You are Nothing.......... If you stand alone.

“Guess what?

You are not enough.

Why do you keep trying?

Give up. “

It’s true, what I said last time. (You need to read this post before you can read the one you're at now. It is imperative. Sorry.) [(... I'm not actually sorry. Go read it.)]

Yeah, so maybe the post was a little cruel sounding (You: A little cruel sounding? A Little, cruel sounding? You sick, sadistic human being…) Well, alright. So maybe a little more than a little harsh.

But why dance around it? It’s something we all hear, something we all feel.. Why pretend that isn’t an accusation on your heart?

If no one brings up the cruel things in life, all our problems will never be solved.

That’s my theory, anyways. (You: Well, your theory sucks.) Fine, I’ll write about kittens next time.

But until then, lemme finish up here. Last week’s post was not a meandering stab at your heart. 

We’ve all heard the saying, “The truth will set you free.” And we all know, it’s true. 

But context is everything.

If I were to look a girl in the eyes and say “You are beautiful,” she’d probably smile. It’d hit her heart a little, but not much. However, if a guy did the same thing, she’d probably blush a little and she’d feel it more. She’d believe it a little more. And if the guy she likes did the exact same thing, she’d be on cloud nine. She’d spend the rest of the day living off the emotions from that comment. 

One truth. Three reactions.

Now, take the phrase “You’re beautiful,” and put it into advertising. Stick it on the walls of Victoria’s Secret. Stick it in a shampoo commercial. Suddenly, this truth is a ploy. A lure. A trap of sorts. 

Give the phrase to a rapist (Or, you know, someone friendlier. A player maybe.) Now this truth is deadly.

The truth in and of itself is neutral. It’s how you use it that counts.

Now that we’ve settled that, let’s move on.

“You are not enough.” 

That’s another truth. Do you see where I’m going with this? When we hear this one, we immediately rebel against it. “No! I am enough!” we cry, desperately hoping to ease the pain we feel. 

And that’s exactly the reaction the enemy would want. I don’t talk about spirit stuff much. I mostly just lean towards God. But allow me to introduce you to the dark side, and what the dark side does.

The truth is, you alone are not enough. 

God designed you to work with people, and most importantly to work with him. Companionship. We weren’t made to lean solely upon ourselves. But then the prince of shadows came along and said, “Hmm. If I focus on that truth, I bet you the sad little humans’ll start running from it.” And that’s exactly what has happened. When you take the truth out of the context of leaning on God, suddenly, you feel weak. You feel insignificant. And, you have no reasoning behind it. 

The truth is, you are weak.

The truth is, you are insignificant.

The truth is, you were made to lean on God and you were made to find your significance in Him. 

But we’ve turned from that and we’ve built our own lies. We call them the truth, because they feel safer than the accusations of our hearts. And still, the accusations stand because, well, the accusations are not false.

It all depends on the context. It all depends on what you finish the sentence with. On where it comes from. On who’s saying it. On what meaning you give it.

It's time for a change.

You are not enough… Because you need God.

Why do you keep trying? … Your insistence on leaning upon your brokenness is killing you.

Give up…. And let God take control. 

Let it fall where it may. When you are looking at God, the world around you stops mattering.

You can’t hold it up. It’s not your place.

So.

Stop.

~Silver

A matter of Perspective.

Our perspective of God: We are chess pieces in a sick and twisted game.

God’s perspective: I’m training an entire world of people. To judge angels.

Our perspective: Hell? That’s just cruelty.

God’s perspective: So, you have two choices. Life with me and life without. But to live with me, you have to love me before you love others, and you have to love others as you love yourself. Sound simple? Great. If you don’t want to do that, and you’d rather hell, then hell it is.

It’s up to you.

Our perspective: Yeah, I accepted Jesus into my heart. God’s pretty far away though. In heaven somewhere.

God’s perspective: Jesus and I are one. I am inside of you. My name is the Holy Spirit.

Our perspective: Why would I say yes to you? You won’t tell me what you’re doing!

