Bel Far Niente

There are literally no words for how peaceful I am right now.

I decided a couple of weeks ago to go and visit my dearest friend in Greensboro for a weekend simply because I had missed her greatly. I knew she had school but still, just the intention of going away for a weekend was brilliant. As the date got closer I began to try and figure out things to do at like every second which isn't new for me. I like to do things. All the time.

Is it healthy? Absolutely not.
Was I going to try and do it anyways? Absolutely.

But sometime between planning and actually leaving I decided to say 'meh' to all of it and just...be.
Best decision of my life.

There is just something about just letting yourself be your only company. I think a lot of people have that problem especially in America. We are surrounded by things to capture our attention and we gravitate towards it like moths to a flame without even thinking. By the time we realize we haven't had any time to ourselves, we are too over-planned to do anything about it which is sad. I found myself in that situation and immediately thought, "there is no possible way I can sacrifice a weekend. I have this and this...etc."
But in these moments we have to stop and consider what we are doing to ourselves. Our bodies are a temple and the temple can't have any maintenance done to it if it is constantly doing things.

I was watching Eat, Pray, Love the other day (which is a great movie, at least the Italy part. Same thing with the book. Italy = the way to go) and there's a scene when the main character is sitting in a barber shop in Rome talking with some of her Italian friends and one of the men says something that was so beautiful. He says that there is a saying in Italian, "Bel far niente - the beauty of doing nothing". He says that Italians are masters of it. They know that there is a time for everything. Not just work. 

So, in closing, treat yourself today. Make sure you are not overworking yourself and make some time to just be. Your body will thank you and you'll be happier because of it! :) 

Till Next Time...

One Word...

Love.

This word and its meaning has been brewing in me for a week now.

Let me first back up and explain.

On Monday at my church's college group, our college pastor spoke on love and the Hebrew words for love. Now I had always heard about the Greek words for love ( agape, eros and philia) but no one has ever spoken about the Hebrew words.

Anyways, the Hebrew words for love are Raw-Aw - which is like the root of love; where all love stems from; when you can truly see a person in all their crap and still love them.

A-Hab-Ba - which is a deep affection; like "there's no other place I would rather be than with you" kind of love

And then there is Dode - which is the "mingling of souls". There's really no other way to describe it other than that.

I found these words fascinating 1. because I had never been taught them and 2. because they were all so deep. There wasn't a love that was just flippant. All the words had a commitment. They required a fair amount of sacrifice to use.

It really got me thinking about how I use the word 'love'. I've become so flippant with my usage that its become trivial. At least to other people it will sound trivial. I mean, what if I were talking about my favorite band (which is The Reign of Kindo right now. Fun Steven fact for ya) and about how much I love them and then turned to my best friends and say I love them too. I most certainly don't love my friends like I love The Reign of Kindo and they know that but still! They would never know the true value in that word when I use it.

A lot of us at this point would start to say, "I wish there was another word of love so we could differentiate". Which I totally agree with but we have to be realistic. We cannot change the English language. That's ridiculous. So because we cannot change the word for love in English our only alternative is to be cautious. We need to be mindful of what we say and how we say it.
We have one word for love.
It needs to count for something more.

Furthermore, in 1 John 4:8 it says "...whoever does not love, does not know God because God is Love..." So not only is the word love more than how we use it for everyday things, it's actually a descriptor of God Himself. In my head, that makes it even more sacred. And it kind of convicts me because if our Holy God chose that word to describe Himself then the last thing I should be doing is throwing it around every which way.

All in all, I felt like I needed to share that simply because it's been weighing on me and challenging me in how I convey my feelings. I don't want my words to mean nothing. When I speak there ought to be impact.

I hope this challenges anyone who is reading this on the interwebs to be careful what you say and how you say it and what your words actual mean when you say them. When you speak, it shouldn't be "a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal" it should strike to the heart and cause change. Our words are powerful, let's not take them for granted. Remember that God spoke the world in existence using words; "the Word was with God and the Word was God" and that the Word resides inside of us. With this knowledge, just imagine what our words can create in people's hearts and minds.

Till Next Time...

The Weightiness of the Gospel

Today is the day that I wished I lived in China.

Like no joke.

At college group tonight we watched Francis Chan's message from Passion this year and he was talking about weighing our lives to the Gospel. He started talking about the underground church in China and how they are literally running for their lives for the sake of Christ. And the thing about it is that they are glad! They are glad that their lives are reflecting what Jesus said in Mark 13:13 where he says "they will hate you because of me". The Chinese people welcome this persecution because it says to them that what they are believing is true!

Francis also said that he was speaking to the Chinese people and telling them how we do things in America and they just laughed. They are laughing at us. We call ourselves Christians, I included mind you, and choose not to be bold about our faith. Over in China, if you proclaim yourself a Christian, you better mean it because you lose everything. People have died, lost their families, lost entire communities, hunted down, thrown into the street, beaten and countless other things just because they stood up and were bold about Jesus's grace.

And what pisses me off is that so many people, Americas to be exact, are bold about animal rights, women's rights, gay rights and all these other things but the majority of Christians choose to sit back and be silent. Now I'm not talking about these people who are speaking hatred into people's lives in the name of our Lord. That is wrong and the Lord sees it. I'm talking about speaking out about the love and saving grace of Jesus Christ! This is what we should be shouting about. I know I'm probably just running on adrenaline but it's true. And if you are reading this and are stirred then you know it's true too.

Personally, I don't understand why people hate the Gospel. It's saying that if you accept Jesus's sacrifice as payment for your sin that the God who created the universe and set time and reality in place looks at His children and says "You are Mine" because all He sees is His child. He doesn't see the sin we were cursed with. That curse is BROKEN! All He sees is us clean and pure and is anxious to be close to us. He adores us. He looks at us and get excited! When we speak to him he listens with intent. I could go on and on but isn't that amazing?? Sometimes I think we forget and we get caught up in our lives to the point that we kind of take God's love for granted. And please don't think I'm am speaking at people. This is coming right back to me and convicting me. I desire to be closer to God. I allow things in my life to distract me from Him. Nothing else should matter to me. Nothing else should matter to me.

All in all, I just want to have my life weigh in comparison to the Bible. Need that. I don't want to get to the end of my life, stand before God and just have indentations in a seat in a building to show for it. I want the Lord to be able to place a Bible in front of my life and not know where the Bible starts and I begin.