Truthfully

Truthfully, my attitude is cunning right now. I am in a true transition from ideology and theology. A transition from this world and an actual "just world." I'm living vicarious through somebody else and refusing to recognize the social disorganization that gentle thrusts a middle finger expresses my ideals. I'm twisted and tattered as I try to wait for my eyes to adjust to this world I have comfortably been apart of. My life is a cave, a dark hour passes, one after another. It never let's me cease yearning for social situations where I express confidence. I surely have no trouble being the wonderful center of the universe when i am around people I have developed timely and precise faith in, but its the strangers, the people with the same pleasure and attention seeking behavior that I have conjured up. I try to impress overly to the point of wondering "what does that person really think of me." When I'm by myself I give it my all, I'm the greatest show on turf.

When in a crowd I experience social loafing and let others carry a majority of the burden. I experience a numbing of my mindfulness and become reluctant to help others. I'm easily amused and even more easily attracted to harm. I use people without even knowing it. I have trust issue, not from past relationship creating that behavior but just in general. It is hard for me to get close to people, I have a select group of friends that really know me and know what goes on in my head. My passion is making people laugh, I absolutely love it and it makes me feel good, making others feel good. Other people know it as well, i live for others smiles. There is something amazing about pure joy and love for others. I care way to much about myself and spent hours being jealous of others. I am at an where others are already married, some divorced, many with kids, full-time jobs, others take vacations to exotic lands, others can drink normal and express smiles with neon lights and cocktails held in there hands with a kung-fu grip. This story started out as some of my thoughts do, random and prismatic.

I have valley days and mountain days and tonight I am experiencing a bit of both, i struggle looking down to the ground and see if I am slipping down the slope or if I am leaving an imprint of traction as I ascend to the proverbial summit. I am about to move into new place, with new people, interesting challenges, and new environment. I'm very excited about it but I'm tired. I'm tired because of my expectations at times, I expect a woman to just fall head over heels for me without doing any work. Maybe she's out there and I stare at her blankly, flat and expressionless. I had a good discussion about forcing the issue. I'm a collective mush of sensitivity with a hint of nice, fear is the appetizer. The way to my heart is through my stomach, my close friends now that, i am a huge fan of trying new and exciting foods. I lack the trust as mentioned earlier to trust that God has a plan for me and everything is going to be okay, if I let God feed me and take care of me. That part of my life is something I am excited about as far as moving, I am moving into a very close and dear couple and their daughter. They happen to be very spiritual and are trying to further the kingdom. They have asked me to live in their attic and we both may have been begrudged about it. They were inspired by the story about helping and welcoming. We need this, we need community, to be the crutch for someone who is in need. I am truly grateful to have them in my life and I pray that we can develop a even more wholesome and loving relationship. As far as the crutch for one another did you know that the majority of people would not help if someone asking is different then us? A black man asking for help or in need of a cell phone to call for assistance is less likely to receive that help from somebody who is white. I'm not saying that people don't help one another and this is always the case, but it happens. We need each other to survive. Love does not discriminate, love has no segregation.

One of the saddest things it we can learn our prejudice in the one place we seek refugee from it, Our churches can subtle (or even overtly) training racism. Love is not color-blind by any means but rather the empowering construct of ethnicity. In America, the major religion is Christianity, which encompasses a vast majority of subgroups and denominations. In America, we welcome the stranger to an extent. We will let the refugee in but have absolutely nothing to do with them. We refuse to engage them, get upset when we hear a "exotic" language that is not English, and scoff and categorize "them." We refuse acceptance and love for others place them in a warehouse, never knowing or seeing their culture. Never seeing there smiles. We have pockets of reconciliation and say that we have eliminated racism, erased it and brushed off the eraser shaving from society. We celebrate diversity by taking culture and adding an American twist to it. We turn something like "Chinese" food and "Americanize" it, then say we our multicultural. We place ethnicity in pockets.

I live in a rural town south of Minneapolis, Minnesota and we have a growing Sudanese and Somali population in our town but the majority of our town is white. I have no relationship with the people in this town, the people over looked and it pains me to actually say it and be honest at times, I am just as guilty as others and I say I don't want to know. "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me". Jesus prayed this in John 17:23, are we seeing this unity right now?" I don't think so, we become so comfortable in feeling safe, in a Gospel that skimmed, the safe portions of the Bible taught in our Sunday best. It's sad to admit, I mentioned about another uncomfortable. It pains me to be so vain, vile and ignorant. "The true Gospel is a call to self-denial, not a call to self-fulfillment." John MacArthur.

I do feel the social loafing and the view that we live in a "just world at times, but i also know that we have so much pride and if we make mistakes we, struggle to own up to it and confess it. We don't seek the kingdom first, or even seek refugee in a God who wants to take care you us and wants us to go to him with challenges. He, who is without sin, cast the first stone (John 8:7). I began this script with self-loathing and confusion thoughts. I do love to make people laugh and enjoy seeing people smile. It's a universal expression, when some is happy they smile. Even if they hide it behind their hands. When we show an altruistic heart towards someone, anyone I believe it makes God smile. We deserve the flames though for the way we treat others. We are giving something we don't deserve. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and raised again. (2 Corintinians 5:14-15). I don't need to change myself before accepting the Lord, but I need to let God change me. We mean the world to Jesus, even though we hate ourselves. Grace through faith, from the inside out. It's no through are title but are testimonies. (Tony Campolo).

I am going through a transition but I don't feel lost in it. I am struggling with issues of loneliness and want to meet some to love me back and it is a tug of war between my time and God's, don't put to much money on me, even though I have so much pride i my head could float and lead a parade. I'm waiting to share my faith with someone else and welcoming the stranger. I wish instead of packing our neighbors from various fear induced countries into sardine apartments, then ignoring them on the street corner that we would treat them as a child who gleefully shows off his room. When kids show off what they have they are so proud of it, they have so much joy in having others see it. I do trust in God but struggle to lean on his understanding instead of mine. I'm impulsive and jump the gun on decisions instead of taking things to God. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:5-7). I don't do that, I act on impulse and get stuck in a prison of insecurities, struggle with belief and toss and turn on a sweaty pillow. I am anxious, i take small requests to God, but hold on to the larger ones.

I am guilty of a lot of social issues; I am guilty of all sorts of sins. Nelson Mandela suffered a lot of pain and hardship before he was the President in South Africa from 1994-1999. In his inaugural speech he stated "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness which frighten us most. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make the manifest glory to God that is within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Trust in God...C.S. Lewis once said "Though our feelings come and go, God's love for us does not." I fear the unknown, wrestle with social issues, and feel jealous of people around me, I'm a competitive christian who needs to be reminding that we are all equal. I seek attention and approval from other people. I refuse to let God's infinite power and wisdom guide me. I become the wayfarer guide navigating a ship into hazardous waters. Alone and empty. I turn God into something diminutive, and i become a slave to the world. God can mobilize the manumit of our slavery. If we simply allow him too. But I shrink God to the size of a Pez dispenser. Prayers are received only when I lift the head up and eat the delights. Pray for reconciliation, justice, righteousness and hope. give up everything to follow, put down selfish acts and join the Great Commission, be ready to screw up over and over and over again and have God love show the way, he shows love regardless how messed up we are. "Why is it everything that is Bad for you make you feel so good?" Artist: Flame Song: Bad Ain't Good.