God’s perspective: I wish you’d just say yes. You’re dying. I’m trying to save you. And if you’d just listen to me and stop trying to fix everything, you’d know exactly what I’m doing. And, you’d stop dying!

Our perspective: We got kicked out of Eden… For one person’s sin?

God’s perspective: I made mankind, planning to teach them how to love. But they chose to love themselves. They won’t listen if I keep them here in Eden, if I overlook their selfishness. But look, for one person’s death I’ll save all of them. Fair? Thought so too. Glad we agree.

Our perspective: So we just have to repent and be forgiven? Sounds too easy. I bet God stays mad at us for a week. And we have to do penance. And be extra good.

God’s perspective: … I forgave you. Why are you avoiding me? That’s nice that you’re being extra good but… I like talking to you. Why won’t you respond? I thought we were friends?

Our perspective: I have to change. That way I can get closer to God. He won’t see me unless I fix myself.

God’s perspective: So.. Here I am, living inside of you….. Closer to you than I am to the angels… But you’ve locked me in the guest room so you can clean your house. Except you’ve got mud all over your feet and you’re just knocking things over and making it worse. If you’d let me, you know, I’m God… All powerful, all knowing, and I am Love… I could… Help you.. Fix you….

I didn’t make you to change yourself you know. I made you to lean on me. I made it so we’d work together on this.

Our perspective: We have to pray and change God’s mind!!!!

God’s perspective: I love it when you pray, when you agree with my heart. I love that you’re partnering with me on this! This is what I want to do! Thanks for asking! I love you. I love when you agree with me.

Wait, what? Change my mind? …. But.. I don’t… change o.O

Our perspective: I have a guardian angel. He keeps me safe. So God can go do other stuff.

God’s perspective: I feel like I’ve said this before. Oh wait. I have. I’m living in your heart.

Btw I’m omnipresent. I am everywhere. I can do everything at once. Or did you forget?

Our perspective: I’m a terrible person. And I’m ugly And worthless.

God’s perspective: So once upon a time I had this thought. This thought was you. And you were perfect in my head. And then I made you. Know what? You’re even better now! Cuz everything I make is perfect. I make no mistakes. And I don’t make ugly worthless things.

And you especially? You were made in my image.

Our perspective: God loves us, but that’s as far as he cares.

God’s perspective: Love is everything. I love you. I want to give you everything and make you happy and alive and you know what? I enjoy you. And talking to you. I care about you more than anything else I’ve created.

Our perspective: Love is just a feeling.

God’s perspective: Love is everything.

It’s the reason you breath.

It is all I am.

It is the reason for pain, it is the reason for joy.

It is the reason for anger. it is the reason for fear.

Love is the reason for death.

It is the reason you are in this world.

There is nothing that isn’t rooted in love.

We really don’t know the God we worship. And even if we know it so often we don’t

really believe it. There is so much more depth and reality to what we think but we spend so much time being afraid of getting close, believing lies even if we know better.

We are so, so weak. It’s time we wake up to this and let Him fix us.

Amen?

~Silver

Purity, week 1.

I don’t know how you feel about the Bible, but to me it’s pretty important. I mean, even if you don’t believe all the stuff in there you must admit a lot of it is true. I personally believe all of it is true.

Now, one of the things in the bible is this thing called purity. Forever ago, that meant keeping your speech clean, keeping your eyes from seeing… things… And waiting till marriage to do so much as hold hands. It meant having a standard. 

Over the years all that’s declined. (You: Thanks, captain obvious. I hadn’t noticed.) You’re quite welcome, private sarcasm.

Now purity basically just means no sex before you’re married. Some people still hold a standard of no kissing till then but the people that do that are fewer and fewer.

When did we lose the speech and seeing part of purity? Since when could we say whatever the carp we wanted about anything and be fine?

Since when did purity just pertain to sex, for that matter?

You’re probably rolling your eyes at me right now, but I am being perfectly serious. When did we trade our innocence for recklessness? Why did we trade our innocence for recklessness? What happened to self discipline and talking about stuff that actually matters?

