Scattered thoughts and Cardboard Testimonies

Man, I've sat down here to write about 4 times since Friday and I can't seem to complete a thought. So, here are some thoughtlets:

1.) Probably one of the greatest disservices someone can do God and other people is try to appear perfect. Of course, this is a slap in God's face because He's the only one who is perfect. The more I try to appear perfect, the less of God people see in me. Let's say I do something stupid like say something mean about someone and they find out and approach me about it. I could try to save my perfect reputation and lie about it, or I could just come out and say, "Yeah, I said that. I was in a bad mood and I let it get the best of me. I'm really sorry. I hope you can forgive me." Which scenario are people more likely to see Jesus in? The one where I ALWAYS appear to do and say the right thing, or the one where I screw up, but take the difficult and humiliating road of...well, humility, which I could never do without Christ???

2.) I've been really busy lately. It's not been "bad" busy...I've actually had a lot of fun. However, I'm finding that even "fun" busy is still busy and wearing. If I don't have time to think through the events of the day, all my thoughts, feelings, impressions, etc. get jumbled up into a big anxiety ball...that's right...and anxiety ball. I need time to process, rest, and sometimes even get bored.

3.) I participated in a cardboard testimony thing at church on Sunday. It was extremely powerful to see a display of what people struggled with before Christ and then to see how Christ changed them. One of the most touching for me was a guy who had "I have MS" on one side of his board, and on the other side he wrote, "God is My Savior." The "M" in "My" and the "S" in "Savior" were underlined. Another guy wrote "Addicted to Porn" on one side, and on the other, "Addicted to God." It was hard to find a dry eye in the audience. I'm sure there are a number of reasons people were so touched by the testimonies. For one, it's awesome to see exactly how God has changed a person. But also, I think a lot of people were convicted. So often we go to church and bury our sorrows, afflictions, and addictions, or we try to ignore them altogether. But when someone goes up to the front of the church and says, "Hey, look! I struggled with (porn, anger, loneliness, fear, insecurity, fill in the blank) every Sunday as I sat in these pews just like you. But I finally let God get a strong hold on me and now look...I'm free!" And the thing is, people think that if they are Christians, they shouldn't have strongholds. That's why they try to appear perfect or they try to ignore their problems. How can you ever begin to be set free from your problems if you keep ignoring them? God's not ignoring them...what makes you think you can?

This isn't from our church, but this is the type of thing we did:



Pretty amazing, huh?