Why do I do it?

Recently, I was asked, in front of a group of people I was presenting to, a question that I wasn't prepared to answer. They asked me " Why do you do it?" The question referred to my employment: doing a work I rarely see the end result of,  helping young people who are in tough situations, who have little gratitude, while I am paid a comparably low wage. My answer was jumbled with some "ums" , "i like helping people" and a joke thrown in because, at the time I really couldn't think of a comprehensive idea of why I do do it. Afterwards, It thought that I really should know why I do the work I do.

There is a chance that even after I think this idea through and type it out I still won't truly know the answer, but I will know what one answer might be.

Why do I do it?

Ninety-seven percent of the time while reading comics or watching movies, television shows, reading history (or a version of it) I have been drawn to the hero and have been able to see myself in their place, making the choices they make ( will admit there is the three percentage of times where I do identify with the villain-that might be another blog). But why do I identify with the hero?

When I was not quite yet born my mother had an encounter with God, she believed in Jesus Christ and got saved (as the vernacular was in the late seventies and early eighties). Getting saved was important to her and my dad later on. She was saved from going to hell, saved from drinking, saved from smoking, and saved from living a life with low moral standards. Based on her words and my observations growing up, it was important for her that those she cared for got saved as well. I think this idea became ingrained in my personality, to save the people I care about.

Very early on I committed to follow Jesus Christ myself, pursued getting to know what that meant and how to live it out. This meant I needed to read about Christianity. I read everything C.S. Lewis had written, some of it twice and committed to reading or listening to the Bible, as part of my lifestyle. What I found was that Jesus came to find the people who were lost and to save them. Sometimes he saved them from other people, mostly he saved them from sickness and disease, and ultimately through dying and coming back to life saved their spirits from ultimate death. A commitment to follow Jesus Christ and become like him logically followed, in my mind, that I needed to do the same thing.
As a teen I was fairly obsessed with Star Wars, Star Trek, Comic Books, Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones. The theme in these stories is, for the most part, saving people, races, planets, and friends. I knew I wanted to be saving people.

A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder… if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.” 

― George S. Patton Jr.

Sometimes this saving came in ways that are not conventional, not sanctioned by society, or didn't even resemble the act of saving. But the theme was always helping those who needed help, even at the expense of self (see the example of Jesus Christ). 

The driving force behind what I do, in my work with youth and disadvantaged people is my connection to Jesus Christ. I endeavor to do everything out of love, sometimes my love, sometimes the love of God; sometimes it is a mix of both. The bible tells us that greater love has no one than this: to lay down his life for a friend. I believe this and feel compelled to live my life to help others. 

I see this world as a beautiful connection of spirits, souls, and bodies. Some people have been disconnected from this beautiful connection. By helping people become their best and connecting them with others and with God, the world is as it should be. When this doesn't happen I feel pain, sorrow, and it fuels me to work harder than I think I can and do more than is required of me.

Based I what I know of God and have read, I have faith that what I am doing matters. Faith that everything, no matter how small, makes a difference. Faith that good always triumphs over evil. Faith that I am fulfilling my purpose and that God is taking care of me in that place. I do not always, or even often, see the positive outcomes, but I believe they are happening. I do not always have a perfect sense of how to best help people, but when I am afraid I become courageous. I think that courage is fear hanging on a minute longer. That is how the world is impacted, that is how people are saved, that is how I help. It is why I do it.

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

-Christopher Reeve

The Gospel without the Bible?

This is a conversation a couple young people had with me today. They are 20 and 22 have not been raised in church and have not read the Bible.

"Man Satan doesn't want us to know. These clothes, cars, these buildings are are here to take our minds off the spiritual. It's crazy."

"Real talk, we were so close to god, right there. That's why Satan came and tricked Eve. F***d us all up."

"Yes, all this gas, nuclear power, radiation; they are all wearing off the god that is in us. We are all made of God, in the spirit. 100 percent."

"These wires, buildings, the billionaires, they are all keeping us disconnected from god."

"Yes, that's why Jesus went to the cross."

YOLO is a Lie

I miss Mercy. 

Mercy was our sheep.

A very annoying loud ball of wool that ate too much and made the pasture muddy. She lived and died. She isn't going to live again. She lived and seemed to know it was one time around for her. She ate as much as she could, did what she wanted, when she wanted.