Where the carp are our standards?

Now, I know I can’t bring them all back, and I know I can’t discuss (rant at…) all of them right now. So I’m picking one a week for as long as that lasts. Maybe the next 3 weeks? I dunno.

So right now I’ll just go with an over view, how all of them as a group are related, and then speech.

You see, I know plenty of guys who claim not to even think about, or even so much as look at, girls in a sexual way. Thing is, these same guys speak loosely, making jokes in that line of thought. As much as people like to deny it, they really do think about things they talk about. And joke about. Since joking is talking. Even if the thoughts are in the back of their heads.

I mean come on guys, we’re all human. If you know how you very basically work, you know how everyone very basically works. There are no exceptions. That’s where discipline comes in. You can’t claim to be disciplined in one area when you’re obviously not in the others.

And where people’s speech goes, their thought life follows.

And where their thoughts go, their actions follow. 

But speech has to come from somewhere. You don’t just start talking a certain way. When you’re a baby, you learn to talk from your parents. You talk like they talk. If you hang out with other little baby friends you pick up stuff from them. Why are three year olds always running around saying “No”? Because three year olds get told “No” a lot.

Then when kids get older they start learning to talk from things like tv. If they watch sesame street they might learn something. If they're watching Hannah Montana, chances are they’re gonna learn how to get an attitude with anyone who disagrees.

We, humans, learn from what we hear and what we see. We start as clean slates. We start as pure, happy little screaming babies. Tiny unexposed souls in tiny unexposed bodies. Life is scary. Everything is big. And as soon as we’re born we learn what life is from what’s going on. We don’t know anything. So if out world around us is bad and hates us, we will learn life is bad and we will hate ourselves.

Everyone knows this. And I’m starting to get off track.

The point is, what we see is what we do. And what we hear is what we say. And what we do and say we eventually have to think about even if we don’t notice our thoughts. And what we think about we tend to notice and see and then eventually even look for.

So let’s say you’re hanging out with a group of friends, and they don’t really care. They hate their families. They down-talk anyone and anything that bothers them in the slightest.

No matter how much you may love your other friends and your family, the more you hang out with this particular group the more you will become like them. Meaning, if you’re hanging out with them every day you will eventually see your family and other friends they way they see their families and other people. And you’ll start talking about it.

That is not pure.

(You: Wait but I thought purity was just like… Kissing and stuff. Right?)

No. Pure comes from the Latin purus, which means clean. Not chaste. Clean. Cussing is not clean, which is why it’s fun to do. Insulting other people is not clean. It’s dirty. It makes other people’s opinions of who you’re talking about dirty.

True purity does not soil how people are seen. True purity is clean. Clean is not dirt. So dirtying a reputation is obviously bad.

Now do you understand why not to gossip? It’s not just so you don’t hurt people. Gossip means dirt is pouring out in your words. Meaning that you are dirty. Making you a terrible, dirty person.

Purity does not talk about others behind their backs. Purity does not destroy people.

To be pure, to discipline yourself into being pure, start with your speech. Watch what you say. Don’t say stuff to other people just for shock factor or just for fun; your words will always be remembered by someone. Weigh your words as though they are your single most important accomplishment.

If your friends, who are your most prominent influences, hold no standards in their speech, mayhap you need a different group. Or to make a group commitment to watch your speech.

(Note: I will NEVER tell you to drop your friends. I am NOT telling you to abandon them or to tell them they suck or to just stop talking to them. If you feel like you need to do that then grace to you…)

If your family, also a prominent influence, holds no standards… Try talking to them, and if that doesn’t work I still haven’t figured it out. Pray for them I guess.

Controlling your speech is the hardest discipline to matter, but also one of the most important.

Trust me guys, you want to learn self discipline and/or follow the bible? Start with your words.

~ Silver

James 3:1-15 (New King James Version)

1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in words, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. 3 We put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. 4 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.