I had a thought just occurred to me just now and I thought it worthy of blogging.
Do you remember when you were young, naive and somewhat crazy and you had dreams? Perhaps you wanted to be a fireman.
Perhaps you wanted to be in the movies.
Maybe you thought of being a writer or a poet.
Or maybe it was nothing that spectacular, but it was a cool idea you had.
You thought you'd read all of "War and Peace".
You thought you'd watch every film with John Cleese in it.
You thought you'd do a five-day bushwalk.
You thought you'd make a movie.
And then . . . somewhere along the line . . . you found yourself either:
a) Doing what you were good at (which is completely different from doing what you like)
or
b) Doing whatever paid the bills.
I'm not suggesting unresponsibility or not doing our work, by any stretch of the imagination. But why did we lose that twinkle in our eye?
There are plenty of other people out there who follow their dreams
and get exactly what they want out of life? What made them different from us?
I wonder what God thinks of all this. Did he give us all our desires and interests so we could then suppress them all and do what brings in the money?
Is there a line between following our dreams and living a selfish life?
What do
you think?
Many of you may be wondering why I haven't blogged for a while. I do apologise. Partly it was a lack of time.
Partly it was because I was wrestling with a problem.
Procrastination.
Not procrastination on blogging, mind you. Procrastination on my work.
I don't know about you, but I believe God calls us to work hard at what we do. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to burn the midnight oil, work at least an hour overtime every day and kill ourselves in the process of doing the job.
But I do think it means better than doing the bare minimum that is expected of you, and filling up the rest of the time with surfing the net, answering emails, talking to people . . . and writing blogs. Now, I'm not against taking a breather or having some down time, but when these things push work to the sides and are used as an excuse not to work, I think there's something wrong.
This is what I
think.
When it comes down to what I
do, it's a different matter. I do all those things. With a vengeance. I have mastered the art of doing what is expected of me, and
only what is expected of me. Mind you, I'm not getting in any trouble at work. I'm keeping people happy. But I know that I should be able to work better. And I believe God expects it of me.
So why don't I just work harder?
Good question. I want to. I don't want to be slack. So why don't I just get on and do things?
The answer came to me in the middle of a church prayer meeting the other night. We were being encouraged to pray privately and confess our sins. So I had to confess to God that I really wasn't working very hard at my work. I was being dishonest with my time.
And, amazingly, right at that moment, the answer to "why?" entered my head.
If I work hard, I'll find myself with time to think and plan for the future. And that's a complete unknown to me. I may need to find a new job. I may have to do something different. Or, and this is the one that I'm really scared of, I may end up just doing the same thing as I do now forever. Well, not forever, but for a long period of time with no end in sight.
So rather than think about any of that stuff, I'm procrastinating and leaving things to the last minute, so I will always be busy with the stuff I'm doing now. If I do have spare time, I waste it with meaningless trifles rather than thinking about the future.
But God has told me something new. I haven't actually heard his voice say this, mind you, but it's what I feel he wants me to do. He wants me to work hard. In fact, he wants me to excel at my job. I don't know what he wants me to do in the future. I have no clue. I have to leave that up to Him.
But right here, right now, where I am, I have to honour God in the way I work. So I went back to work the next day and I'm looking at my work in a different way.
So how can you help?
1) If what I'm talking about makes any sense at all and you understand where I'm coming from, I'd be interested to hear your comments (and hopefully encouragement).
2) If you're a praying person, and you read this, could you pray for me that I will obey God in the way I work?
That'd be excellent . . .
Anyway, I'm off for now. Will post more on the Arts page soon because I have seen a lot of Australian films over the last month that I haven't finished posting about. Talk to you all soon.
Did you know that some people are afraid of marshmallows??
It's true!
They have even given it a label....Althaiophobia
Weird huh?? Yeah I thought so too.
Also, answer this easy question...
What is Rachel's favourite movie??
...
...
...
...
...
Love's Brother
Matt & I went to see this movie y'day and I fell in love with it. It is a very sweet story set in Australia during the 1950s. It has a messy love quartet and Adam Garcia the handsome hunk from Coyote Ugly. Worth a watch if you like soppy, romantic films that make you sigh with happiness! I hope it wins the AFI award for Best Film of the Year.
Anyway, enough random thoughts. Hope you had a great weekend!
I've learned recently two new facts. Well, actually, I've known them for a while, but they've been cemented in slightly more.
a) I can embarrass Rachel in public quite easily.
b) I enjoy doing so, because she always smiles more beautifully when she's embarrassed than any other time.
The odd thing is, though, I don't often set out to embarrass her. Usually, I'll just be in a group setting and I'll think of something that seems somewhat amusing to me. (Well, enough to make me want to test it out loud . . .)
I'll look around and the notch the comment down from its original level of "Something You'd Only Say In Front of Blokes That You'll Never See Again" down to slightly above "Amusing Anecdotes You Tell In Nursing Homes". Then I'll chuck it out there.
Then . . . WHAM! . . . I feel an elbow in my ribs, hear the sound of "Matthew!" and Rachel's going red . . .
Now, this should possibly be my cue to actually take it down to the "Anecdotes in Nursing Homes" level and leave it there. (If not just shut up completely.)
But something inside me says, "Make the next one a 'Cheeky Comment You Say To Get a Reaction Out Of Your Parents'". This then turns into a chain reaction, with comments escalating up to dangerous new levels.
If I really want to up the stakes, I break out Bromley and Quark, but that's a different story . . .
rachel i think your butiful and nice and your my favrit person in the hol world and i reely like your hugs and stuff and can i come tonight because il get sad at home and bromleys being mean and saying i just want to say this so i can come but im not im saying it because i like you and your my favrit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was handing out leaflets for Wednesday lunch-time Bible talks in North Sydney this morning and the strangest thing happened.
Well, not really strange, because it happens a bit in North Sydney.
It started with a sound of tambourines and bongo drums and then up the street came a bunch of Hare Krishnas. They then proceeded to stand behind me at the escalators while I was handing out these leaflets.
They left after two minutes, but during those two minutes I was putting myself in the shoes of the people coming up the escalator.
They're thinking that they're stuck between a guy wearing a suit (well, almost . . . I gave the flick to the tie) handing out leaflets for Bible talks saying, "What gives life meaning?" and a bunch of guys wearing orange robes and bashing tambourines.
They're thinking that religious people are weird . . .
What I found interesting, though, is the thought that everyone is religious. If we think that this world is it, that we're here to work, get a house and travel the world in retirement, that's religion. If we think that God doesn't exist and man is king, that's a religion.
The question really is, Does one religion contain the truth?
And also: If there is only one true religion, what are the consequences of ignoring that truth?
