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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Confession- Bitterness

Sometimes at night I lay awake and thing about my life, and I realized the other night I still have some bitterness about things that have happened.  Growing up, I was unpopular.  I am not sure how it when it happened that I became the picked on one.  I was never real competitive  never real athletic and never in the popular crowd.  I can't tell when it happened or why it happened, but my the time I was in 7th grade, I was officially a nerd.  I was picked on, harassed  teased and bullied most of my middle and early high school years.  Even in my group of friends, I was often the butt of the joke.  I was teased and pushed and harassed most of my middle school and much of my high school time, until I was a junior.  I have never been the best, not really the worst, always someplace in the middle.  In the middle of the band, in the middle of the pack, in the middle of the rankings.

I had several people who hurt me in significant ways as I have grown and into my adult life.  I have done my best to forgive them and try to move on, but I realized the other day that I am still harboring a great deal of bitterness and anger.  The only fist fight I was ever in (and lost) I wish I could do back, because I could have won but I quit before it was over.  May times I was wronged and I didn't stand up for myself.  There are many people who I wish I could broadcast how they hurt me to get revenge.  It's wrong and I need to get over it.

The problem with bitterness is that it's sneeky.  It's hard to get rid of, sometimes you don't even know it's there.  Things that are long sense gone are still down in my soul, and even writing about them right now I get a sick feeling in my gut.  Remembering the things in my past that hurt, they cause me to have pain, and letting go of that pain is not easy.

We serve a God who loves us no matter what, but we live in a world that is very conditional.  Our jobs are based on performance, our grades, our ranking, our awards.  We reward success and we celebrate achievement, but none of us are good at everything, so we are often in the middle and sometimes in the bottom.  We have been hurt by being not good enough, or sometimes just good enough but not excellent.  Are you hurt today by being just good enough?

I have begun to really pray about my damaged heart and my soul that is hiding the pockets of bitterness.  There is no easy way to get rid of it, no quit solution.  Confession, repentance, prayer and deliberate forgiveness begin the process, but it's slow going.  I know it will be worth it in the end, I just have to make it to the end.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Getting a Shot in the Head

A Review- A Shot of Faith (To the Head)

I am not a huge fan of apologetics most of the time.  I love apologetics, don't get me wrong, but I don't often use it.  I don't believe that people can be argued to faith.  This book, however, I really enjoyed.  Partially because it appeals to that part of me that is nerdy and loves to think about these issues.  The other part, however, is that there is much use in helping young believers understand the truth behind the myriad of garbage spewed by the cranky atheist.

There is so much being published about "proof" coming from science that is totally unprovable.  This book takes a great hard time about the lack of science in the modern atheist who claims to use science.  It is great for a Christian who is struggling with faith in this age that seems to shoot holes in the concepts of Creationism, Theism and the Supernatural.

This is an easy and enjoyable read and a great book.  I enjoyed it, check it out.  I don't recommend a lot of books on apologetics, but check this one out, it's a good read!