I'm not good at making friends. Partly because I've never needed to (I had family); partly because I just don't get it. How do two people who just don't have that ground layer of really enjoying each other's presence ever have a real friendship? Oh, sure, we can get along and talk to each other and even have good times, but they're never the go-to person; they're never the friend that you tell your secrets to. They're a "going shopping with them or without them doesn't change the enjoyment level of the shopping" type of friend. Then there's people like my mom, where shopping is a hundred times better with her.
Maybe I just expect too much from friendships and want them to all be deeper than many can be; maybe my definition of real friendship is too narrow. I'm not sure.
More and more though, I'm desiring to be an encouragement to people. But I don't know how to be. I don't know how to talk to people I don't know. I don't know how to START friendships, although, I THINK I'm okay at keeping them going.
So, the question is, how can I either learn how to make friends, or be an encouragement without being a close friend to someone? I feel like I'm an easy person to get to know - as long as someone is asking me questions. Or through something that's not actually directed at them - like this blog, for instance. But people don't just want to get to know me, haha. Why would they? So how do I learn to initiate?
Obviously, it's something I need to start praying about. But it's also something that I'm very open to suggestions about. So if you have any, please share.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Of All Men Most Miserable
This is a topic that has been on my heart and mind for some time. I read the verse today in my daily Bible reading and it struck me again. After some consideration, I decided it was an opportune time to blog about it.
The phrase above is found in I Corinthians 15 in which Paul is making his defense for the resurrection. To sum up (because I'm sure all my regular readers know it very well), he says that if there is no resurrection, Christ is still dead, and we have no future hope; if Christ is dead, we are living our lives to serve a god that doesn't exist, and once we're dead, there's nothing more. Serving someone who doesn't exist with no hope of reward for it = most miserable.
I've heard this phrase applied to other things, and I've come to believe it is a gross misapplication that elevates something to the same height of importance as whether or not Christ is still dead (and therefore, whether or not He is God, and whether or not God exists at all). For the most part, I've heard this phrase applied to the argument for the KJV that if we do not have the exact words of God, we are of all men most miserable.
So I ask you, of those tribes around the world who have no Bible in their possession because there is no Bible in their language or because of lack of sufficient funding to buy such a Bible, are they of all men most miserable? They have no written word of God, but due to the work of the Holy Spirit, they've become children of God. Children of God are of all men most miserable???
No. Resoundingly, no. It is a saddening thought to me that someone would elevate the earthly possession of a thing to the same height as whether or not Christ is alive.
Whether or not I own a Bible, have the opportunity to own a Bible, or any other detail about the Bible - even if I thought my Bible were FULL of errors (which I don't) - it STILL would not effect my salvation and therefore, it CANNOT be so weighty a matter as make me of all men most miserable.
Now some could argue that if we don't KNOW that we have the exact words of God, that therefore we can't KNOW that Christ is risen. Guess what. We weren't there to witness it; we can't KNOW, and yet, we know. By faith. In our fallen selves, we can't KNOW any of it is true anyway. In our fallen nature, there is no reason to believe that Christ is alive - resurrection from the dead? What are you, crazy?
Yet we know. Why? We've been changed! Owning a Bible does not make a person's faith stronger. It just doesn't. You don't get suddenly more Christlike by having a Bible in your home. The Bible is a wonderful, wonderful gift. It is not on par with Christ's death. Without Christ's death, the Bible would be useless. But even without the Bible, Christ's death is NEVER useless because that's not the only means of spreading the Good News!
If all we had were verbal traditions passed down from generation to generation of what happened, do you think that people couldn't get saved? Sure they could. Why? Because the written word is not necessary. How can I say that? Because there wasn't one in Corinth when Paul went there and shared The Word with the people. But God had much people in that city, thus, they were saved!
In conclusion, saying that we need SPECIFIC information in order to know a thing is bizarre. That's like saying I can't know how old I am if I've never seen a calendar. There are seasons! Much more generalized things, but they still keep time very well.
Please don't misunderstand my feelings and very high regard for the Bible. The Bible is precious and it's full of information and wisdom and exhortation. It is beautiful and lovely and deep and a very useful gift from God. However, it is NOT as lovely as the reality of what happened. Christ came, lived, died, and rose again. Without THAT, I am most miserable.
The phrase above is found in I Corinthians 15 in which Paul is making his defense for the resurrection. To sum up (because I'm sure all my regular readers know it very well), he says that if there is no resurrection, Christ is still dead, and we have no future hope; if Christ is dead, we are living our lives to serve a god that doesn't exist, and once we're dead, there's nothing more. Serving someone who doesn't exist with no hope of reward for it = most miserable.
I've heard this phrase applied to other things, and I've come to believe it is a gross misapplication that elevates something to the same height of importance as whether or not Christ is still dead (and therefore, whether or not He is God, and whether or not God exists at all). For the most part, I've heard this phrase applied to the argument for the KJV that if we do not have the exact words of God, we are of all men most miserable.
