Fear is for those who forget who God is

1 Samuel 17:48

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.

I recently saw this verse written out and stuck up on someone's wall. It struck me - in the midst of the Israelites fear of Goliath, it was David, God's chosen one, who ran not away from battle, but towards it.

"Foolish boy", was my first thought.

"Actually, no wait" was my second. What David was doing wasn't foolish at all because he knew that God was with him and for Israel.

I'm not saying that we should run towards troubles and crises - the Bible very clearly says that we are to FLEE from all temptation etc. But I was particularly challenged by the difference that knowing God made in David's response to this situation - he had no fear because he knew God and what He was capable of.

Do we have the same attitude? Me, not really. I forget how powerful God is and end up fearing people more than I do Him. You?

Cracked glasses, no change

Some people are meant to wear glasses. They put on a pair, and immediately they becoem ever so dignified, cool, smart, intellectual. I recently met one of these people - a guy who had the coolest geek glass frames ever. Disturbingly, however, his one lense had a noticeable crack right down the middle.

I didn't know whether I should say something or not- I myself had been an owner of a pair of glasses that been cracked across the top, and over the last year or so [yes, I'm that lazy and yes, it took me that long to get new glasses] had gotten oh-so-tired of people telling me Grace! Your glasses are cracked! Did you know?!?!!

But then I thought, heck, I'm going to tell him anyway. So I did. And ironically enough, he responded in the same way that I had to everyone: "Thanks. But I can't see it when I have my glasses on, so it doesn't bother me." Hearing this come out from someone else's mouth made me pause.. Then I wondered aloud: "So, it's actually just me that's affected by it? Not you?" "Exactly", he said. "I'll get new glasses eventually, but it's no problem now."

This incident made me think about how we so easily become frustrated when people don't change after hearing the gospel. They who can't see the crack in the glasses, will see no need to change the glasses. Us who can see the crack won't understand how they can't see it and why they're so reluctant to do anything about it.

Sometimes, they do take off the glasses and see the crack for themselves. Most of the time, however, even after having warned them numerous times, they won't - and that's just something we're going to have to accept.

Adoption- a thought

When I grow up, I want to adopt.

There're many good reasons to that I won't go into here, but something that's particuarly pertinent to us as Christians is because we too have been adopted- into a most holy and loving Family.

This is for you [if your name is Goat* or Eloff*]

I don't often dedicate whole posts to people, but I thought I would today. Just because I've been thinking about hospitality recently and because today I was particuarly thinking of two people :)

So number 1: Goat*.

Goat has had to put up with so much - nonsensical SMSs, random existential crises, bad guy decisions and the consequences thereof, failed baking bread projects and mad, crazy, laughter-punctuated international phonecalls where neither of us really knew what we were talking about. Most recently, she had me stay with her for a week and a half where she played my driver and PA [which doesn't sound like much unless you know me personally and have an idea of the crazy itineraries I can come up with :)]

Her generosity and hospitality overwhelmed me, as I'm baaaaad at playing hostess and can only put up with treating people like guests for a short bit before I tell them to do what they want themselves. I'm especially amazed as I'm the morning type. And she's not. And sometimes my own chirpiness irks me in the morning, so I have no idea how it must be for others around me! But she very gamely tried to come up with complete sentence responses to my overthetopramblingseversoexcitedlyohyesisitonlynowsevenoclockinthemorningohwhoopsshallimakeyousomecoffeegoat? and more importantly, didn't behead me once! Yay for Goat and Grace...



Number 2: Eloff*

Every now and then, Eloff will get a random SMS from me going "Hey, I'm in the area, can I come over?" Fair enough, you might think. This is what friends are for, aren't they? True. I should probably tell you now that inevitably, most of the SMSs continue in this fashion: "Oh, I haven't eaten yet."/ "I'm staaarving"/ "Ummm." Eloff has very kindly let me raid his fridge every time I come over. This is why I keep on coming over. [Jokes :)]. But yay. Thanks :)
[Yes, you're right. I raided it today and that's why I'm writing this post right now.]


