I love when I write out an entire blogpost and then just delete it because I realize that it's nothing close to communicating what I wanted to say. It just happened. Yepp. I got aggrivated and just deleted it all. I start talking about something, get on a rant about it and then realized I could care less about what I just said.
With all of the crap happening in the world lately, I really got to thinking about how easy it is to hate the world. When I was younger, I could never grasp that concept, that in 1 John 2:15, God tells us, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them." Don't love the world? How am I supposed to hate the place I live and have so many great loving friends? Slowly but surely, I'm learning how simple it truly is to not love this world, and to love my Father in Heaven instead. With so much evil, it's hard to love this place we call home.
Kicking it in Starbucks today, I watched some lady park her car... parallel park it. She messed up one, two, three, maybe four times, and then pretty much just called it quits and left her car all crooked on the street, as she jumped out of her car with prideful pain. Not like she was proud of what she did, but more of like a "please, I dare someone to say something to me, because I'll kick their butts" proud. Ya know that one?
At the same time, there was an very old, sweet, retired Navy man sitting across from me by himself. A younger man waved to the lady behind him, and not knowing the younger man wasn't waving to him, the old man waved back and looked excited with anticipation in his eyes... only until the younger man walked right past the old man and to the lady. The awkward pain in his eyes was very obvious as you saw him feel lightly rejected, and could only make your heart ache.
In the same room, in view of the chair I was sitting in, there was a date meet up going on at the bar. You could very much tell it was an online setup, by hearing things from them like, "you don't seem like you did on the phone...," or "so, how long have you been on the site?" It seemed painful, for both of them... forceful and just awkward. The lady kept throwing herself out to the man, asking question after question, and all she got were short answers and then long blank stares out the window, showing the boredom of the man. Just another hurtful thing to watch.
I'm not done yet... a girl showed up with two or three guys. She was blatantly not confident in herself, the language and conversation she spoke to these boys was like a knife to my the heart. She talked about how annoying her mother was and how her father was sending her mean text messages, and lots of other vulgar things. She basically just ranted and ranted full of pain inside.
Ok Carly, any good, encouraging stories today? Well, I've said this before... but the truth hurts, and it's not all butterflies and rainbows in the world. There's pain, hurt, evil, and it's everywhere. Sometimes we just refuse to open our eyes wide enough in order to see it in others. But it's everywhere, and we can't ignore it. That's how I undertand not being able to love the world, it's clear and visible everywhere around us, and it's not of God. It's of the world, and it's sinful nature. And it gives us that push to be just a little bit more excited to accomplish the mission Jesus gave us.
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19 That's our mission... and (sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but we need a reality check) I'll throw out this one... are we doing that? To our full ability? I'm absolutely not, I don't know about you. I can tell you the days that I'm laying on the couch being lazy, watching Netflix all day... there are so many more glorifying actions I could be taking in order to "go and make disciples of all nations." I want to leave you with that thought today.
What can we be doing to fufill our mission instead of just sitting around and being a spectator to all of the evil, hurt, and just down right pain in the world? "I can do all things through Him (Jesus Christ), who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 He will give you strength to get yourself off the couch and go make disciples of all nations. Translation. Only He can help us go tell people about Him. Spend time with Him + spending time with His people = He pours out of you and into them.
Easy as that... let's go tell people about Jesus. Let's make the light of Jesus brighter than the darkness.
xo, Carly
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