Forgiveness

After struggling with what forgiveness looks like and how to model after Jesus, tonight this thought popped up...
"Forgiveness is freely given but respect and trust is not" 

Example:  You have a friend that hurts you; you forgive them but then what.....  Are you just buddy, buddy with them again?  No.  That relationship needs to be rebuilt from the foundation up.  So if you chose to rebuild, it will be a hard road.  

Forgiveness frees your heart from the entanglement of bitterness.   But trust and respect, have to be earned.    Those two things are very hard to earn back.   

Do you ever just want to go off and be blunt about how you really feel?  To rant in blind passion that forgets all logic and reasoning. 

Thats how I felt when I typed up this for my status:

Just some mental rants for the day..... so seriously this will offend some and if does then just delete me from your friends list. I have every right to think this way....

1. They are just pets that we need to love, respect, & take care of .....
2. The hypocrisy that comes out of the mouths of people in this political season is dumbfounding to me. So what if the President is getting beat up, Your side beat up President Bush ... no one even you truly respects the presidency....
3. Common Sense - where did it go and how do we bring it back ....  

What I realize after slowing down to process through is that we all do these exact same things.  We get so blinded by the wall that is right in front of face that we fail to look beyond our own opinions.   We get passionate with our own beliefs then seek out others who agree.    We should first seek to understand before we seek to be heard. 

Culture of Failure

Trying to sit down and write all these thoughts that are running around in my head is difficult!

But the app is downloaded

The Lord, freewill, and more

In talking about doing what God wants vs what I want to do. The question was asked,  "Does God still love and support me when I am doing what I want?" 
Think about when babies are learning to walk. As a parent, we watch the babies tumble and stumble while we stand back. We let them fall and bump around but we are always close enough to catch them before the truly hurt themselves (like falling down stairs). They are always within reach even if they don't realize it. Isn't that so true with God and us? He guides us giving us the safest and best path to follow and yet we do what we want. As we do what we want, we fall and get bruised and injured. Yet, He is behind us lovingly protecting us so we don't slip off the edge and go too far.
He will not let us endure more than we can bear. He let's us screw up because that is free will. And still as an amazing Father, he protects.

We are home sick today so we are watching church at gateway. While James is getting the computer hooked up, he comes across the red case of dvds.  So he says oh both Transformers in here. And Jeremiah pipes up "can we watch Transformers? It's my favorite movie of all time!!!".

Just one of those moments when we love our 3 yr old