Thursday, January 13, 2005

blueprints for an ark

"It's not about you." how many times have you heard that in sermon after sermon (in and out of the pulpit)?
There is a flip side that is not mentioned. "It's not about them."
"them" being the people in your life that you so often spend most of your time and energy trying please and impress.
It is so easy to trade our omnipresent Almighty for very present deities that are all around us, waiting to offer their own commandments for our lives. Ready with new flashy idols to bow to and comfy pews to sit in.

Who do you try to please? Whose comments ring in your ears, days after they were said? What advice do you get that outweighs everything else? Whose criticism causes you to stay up at night and wonder what you could have done differently? Have those people taken the role and function of God in your life? Do you even still need him in your life if you have those people, or is it only when these lesser gods fail do you once again return to a higher power?

As Noah labored day after day, piling wood and hammering, his neighbors and friends and even family would come by and laugh at him, tell him that was crazy, talk about how his religion was too fanatical. Why would God ask you to do this? It doesn't make sense Noah.

The ark we build is our lives. The decisions we make. The way that we treat people. Our honesty. Our dishonesty. The Goals that we set and the way that spend our money.

Have you ever been in a building that had two different builders or styles? Those accumulated buildings that are piecemealed together and there are so many different styles and plans that everything is disjointed and unfocused. This is the ark that we build. Switching blueprints. Changing plans. Changing architects. This is the lives that people see. This is the ark we build.

1 comment:

Jason Maroney said...

jezzi - thanks for the comment
ultimately we are accountable for ourselves
i think we both agree on that from your comment
also, we both agree that there is a "god" from what you said.
from just those two points i don't see how someone can get around being accountable to "god"
hear me out. if you only attribute one characteristic to "god" it would be forming the universe and the livings things in it, including you and me.
now, he didn't just throw a pile of crap together and slap a mr. potato face on it, "god" designed this intricate body that we have, DNA & RNA and sub-molecules and cellular processes that are too incredible to fathom. also, the world "god" made has order and balance. a system with rules and laws. even the planets have boundaries.
looking and examing the universe, the world and our very bodies, cries out for a GOD. It goes against all logic that "god" would go to such incredible extremes to design a world and super-design humans with intellect to create and emotions and a hunger for god and then have absolutely no care at all what happened to them.
but regardless of logic, i know from what has happened in my life and what i have gone through that the "god" who made this world and you and i, does come to us as individuals and he does that out of love.
that is something that is almost impossible to understand without faith. that GOD would love this little insignificant speck of dust that is me. especially that slimy, nasty, cruel, heartless speck that is me. but as much as i know that gravity exists and will continue to hold my fat butt to the ground, i know that God exists. i see the effects of gravity and i have seen the effect of God, i hope that you someday will too.