“To be sincere when others are being wickedly sarcastic takes bravery. And love must inform our actions.”

I’ve tried and failed miserably to love and live authentically. 

via Boundless

onearth:

Read David Gessner’s toon and then turn off your computer and go   outside: Slaves to the Screen: A Cartoon Caution

SO TRUE. 

(via npr)

(Source: maloriebrooke, via nerdquirks)

Open My Hands

Invisible Empires Acoustic EP, Sara Groves

In times of waiting and in times of disappointment, I have to remind myself of the core truth expressed in this song: He withholds no good thing from us.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” — Luke 11: 11-13

via Boundless

Some things I am learning about love and my desire for companionship:

I’m afraid to be poor when it comes to my search for love. I’m afraid to admit that I long for companionship because it means that I am created to need and be needed by someone. (I’m usually okay with the “being needed” part. It’s just the “need” part that can be very humbling.)

Instead of looking for love (meaning instead of looking for someone who is willing to love me unconditionally), I’m looking for a person who embodies the line-up of qualities that I have on my “list.” I go about looking for love like I’m a coach trying to find a suitable athlete to draft onto my team or a director looking for a suitable actor to cast as the star in his play. This is problematic because, in many ways, it puts me above the person I am looking to eventually serve in marriage — so big time fail there.

Something I’ve been hearing over and over lately is that you grow in your understanding of what real relationships and real marriage are about when you stop looking for Mr./Miss Perfect because you realize that you are not Mr./Miss Perfect either. I think that piece of wisdom is very true to what I am realizing about myself right now.

The reader’s digest version of all this is that I hope to become more peasant-like in my search for love so that I am not only able to become more servant-hearted when I actually find myself in a God-given relationship with a man, but also so that I am able to be more humble in the way that I relate with the brothers in Christ around me who are all striving to be more godly with each given day! I know I struggle with being very judgmental at times, and I don’t want to be like that because it is not very edifying or very Christ-like!

But yes, do read the article. It is much better than what I have written in this post — much, much better.

Cheesy puns at their best :)

via Pinterest

“If any of us are inclined to despond, because they have not such patience, let them be of good courage; it is in the course of our feeble and very imperfect waiting that God Himself by His hidden power strengthens us and works out in us the patience of the saints, the patience of Christ Himself.”

— Waiting on God by Andrew Murray

I’ve been waiting on God a lot lately — waiting on Him for specific guidance and for certain opportunities, waiting on Him to reveal more of Himself to me so that I can find myself daily more satiated by His abiding presence, and waiting on Him in intercession for others (especially for those in my family who are still unsaved.)

In this waiting, I have noticed in myself a deep impatience and a frustration with the time God takes to reveal to us Himself and His will. There are days when I find myself complaining as I look ahead to the rest of my journey on earth and saying, “God, if it means another 60-odd years of waiting on You, waiting for You to work, waiting to see You, I don’t know if I can take it!” Then, the Holy Spirit — through a song or a verse or an intimation — quiets my frustrated heart with a deeper understanding of the joyful and intimate communion I can have with God during periods of waiting and I am humbled and convicted again of my natural impatience. 

Unfortunately, my response to that conviction is often not the right one — I get frustrated with myself and indignant at the fact that “I still sin after being a Christian for so long,” rather than just repenting and asking for God’s mercy to help me start over. I get so tired of asking for God’s grace for messing up again that I erroneously try and fix my own sinfulness by my own — very feeble — strength. I wonder how He could He still love me after all my screw-ups so much so that the wonder begins to turn to doubt.

Yet the quote above reminds me that God sees my impatience and He doesn’t spit on me like I might when I see my own sin. Instead, because of Christ, He looks on me with grace (even when I neglect to ask Him to) and, like a father, He empowers me to keep holding on. It’s of great encouragement to me — as I hope it will be for you — that, because of Christ, God looks on us with love, not wrath, and doesn’t give up on us even when we’re in grave danger of giving up on ourselves.

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of grace
Is where my song begins
In the colours of your goodness
In the scars that mark your skin
In the currency of grace
Is where my song begins

— “Economy of Mercy,” Switchfoot

joechu:

This is what the LORD says:

   “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom 
   or the strong boast of their strength 
   or the rich boast of their riches, 
but let the one who boasts boast about this: 
   that they have the understanding to know me, 
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, 
   justice and righteousness on earth, 
   for in these I delight,” 
            declares the LORD.

— Jeremiah 9:23-24