So I ask you, of those tribes around the world who have no Bible in their possession because there is no Bible in their language or because of lack of sufficient funding to buy such a Bible, are they of all men most miserable? They have no written word of God, but due to the work of the Holy Spirit, they've become children of God. Children of God are of all men most miserable???
No. Resoundingly, no. It is a saddening thought to me that someone would elevate the earthly possession of a thing to the same height as whether or not Christ is alive.
Whether or not I own a Bible, have the opportunity to own a Bible, or any other detail about the Bible - even if I thought my Bible were FULL of errors (which I don't) - it STILL would not effect my salvation and therefore, it CANNOT be so weighty a matter as make me of all men most miserable.
Now some could argue that if we don't KNOW that we have the exact words of God, that therefore we can't KNOW that Christ is risen. Guess what. We weren't there to witness it; we can't KNOW, and yet, we know. By faith. In our fallen selves, we can't KNOW any of it is true anyway. In our fallen nature, there is no reason to believe that Christ is alive - resurrection from the dead? What are you, crazy?
Yet we know. Why? We've been changed! Owning a Bible does not make a person's faith stronger. It just doesn't. You don't get suddenly more Christlike by having a Bible in your home. The Bible is a wonderful, wonderful gift. It is not on par with Christ's death. Without Christ's death, the Bible would be useless. But even without the Bible, Christ's death is NEVER useless because that's not the only means of spreading the Good News!
If all we had were verbal traditions passed down from generation to generation of what happened, do you think that people couldn't get saved? Sure they could. Why? Because the written word is not necessary. How can I say that? Because there wasn't one in Corinth when Paul went there and shared The Word with the people. But God had much people in that city, thus, they were saved!
In conclusion, saying that we need SPECIFIC information in order to know a thing is bizarre. That's like saying I can't know how old I am if I've never seen a calendar. There are seasons! Much more generalized things, but they still keep time very well.
Please don't misunderstand my feelings and very high regard for the Bible. The Bible is precious and it's full of information and wisdom and exhortation. It is beautiful and lovely and deep and a very useful gift from God. However, it is NOT as lovely as the reality of what happened. Christ came, lived, died, and rose again. Without THAT, I am most miserable.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Trying to Discover the Truth About Healthy LIving
Due to some friends and family being suddenly (or just perhaps just more vocally) aware of what they're eating, I've become more aware of it. I've read warnings and informational blogs, watched videos, and done more reading. I find it interesting, but I'm by no means studied on the subject.
At first, I was very skeptical. Partly because I was raised that way. We ate hot pockets and TV dinners and hotdogs and ramen noodle soup. (Not most of the time or anything; they were just present in the house and there was rarelyanything against them. In fact, I liked quite a few of them quite a lot.)
Eventually, I decided that it was something I had to make up my own mind about and started taking things a bit more seriously. Since I'm now the one buying the groceries, I'm the one responsible for whether or not we're eating healthy or not. Nothing like the weight of responsibility to force you to look into something.
My problem with this whole topic is not an unfamiliar one. The problem is that whoever I listen to, I'm listening to someone and really know nothing myself. It's all, "I heard" or "I read." It's never, "I know because I've seen, because I've done the math, because I know the chemistry." This is a problem because different people say different things; who do I trust? Some people say, "Don't eat butter; it's fattening and bad." Other people say, "No, no, BUTTER is fine; it has good fats; it's margarine you shouldn't eat."
So is butter bad or good? Are the extra calories in one thing that has good fat worth eating it? Or do you eat the fewer calories and bad fat?
Seriously.
And then there's the thing about microwaves. I've heard multiple times that they're bad, bad, bad and should never be used for anything. They change the molecular structure of your food and it takes all the nutrients out. (No one ever mentions where exactly the nutrients go. . . They dissipate I guess?? Do we breath them later then?) Microwaves are apparently extraordinarily powerful; if only like in "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" we could get a microwave to change non-food into food, rather than the other way around.
But here's my question. . . . Microwaves do not change the taste or aroma of the food, so how much is it actually doing to the food? If I microwave something for ten seconds, does only part of it change and the rest is okay? When it's really hot, is that how I know that it's now nutrient-free? I have a difficult time thinking that one second in the microwave and the food is no longer food. Presto change-o! Why? Well, that sounds an awful lot like magic, and a lot less like technology.
Change takes time. Even powerful radiation takes time. People don't contract radiation poisoning immediately if they enter a contaminated area. They have to be exposed for a certain amount of time, depending on their circumstances. The longer the time and the higher the radiation, the more severe the case. But what is that time with a microwave? (And you'd probably have to know for each power of microwave. For instance, ours is only 700 watts; we can't microwave a lot of things because they require 1200 or 1500.)
I'm not a health nut. I like icecream in specific and desserts in general way too much to be a health nut, not to mention Chinese food. . . . (Orange chicken - Mmmmmmmmm.) But that doesn't mean I don't want to be healthy. In fact, I think I have one up on a lot of people because I've always loved fruits and since hitting my late teens have developed a taste for a variety of vegetables.