The truth is every single one of us is going to continue to live. After we are buried, a time will come when we will live again.

What we do here matters. It doesn't only matter here it matters in the here after. The place that is existing after here. No one can truly tell you how much it matters; how the little things matter, how they will be rewarded or punished or what type of effect they will have on the here after. But they matter know and they matter later.

Everyone that believes in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ understands that there is life after this life. It matters how you treat yourself, how you treat others, and what you do. It even matters what you think. Isn't it too much to keep track of what we do, what we think, how we react?

It reminds me of that song from Sunday school. "Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey." 

One thing is for sure (to a certain extent at least, but to what extent I am unsure of), we can trust Jesus and forget about the rest. If we believe in him we shall never die. 

I think that means more than we think it means sometimes.

GODISNOWHERE

Do  I "believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. .. mystical energy field control(ing) *my* destiny" ? Actually after 30 years of belief I sometimes ask myself this question-still. Even after having multiple metaphysical encounters and too many "coincidences" that have worked in my favor. After knowing that creation, entropy, the laws of nature, the multifaceted aspects of humankind are by grand design and that these effected by people speaking, people praying, and acts that should have no effect on them, do indeed effect them; I sometimes wonder can this be true (although brought up in a post-modern world, i do in fact believe that there is truth).

It happened again the other day, I was reading a passage in the Old Testament  of the bible something about the following: sacrificing your son, killing hundreds under the power of god, sacrificing goats, sheep, doves etc. and the similarities between what was causing the evil in the world and what was causing the good didn't appear so far apart. But when looking at the New Testament it's almost as if the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus saved God from this comparison; these similarities. I, for one, prefer things a little more clear; seeing the right and wrong. It reminds me of the season finale in Smallville; the conversation between Lex and Clark:



It is, and would be much easier to accept God in the New Testament  without knowing of him in the old testament. I realize that the old covenant was only a shadow of the new covenant  One could see the battles and victories over the armies in the old testament as a shadow of the victory of the Christian over the devil and spiritual forces of evil in the new covenant. In fact, we often do; i know it encourages my soul, maybe my spirit as well. Someone told me, "like they said 'Saul has slain his thousands,, but David his ten thousands' you will be like David". I took the meaning to mean that I would effect many lives for good and actually just briefly thinking about it i probably have effected about 3,000 people so far, so 10,000 wouldn't be far fetched. I just have to wonder, did those tens of thousands of people have to die so i could be encouraged with a prophetic word a few thousand years in the future? I don't know the answer to that, but I still believe and trust in God as described in the bible.


Another thing happened; I recently came across this explanation of our world:

To Sum Up

There are at least 27 dimensions and rays, and 7 solar planes.  Each plane in our solar system signifies higher levels of physical and etheric existence in our solar system.  The first Ray energises the 1st chakra to activate the 7th chakra, and so forth.  Chakras are components of the aura (electro-photo-magnetic field in seven layer or auric bodies surrounding a human), and the aura and chakras interpenetrate the other.  Each chakra feeds into one of the auric bodies. The civilisations are seven cycles of materialisation and spiritualisation on Earth, which activate the energies of the chakras. "

Truly my favorite part of the above was the "to sum up" as it went on with a confusing array of created terms and figments of realities. Truly, people are looking for an explanation to what they think, feel, and see around them. I do believe there is but one conclusion.

In PSALM 14:1 it says"
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”

I'd like to say, that I am no fool, I know there is a God out there, in here somewhere. Lately I've been traveling down the highway/freeway at about 65 miles an hour and looking at the people next to me; the people passing me. There are so many of them, each of them know so many more people. Through my car, the tires on the pavement, i can feel a vibration connecting me to them to the people at the stores, the waitresses, the cooks, the robbers  the cops, the robbers and I see a world so large so many people, so many living organisms (sometimes i even sense the cats, dogs, frogs, worms, bees, the trees). The world is so connected in intricacies that we rarely realize or hardly fathom. I don't mean the connections that our internet, 3G, 4G, and social media have created; like most things in technology these mimic the natural world.  We are all so close; when we think we are alone. So close to God; when we are redeemed.

Certainly this post has done very little to explain or prove the existance of God here, or god no where, but it hopefully made us think about our lives; how we can impact each other; how we already do; why we do.