Decisions Leading to Circumstances

I've been thinking a lot lately about the role we play in our own circumstances. I listen intently [I know, surprising] as people explain how life keeps knocking them down, how they can never get ahead, and how unfair God is in his plans. 

And while all this may be true, I wonder how we can turn that around. Here are a few theories. 

God does give us a bad hand from time to time, sometimes many at once, however there is nothing dealt to us which we cannot handle. How different could our circumstances be if we changed our attitudes or the way in which we conduct ourselves?

Many times, these same people [including myself] fail to realize the decisions they've made that have lead them to this point in their lives. How many of us take a good look at how we spend our money? How we save our money? Or the job we've chosen? I understand that to have a job is a blessing - and if that is the only job you can find, ask yourself if you chose to live above the rent you can afford. Ask yourself whether you need to buy a 6 pack of beer each night. Ask yourself whether getting your hair done every 6 weeks or your nails done every 3 is really something you can afford. 

In fact, add these things up. How much are you spending on superfluous things when it's hard to even pay the electricity bill each month?

Next we face savings. A lot of times when life knocks us on our ass - it happens to cost money. We may ask "where on Earth am I supposed to come up with that?"  When the question should be, why wasn't I putting more money into savings? If we saved more of our money, life would be a lot less daunting when it hit us with some huge financial punch. We'd simply dip into our savings and pay whatever it is off. That being said - emergency savings are just that, emergency funds - I pretend the money in my savings account isn't real money at all. It doesn't exist. It's simply a number on my computer screen when I sign into my account. I cannot spend it, it is not real.That means it's not there for my nails, or my hair, or that cute purse. It's not there for that last minute concert, or for 6 bathing suits for one vacation. It doesn't exist. 

What a fun sucker, right? Well - I have a solution. I had been reading lately about having multiple bank accounts - one for fixed expenses, which for me comprises 98% of what I make, making savings difficult - but necessary. Next is for emergency funds, and then - wait for it - fun money! This money is the ONLY money that can be spent on fun like nails, clothes, or vacations. Which percentage of savings is allotted to emergency and to fun depends on you - just remember, your decisions now effect your stress level later when life gives you lemons. 

This requires not only a spending change, but an attitude change. If every time we put money into savings we feel sad that we can't spend it. Or if each time we put something back we're depressed. Or if each time we have to pay off an emergency we get angry - obviously saving will feel terrible. However if we tilt that attitude to smiling every time we save up because we get to go on an awesome vacation next year, or when the car breaks down we KNOW we have money put away, it's actually a wonderful feeling!! 

Someone leaves us or does us wrong. We lose our job. All of these things seem to happen to us, not as a result of our own doing. However, how many of us failed to work on each aspect of our relationship while we were in them? People are making fun of me for reading relationship books and watching sermons/seminars on relationship building. Anthony and I watch some of them together, and talk about our ideas later. Silly us! Trying to solidify something that could potentially become life long! 

I know this seems to be a simplistic view on changing circumstances. However I disagree. I truly believe life is only 10% what happens to us and 90% what we do about it. It obviously doesn't happen over night, but if we continue to live life as we always have - with the same attitudes and the same spending habits - we'll continue to have the same problems when life knocks us down.

We only have today to change our tomorrows. It won't happen over night, but ask yourself if you've been doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results - and then change it!! :)

Wedding over Marriage

I stumbled upon a Yahoo article about a couple who had been married 73 years before the man, Pop Pop,  died. Their granddaughters, along with the woman, Cutie, decided to write a book about their love - titled How To Fall in Love for Life. Naturally, I bought the book and naturally, I am hooked. 

While reading the chapter on their marriage I was surprised to read what their wedding entailed. Not only did they wed after only 5 months but their wedding was a traditional, simplistic wedding. One in which Cutie's father planned - one where they only knew about 30 of the 130 guests in attendance. She didn't pick out her dress, nor did she pick out the menu. Obviously they didn't choose the guest list either. 

She points out that today, they wrote the book in 2012, weddings become a huge headache. Often times the details muddle what the day is truly about. It's about two people coming together in love - to become one, to build a life together. 

They got married in 1937, after only knowing one another for 5 months. Yet they lasted 73 years before one of them died. Besides all of the wonderful advice she gives about accepting your partner for who they are and taking time to yourself when you get too angry - she points out that she could have cared less if her napkins matched the groomsmen's socks - because that's not what a wedding is about. 

I wonder how different marriages would be, how different the divorce rate would be, if we went into a wedding with the goal of marriage in mind rather than impressing everyone in attendance with our fancy table settings. 

I wonder when the wedding became all about the woman and never about the man involved. When they decided to sit back and watch as their future wife took over everything. I wonder what it would be like to make every decision together - or at least most of them - just as you would once married. 

How different would a marriage be if planning for the wedding was a practice run for marriage? 

I understand that many people say that those people stuck it out even if they weren't happy - and today we believe in our own happiness 100 percent of the time - and I haven't gotten to the chapter on their hardships, but i'm sure there were many. 

Maybe the difference is that they saw themselves as two children going in to a life together, learning together, and growing together - always with the other's best interest in mind. They made it work - because they were both brand new, they were both just as scared, but they were both just as thrilled. 

And two became one. . . 

Religion vs. God

I stayed home from church today and instead watched a sermon from Andy Stanley, titled Intimacy with God. It's funny because the part that stuck out to me most was when he brought up religion versus true intimacy with God. Most Christians abhor religion as much as the nonbelievers - however it never occurred to me how religious I could be. 

Andy started out by asking us to imagine a situation where we yearned for a deeper more meaningful relationship with another person - be it a husband, wife, brother, sister, parent, friend - anyone. We give one hundred percent of ourselves only to be stiff armed every time we try to get closer. God is that person, trying desperately to get closer to us. We've opted for religion over intimacy with God. 

Religion teaches respect for God. We learn the formula. Get up, go to church, don't swear, say 50 hail Marys, fast for lent, etc. But religion leads to two things - self centered and judgmental people. Religion teaches us to judge, because we "know what God is looking for" in other Christians. So we judge those people and in turn begin to hate them. Religion teaches us that if we do a b and c we will get d. We become selfish. If only I do this, God will give me this. 

Then when we don't get what we want, we are surprised, we get angry with God because "the God I believe in wouldn't have let that happen" - but we don't really know him. 

Some of the greatest pain comes from religious people. In John 6:2-3 Jesus tells his followers that religious people will "put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. ³ And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me." They commit acts based on what the church has told them God wants. 

The sad part is, I became one of the religious people in that moment. I thought of several people who have judged and condemned me because of what they "believed" God wanted of me. Because of what they thought a good Christian should consist of. And then something amazing happened, I hated them. In that moment I felt disgusted and instead of doing what Jesus calls us to do, I did what religion calls me to do - I hated rather than loved my neighbor based on their actions. I did the very thing that I hated in that moment. 

I want intimacy with God. Which Andy points out requires three things: time, transparency, and submission. Time uninterrupted, prayers not littered by politeness but instead by the absolute truth because God knows the truth, he just wants it to come from us, and giving one hundred percent of ourselves through submission. A truly intimate relationship, with God or with man, requires that we put the other persons needs in front of our own all the time - and God has already done that for us. 

I want to continue my life in a constant and passionate pursuit of intimacy with God. I want to know Him, not just what religion tells me, but who the Father really is. I want to give all of me as he has given all of him. And I want to show the world the love that Jesus sought, not the condemnation that has forced so many out of the church. 

I want more than ever to be closer to God. 

Andy Stanley - Intimacy with God