However, I see a lot of gaps in the arguments that are made against certain things. They seem to be all or none. "That food is evil1 NEVER partake! NEVER drink soda; if it's regular it uses corn syrup; if it's diet, it uses Aspartame." Really? I can't ever drink a glass of Root Beer? Or even on a lesser side, which one is better of the two? If I need some caffeine because I'm going to be driving and there was no way around it, what's better to buy, the diet pepsi? or the regular?
These are the things I'm more interested in, but they seem to be the things that no one is addressing. Instead, it seems to come in the extremes of never and always.
And it makes me wonder. Is it worth looking for the answers? Is it worth spending the extra money for organic milk? (It's double the price. . . That's not a small change, especially on a tight budget.) Does it really matter if I eat butter or margarine, since really I don't eat it that much anyway? Honestly, if it were just me, I wouldn't change it because I eat so little of the stuff. But Zack eats it, too.
I know people who'd say no, don't worry about it. And I know people who'd say yes. The problem is, I'm not sure which one I am. And the people I know who'd say "no" have a lot of health problems that the people who say "yes" say their way can help with. . . . I don't want to be on daily doses of drugs when I'm forty. I really don't. If eating differently can keep me off medication? That's something I'm very interested in.
At first, I was very skeptical. Partly because I was raised that way. We ate hot pockets and TV dinners and hotdogs and ramen noodle soup. (Not most of the time or anything; they were just present in the house and there was rarelyanything against them. In fact, I liked quite a few of them quite a lot.)
Eventually, I decided that it was something I had to make up my own mind about and started taking things a bit more seriously. Since I'm now the one buying the groceries, I'm the one responsible for whether or not we're eating healthy or not. Nothing like the weight of responsibility to force you to look into something.
My problem with this whole topic is not an unfamiliar one. The problem is that whoever I listen to, I'm listening to someone and really know nothing myself. It's all, "I heard" or "I read." It's never, "I know because I've seen, because I've done the math, because I know the chemistry." This is a problem because different people say different things; who do I trust? Some people say, "Don't eat butter; it's fattening and bad." Other people say, "No, no, BUTTER is fine; it has good fats; it's margarine you shouldn't eat."
So is butter bad or good? Are the extra calories in one thing that has good fat worth eating it? Or do you eat the fewer calories and bad fat?
Seriously.
And then there's the thing about microwaves. I've heard multiple times that they're bad, bad, bad and should never be used for anything. They change the molecular structure of your food and it takes all the nutrients out. (No one ever mentions where exactly the nutrients go. . . They dissipate I guess?? Do we breath them later then?) Microwaves are apparently extraordinarily powerful; if only like in "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" we could get a microwave to change non-food into food, rather than the other way around.
But here's my question. . . . Microwaves do not change the taste or aroma of the food, so how much is it actually doing to the food? If I microwave something for ten seconds, does only part of it change and the rest is okay? When it's really hot, is that how I know that it's now nutrient-free? I have a difficult time thinking that one second in the microwave and the food is no longer food. Presto change-o! Why? Well, that sounds an awful lot like magic, and a lot less like technology.
Change takes time. Even powerful radiation takes time. People don't contract radiation poisoning immediately if they enter a contaminated area. They have to be exposed for a certain amount of time, depending on their circumstances. The longer the time and the higher the radiation, the more severe the case. But what is that time with a microwave? (And you'd probably have to know for each power of microwave. For instance, ours is only 700 watts; we can't microwave a lot of things because they require 1200 or 1500.)
I'm not a health nut. I like icecream in specific and desserts in general way too much to be a health nut, not to mention Chinese food. . . . (Orange chicken - Mmmmmmmmm.) But that doesn't mean I don't want to be healthy. In fact, I think I have one up on a lot of people because I've always loved fruits and since hitting my late teens have developed a taste for a variety of vegetables.
However, I see a lot of gaps in the arguments that are made against certain things. They seem to be all or none. "That food is evil1 NEVER partake! NEVER drink soda; if it's regular it uses corn syrup; if it's diet, it uses Aspartame." Really? I can't ever drink a glass of Root Beer? Or even on a lesser side, which one is better of the two? If I need some caffeine because I'm going to be driving and there was no way around it, what's better to buy, the diet pepsi? or the regular?
These are the things I'm more interested in, but they seem to be the things that no one is addressing. Instead, it seems to come in the extremes of never and always.
And it makes me wonder. Is it worth looking for the answers? Is it worth spending the extra money for organic milk? (It's double the price. . . That's not a small change, especially on a tight budget.) Does it really matter if I eat butter or margarine, since really I don't eat it that much anyway? Honestly, if it were just me, I wouldn't change it because I eat so little of the stuff. But Zack eats it, too.
I know people who'd say no, don't worry about it. And I know people who'd say yes. The problem is, I'm not sure which one I am. And the people I know who'd say "no" have a lot of health problems that the people who say "yes" say their way can help with. . . . I don't want to be on daily doses of drugs when I'm forty. I really don't. If eating differently can keep me off medication? That's something I'm very interested in.
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