And to all you other wonderful people who are my friends.. thanks :)


G

*For privacy's sake, the names of the people concerned have been changed.

Art, Jesus and Me

So. I write. And people tell me I write nice. Creatively, that is. And that I must continue.

Me, I'm not too convinced. You see, I live life pretty intensely, and while this is a wonderful thing when I am happy (which I am the majority of the time), it is a most dark thing when I am down. My highs are HIGH
and my lows are
LOW.

Existential Crisis Number 1: The Angst of an Artistic Approach

Writing intensified these extremes even more, because listening to other people's stories and creating of my own induced in me so much Mitgefuhl and despair at hearing the stories of the lost,broken and hurt in the world that after a while I decided to stop producing anything of my own. (Not in terms of this blog, but in other things).

Enter Existential Crisis Number 2: The Crisis of a Creative not Creating.

Sigh.

I certainly can't win: Even more angst followed when I stopped creating. I needed some sort of outlet, and I was holding myself in very, very tightly.

"What do I do?", I asked a fellow Christian Creative a few days ago. "I can't bear to create 'cause I feel so much of everyone else's suffering! But then I feel this need in me to create something!!" [I'm dramatic. If you haven't noticed by now.]

"Grace", she said sweetly, "don't take this the wrong way, but no matter how much you feel you're suffering when you're creating, Jesus suffered so much more for us. And He gave you the gift of writing and creating, so just do."

Amen.

Existential Crises: Pretty Much Over.

"Have you always been this outgoing?"

a friend asked, the other day.

"Well, I've always loved people", I said, while struggling to think whether this was actually the case or not. I think I also said something about how I'd made an effort to work on my people skills throughout the years - but either way, that conversation died a natural death after a while.

But because I'm a slow processor, later that day, I suddenly remembered this: I'd become a Christian late in my high school career, and had become a welcomed part of the church family. But, in the years before that, in my travellings and wanderings with my family to many different types of churches, I'd rarely felt genuinely welcomed. Many a church service, my siblings and I had sat there, a bit awkwardly, while wondering what I was doing there. [I mean 'we'. They had better things to do with their time than to think about what I was doing there specifically.] And who wants to join a church where you feel like a squirrel in a group of rabbits? We never had a real desire to come back, nor a real desire to participate with whatever church group we were interacting.

After I became a Christian then, I've made a conscious decision to be friendly and welcoming to people in whatever context I find myself in. This is just made easier by the fact that I can talk a donkey out of its ears, and that I do really find people oh-so-amusing and interesting. But my resolution was (and still is) never again, as much as it was in my power to, would newcomers and people around me feel as lost/unwelcomed/unconsidered as I did.

Sleepy time, wakey time

I sleep. A lot. One of my favourite things to do in the world. However, because I sleep a lot, I'm not always too stoked about having to factor in so much 'dead' time. How much more could I do with my life with so many more hours!!

True that.

But as I was driving home last night, listening to Sia Furler's Soon we'll be found, I was suddenly reminded of another beautiful reason why God in His graciousness has created us to be sleeping beings:

Come along, it is the break of day
Surely now, you’ll have some things to say
It’s not the time for telling tales on me

So come along, it won't be long
‘Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let’s desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we’ll be free

Let’s not fight, I’m tired - Can’t we just sleep tonight
Turn away, it’s just there’s nothing left here to say
Turn around, I know we’re lost but soon we’ll be found

On waking up after sleeping, I always feel as though the day's been given to me as a fresh start, as if I've been given a second chance. The hurts, mistakes, and errors from the previous day seem to, just like in the song, be something of the past, something that might still be a painful factor, but not half as powerful and potent as the day before. Now, imagine a sinful world like ours, free of any opportunities to start again, free of any opportunities to (in some way) wipe the slate free and try once more...

PS previous post on why we sleep: Talking about Sleepy Time