Perceptions.....

How do we gain an accurate perception of someone.....


Do we take a look at their facebook profile, and form a view from the comments they make, photos they post and the way their life seems to be playing out on the page?


Do we read their blog, see the subjects which they are passionate about and often speak about, and then form our opinions?


Do we come to a conclusion through what we have heard others say about them?


How do we gain an accurate perception of someone.....


Do we note the things they say and do in church, school, uni or on ends and evaluate who they are from those limited times in which we interact with them?


Do we stalk them or attach an unseen camera to them for a number of days, until we know everything from their favourite ice cream to the average time they wake up in the morning and go to bed in the evening? (Disclaimer: This one is a No!)


Do we poke at their insecurities until finally they either explode or close up altogether?

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How do we gain an accurate perception of someone.......


Do we begin to invest more time into getting into their life and finding out the deeper parts of their character and personality?


Do we start to speak less and listen more?


Do we read between the lines and if possible hear what they're not saying?


How do we gain an accurate perception of someone.....


Do we pray for them and ask God to reveal something of their heart, so we can begin to minister to them (and not backbite or slander them)?


Do we love them until in the end they become real with us?


Do we forget all the psychological methods (and what we've read in books) and just start to love them, so that in time they begin to open up?

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And if only God completely sees the heart, and only he knows exactly what he put in each individual's character and personality (down to every molecule and chromosone, nerve ending and brain wave), can we really ever fully gain an accurate perception of someone?

Maybe it frees us to let God be the judge, so we can minister love.

Or maybe a somewhat accurate perception can begin with a heart of love......

I'd like to find out.

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Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment- John 7:24

Being Disciplined

Most people, including many Christians, are.....slaves to their bodies. Their bodies tell their minds what to do. Their bodies decide when to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, when to sleep and get up, and so on. An athlete cannot allow that. He follows the training rules, not his body. He runs when he would rather be resting, he eats a balanced meal when he would rather have a chocolate sundae, he goes to bed when he would rather stay up, and he gets up early to train when he would rather stay in bed. An athlete leads his body; he does not follow it. It is his slave, not the other way around.

- John Macarthur

 

 

 

The picture above is of Olympic gold medallist Jessica Ennis. Though she is an olympic gold medallist now, in order to focus on her discipline there were many other things she had to leave behind. This is a quote from a telegraph feature on her.

 

 

There were sacrifices – she could not go to many parties and had little free time – but she has no regrets about the way she spent her teenage years. "I made so many great friends at school who are still close friends, and I don’t think I missed out on that much." She went on to study psychology at the University of Sheffield.

 

In her second year, 2006, she competed in the Commonwealth Games in Australia, where she won bronze with a personal best score of 6,269 points (which are awarded according to the athlete’s time or distance in each event). 'I was thinking, shall I take all my books or leave them? I left them, because I had to focus on athletics'.

Sometimes the Christian life is compared to a race, in which many run but one recieves the prize. The participants have to take on the mind of an athlete in training and self discipline to achieve the goal (or crown) which signifies eternal life.

Sometimes the Christian is compared to a boxer aiming to knock out his opponent. The participant fights with vision and purpose, not punching all over the place but with passion and purpose. The aim is to recieve the prize.

 

From the time when one international games is over, after a short rest time the athletes are back to training for the next one. To be an effective and mature Christian, I must be involved in self discipline as an athlete would be. I must allow my soul, mind and body to be trained as an athlete would do. I must move with purpose and vision as a boxer would do. I must focus on the goal, so that after I have brought others into the race, I myself am not disqualified or left lagging behind.

Mr John MacArthur, I see your quote and am determined to take you up on your challenge- to be self disciplined.

(Blog inspired by 1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

Beats, Music and all that Jazz....

You say, "I am allowed to do anything"--but not everything is good for you. You say, "I am allowed to do anything"--but not everything is beneficial......

-St Paul

Hello again. For the past however many weeks I've been having a huge battle between the ills and the benefits of secular music. Not claiming to have all the knowledge but it's time to touch on this topic. In fact it's long overdue......

I remember when I first went to America. The sights and smells captured me. The beats of hip hop took me by surprise. The style, the debonair soul vocals on some tracks, the fashion, the identity of those who were the poster girls and poster boys for it and the swag of their followers caught my attention. I loved tracks like Fabolous' 'Can't deny it' and Jay Z's 'Izzo'. They seemed to be the block bangers in every hood in Brooklyn. This was the summer of 2001. (P.S For those who read this who didn't grow up in this time nor in the middle of this culture, my apologies if the change in lingo distresses you :D).  

