I've learned about how He wants the best for me and how His love for me isn't dependent on what I do. I've learned about His power and faithfulness and how He's better than the other things I'm seeking. And yet...

And yet, I get distracted from His calling on my life. I forget some of the lessons I've learned and have to re-learn them. I forget how seeking my value in what my friends think of me will never make me happy or feel valuable enough. I forget that the money is really His and I'm just a steward.

I'm not beating myself up over this. It's not what God wants me to do. I do, however, have to question why my learning curve for this isn't as high as it is for math or Excel. How is it I can learn those lessons just once, but I have to learn life lessons over and over, despite getting sharper repercussions for failing life's little tests?

I know it's a heart issue. (Always is.) And it's now time for me to get back to school, learning about God, whether for the 1st time or the 100th.

Meant for Something More

Facebook is meant for certain social interactions more than others. A status, for example, can be many things: a mundane update, a thought for the day, a joke, a celebration, a complaint about something not too terribly personal or serious, or even a veiled mourning oft disguised in song lyrics...but you almost never see one that is deeply personal and serious. You can talk about that over Facebook chat or messages, but most people prefer to have such conversations in person or at least on the phone.

I've been going through a lot lately. I'm now missing my friends in Virginia for an entirely different reason: I have no one to talk to about serious, personal things out here. One of those things is that my grandpa on my mom's side is close to passing away. I was talking to my mom about it and she said we were actually meant for heaven and that earth is just a pit stop.

The odd things about that statement is it's not how it originally was. We were created to live in a paradise on earth forever. Then Adam and Eve ate the fruit and changed all that. I'm not criticizing them. We all would have fallen sooner or later. Yet that action so defines our human condition in that even when we have it all, we don't seem to be satisfied. And so we opened the door to sin and made ourselves dependent on God not just for life, but for salvation.

The amazing thing is that Jesus didn't restore Eden to us. He gave us something better. Adam and Eve were not meant to die, which means they weren't originally going to heaven. We get to. Usually, I try to end with some way that turns the meaning of something I said earlier in the post or at least mentions it in a slightly different light, but I honestly don't have a clear point in this. I guess it's just something for me to be grateful for in a hard time.

Something to be Mad About

I had a bad week last week. I still haven't fully recovered from it. The two worst things happened Wednesday and Thursday and I've been mad since when I think of them. Yesterday, in an effort to get my mind off these things, I watched a Bulls game and was getting pretty mad at them for a lack of effort and sloppy play. I went to get a drink at halftime and it struck me that I wasn't really angry with them. Disappointed, yes, perhaps even a little frustrated because this was a big game, but not angry. I don't really get angry at sports teams unless they play dirty. No, I was still mad about these two situations and looking for something to take it out on.

I try to not get too political during these posts, but I'm afraid my time in Virginia has irreparably corrupted me in that regard. I pay attention to politics now and it shows from time to time. In the past year, voter outrage seems to be at an all-time high. There was the debt ceiling crisis, California's gay marriage bill being passed then overturned (and that last decision is now being appealed), other states allowing gay marriage, the score of Republican Presidential nomination debates (I wish I was exaggerating on that number), the Occupy Wall Street movement, Greece and Italy near financial collapse, our market teetering between recovery and downturn, and a number of things I'm sure I'm forgetting. The latest one is whether employers or the government (read: taxpayers) should be required to provide contraception to women. Whether you're for or against it isn't the point; it's just another issue that not only seems to divide people into two basic camps, but inflames their anger to disproportionate levels.

I'm sure there are people who believe that certain of these issues really are of monumental importance. For example, for people who have lost their retirement savings because they invested in companies that went belly up because of their executives' criminal actions and then watch as these executives get only 2-5 years in prison, I totally understand the outrage. For most people, though, it seems that each controversy isn't so much a big deal on its own, but just something for people to get riled up about.

I go to CNN.com daily and regularly post comments on articles. I try to be logical and even-tempered, knowing that very few people on there respond well to, "The Bible says..." Yet every article that even mentions God or a religious person has a swarm of people saying everything from, "Religion should be banned; it is the cause of all evil in the world," to the relatively tame, "You have no right to tell me what you believe. Believe it all you want, but keep it to yourself." On ESPN, every article mentioning a known Christian athlete, such as Tim Tebow, gets the same treatment.

There's so much anger in the world. I'm sure not everyone is just waiting to explode, but there are so many people who can be easily riled up over things that don't even affect them personally. Or who get so furious over issues that they can't discuss them without resorting to name-calling and insults, let alone rationally and logically.

I've written before (at least on fb) that if our beliefs were stronger, it wouldn't matter whether someone disagrees with us. To quote from the Matrix: Reloaded,
"Not everyone believes what you believe."
"My beliefs do not require them to."
No anger from Morpheus in his reply, no shaking of his faith, no demand that his commander believe the same thing. No insults. No name-calling. No judgment for not sharing his faith.

It makes me wonder how much faith we've lost, how scared we as a society have gotten that things won't work out for us. How insecure many people, both Christian and non-Christian, must feel deep down if they can get so upset so easily.

There are things that it is right to be upset about. If you're one of the people that gets angry easily, is upset over things that don't personally affect you, or gets too upset over them, though, try to figure out what's really going on in your life. What are you really mad at? Is that anger based in fear of something either happening or never happening? Are you even positive your position is right (and if you are, why are you angry with others for disagreeing with you)? Why do you feel superior to those who disagree with you? Since a need to feel superior comes from a fear of inferiority, who do you feel inferior to? If you are willing to answer all these questions, you just might find what you're really so mad about.