Busy

Have any of you ever noticed how busy life can get? Well, that happened to me recently. I just started going to Columbia Bible College, situated in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada. Now I have to say I am enjoying every single minute of it, but it leaves me with so little free time! I am hoping that I will be able to have some free time in the future, but as of now my schedule is pretty jam packed!

Since I am so busy, I haven't even read very many books! This has been one of the first times in my life where it takes me two weeks to finish a book! So shocking I know! But since I am reading so much for school, I don't think it counts. Something I have found invigorating is that I have started to read my bible more. I mean, yes I read it for devotions in the morning if I remembered, but now I am reading it by hunks and chapters! It is so interesting if you actually read it. I think it is just getting around the fact that there are so many books and pages to read that distract us.

How much do you read your bible? I have to admit, that before I came here my bible reading was pretty lacking. I would do my devoitiosn for like two weeks and then life would get in the way and I wouldn't do it again for a couple of weeks. This has been going on since forever. Even though I have such little time now, I am actually picking up my bible in anticipation for what God is going to teach me. Some of my friends can't understand how I can read a couple chapters for school every day and still want to my devotions as well. It is easy, God is teaching me. I don't want to read my bible because I have to for school, but because I genuinely want to. That is what is going on now.

I am a little sad that I have so little time to read novels, but I am finding that reading my bible is more satisfactory than the books. This doesn't mean that I am speaking against novels, because I love them! It is just that the Bible is the most important book and we can't ignore it because we want to read something else, even if we say it is ok because it is a Christian novel. It doesn't work that way. So I am challenging you, how many of you are actually reading your bible if you are a Christian? How many actually put time away in their day to focus on God and not on their family situation, or their job? It is important to get away sometimes, and I believe that when I do my devotions, my day seems brighter. I get less worried about what I am going through and just trust that God will bring it to pass. That doesn't mean that I don't think about it, or that I stop working towards solving the issue, but that I don't just rely on myself. That is way too draining and we weren't made to work like that.


So, how dusty is your bible??

Why!!??!!!?!

This summer I have been staying with my grandparents in Saskatchewan, helping them clean up the yard. It all started that I needed a job and they needed the help, so out I came. I have to say that I have had so much fun this summer, but it has also had some trying moments.

For example, my grandpa has Alzheimer's and Vascular Dementia. If any of you don't know what that means, well, in short form, you forget memories and you forget the purpose for something. People with dementia have problems with memories, perception, emotion issues, cognitive skills, and speech. The sad thing is, for both of these there is nothing that can be done to help, just wait and hope that the pills you are taking are helping.

Everyday I see him fall further and further down the rabbit hole. He wont know what some tool is for, or how to say something. Often times you are left standing there while he struggles with his words and you just want to push them out. Yesterday we were cleaning the garden and I was picking all of the Fat Hen, which is a weed that can reproduce off of a single leaf. My grandpa was attempting to assist me but he was trying to pull them out with a huge spade and was therefore loosing them and covering up other ones at the same time. It took half an hour to convince him to let me do it by myself, but then he insisted on helping me find them. He would point at the weeds and I would pull them out. Only he didn't know which ones were Fat Han. He has been weeding this particular weed since he was a little kid and at the age of 86 he didn't know which one it was. The day before this he said he was 96 and that his wife was 33, which is completely inaccurate.

The thing that saddens me the most is that he used to be so smart. My grandma cries a lot because she misses him. It almost never is him anymore.

I keep asking myself why him? Why should he be the one that looses almost everything he holds dear? It is almost never fair in life, and everyone knows that, but still we ask that most important question. Why. So often people wonder and wonder, and I think that to find the answer people have to turn to God for the answers. Yes bad things happen, but that doesn't mean that God caused them to happen, our bad choices did. When it wasn't our choices or even any one elses, it just shows the frailty of life. Our human bodies are not made to last forever, and this is due to our sin in the Garden of Eden. We are fragile. We break down. Just because someone gets a disease, doesn't mean that it is because they did something bad to deserve it. It could be caused by the bad air due to pollution, or just nature. God allows stuff to happen to teach us a lesson, but that doesn't mean that he wants us to get hurt.

He loves us dearly, and I have found that in the hardest trials, that the stories of Job and to Lamentations are a great help. They are the stories of sorrow and sadness. Of suffering and pain. There are in the bible for a reason. To give us hope, and to let us not feel like God is cruel or that it is all our fault. Lean on God, even in the hard times and you will find strength.


"Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will rund and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." - Isaiah 40:31

Impersonal

Today I had to call my internet provider because our wireless internet was not working and I tried everything to fix it. Anyways, I sat on the phone for 50 minutes listening to elevator music and recorded voices and was reminded of how I live in a secular world. Not that having recorded voices is secular, but that it is so impersonal and there is no connection. I just had this feeling that God wants more from us than a recorded saying.

Our prayers are normally the exact same thing, and I have to admit that I am often repeating the same prayer. For example, when I pray for a meal I normally say, "Dear Jesus, thank you for this beautiful day and bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies... Amen." I may add some things like thanks for keeping family safe during travels or whatever, but still, it is like I am a robot, saying what I always say, in a recorded sequence.

When will we learn that God is there for us to talk to, to listen to, to love and care for. God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. He is in our lives whether we want him there or not, because he is our father. If you didn't want your parents in your lives, not wanting to remember them and memories with them, well you are out of luck. They raised you, hopefully, and no matter how hard you want to forget, they will always be there. What really bothers me is that we think we can do that to God. Forget him and what he has done for us. Maybe even imagine that he doesn't exist.

We are in his image, not some robots. We need to stop acting like it. We have a choice to follow him. God did not make us to not react or to not be able to choose or love. He made us like him, creative, unique, entrepreneurs. It is time to stop staring at the television screen and start making something useful of our lives.

Do you pray to God like he is really there? I often don't. I catch myself in the middle of a prayer sounding so monotone and rushing it just so I can get it over with. Don't do that! Pray like you mean it. Pray like it matters. Do you praise God? Do you thank Him for everything you have?

Like I said, we aren't robots, we have feelings, we have emotions. Time to start feeling them. React to life. Live life. God gave it to us for a reason, so it is time to stop sitting around. No more couch potato. Why are so many people more interested in going to the next hit movie than going to church? Why does no one pray anymore like they mean it, and not just asking God for something? Why are our lives considered landfills? We waste so much, destroying the earth and our bodies. Time to take a stand and realize that God wants us to live to our full potential.


"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win." I Corinthians 9:24