At this time secular music and spiritual music was not the contrasts I know them as today. Music was just music. Anointed was the same as Craig David to me, Cece Winans was the same as So Solid Crew. They all were just catchy tunes which I'd maybe heard in the car or on someone's radio. I guess I could say I had no allegiance to either one. I'd just listen to whatever sounded nice and I was happy. S Club 7 was my favourite band (Gosh, now I've gone and lost all my street cred :D Nevermind! ). This was all until my allegiance changed as I listened to beats birthed in a New York studio. My love for hip hop was born.

Suddenly, you would catch me listening to nothing but rap, street rap, conscious hip hop, gangsta rap with a dash of r n' b. All I wanted to do was be cool, and turn from that boy that was bullied and often seen as soft by those in my peer group, to the guy who was known as a g, someone who could take a fight and took no nonsense, just another guy from the ends to be feared. It took effort to create this new persona, but in some measure by two to three years later I had created the new Christian Smith.

My change was fueled by mainly the music I was listening to and peer pressure. My role model's spoke about being g's, dealing with ho's (whores), the hard life handed to them, and maintaining a persona in the streets.  This is what I gobbled up, and it became my dream to be like them. From this time in my life I began to live under the influence of secular music. It had glorified itself, and I had begun to pay homage. 

Now many people argue (and I've heard it alot), 'music doesn't affect me in the way it affects you' and 'sometimes some secular music can have a positive message'. Sometimes I catch my own thoughts saying to me, 'What about Bob Marley and that, the soul singers from the 60's, the Ray Charles', Aretha Franklin's, James Brown's and the like. Often their music had a positive up-building message'. Some Christians will say 'I listen to both and what's the problem? It never hurt me. It actually helps me get inspired to minister'. These are all reasonable questions and opinions. My challenge lies in one simple statement. 

What you listen to should uphold what you stand for, and encourage you to follow after your life's goal.

I remember I used to be part of a sales company which played 'winner music', music that emphasised the good life after they'd had a seminar. This was to subliminally influence people to sign up for their company with promises of a better life through the selling of their product. I also once knew someone who listened to 'Billionaire' by Travie Mccoy ft Bruno Mars to usher them on to their goal to be- you guessed it- a billionaire. My question comes when someone with the life goal to follow Christ does the same thing and passes it off as just listening to a catchy song. Worldly ambition can easily creep in. When Sean Paul is telling a woman to 'shake that ting', why would a God fearing believer be promoting that glorification of a woman moving sexily to a beat as 'just a song i listen to'. If our profession and our lifestyles are to match, then this should affect the music we listen to. 

Paul emphasised us speaking to one another in 'Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs'. It's not always about the style but its always about the content. I understand 'spiritual' songs as speaking of songs which bring to us the Spirit of God. Therefore if you can get my thought path 'unspiritual' songs would not just be songs that don't bring to us the Spirit of God, but also songs that are used to bring to us another spirit (i.e the spirit of lust, impurity, jealousy or violence etc).  If you can listen to a Bob Marley or an Aretha Franklin song (only for an example, this might not be you) and God's Spirit ministers to you through that all well and good. My problem is when people listen to songs glorifying worldliness and sin (as some of even Bob's and Aretha's do!) and talk about it being harmless because God ministered to them through it. 

Now I don't claim to be working it out completely in practice but by God's grace I aim to. The fact is we all will be example's to the next generation and they will do what we do. It's a sharp opinion and a sharp topic but I feel it's important for me to let my voice be heard.  I've been wishy washy on this subject for quite a while even encouraging other brethren to 'just do what is them' when caving underneath the pressure, but I feel that was wrong advice. God saved us to be a more fuller us, not so we would dedicate our lives to things that don't matter or even worse- things that undermine our faith. 

Please hear what I'm not saying.....

I saw this poem today on my friend Lena Norman's blog (http://mamilen.wordpress.com). Written by a man named Charles Finn in the 1960's, it's not hard to tell, this one was inspired. Read along....

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Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
Masks that I’m afraid to take off
And none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me,
but don’t be fooled,
for God’s sake don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm and I’m in command
and that I need no one,
but don’t believe me.

My surface may be smooth but
my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it is followed by acceptance,
If it is followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls
from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.
It’s the only thing that will assure me
of what I can’t assure myself,
that I’m really worth something.
But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare to. I’m afraid to.

I’m afraid you’ll think less of me,
that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a façade of assurance without
And a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of Masks,
And my life becomes a front.
I tell you everything that’s really nothing,
and nothing of what’s everything,
of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I’m saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying,
what I’d like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can’t say.

I don’t like hiding.
I don’t like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you’ve got to help me.
You’ve got to hold out your hand
even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you’re kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings –
very small wings,
but wings!


With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator–an honest-to-God creator –
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from the shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
It’s irrational, but despite what the books may say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.