My life feels kind of unbalanced sometimes, kind of like a teeter totter... that isn't balanced. Maybe the same is true for you; that 1) you're terrible with analogies, and 2) you're worried about your actions and whether or not they're truly honoring to God. Today's Story isn't about me because I'm a marvelous, ineffably sublime human being. Woah. Lies. Many lies. This story is about me, because in my generic doofus-ness, I've learned some pretty incredible things. Here they are.
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My first self-realization: I'm unaware of important realities around me too often. I saw this pretty clearly beginning a few months ago. It was lunch time after church (you all know what that's like) and my parents decided to take me and my siblings to Mongolian barbecue. The food was abnormally delicious. Like, mind-bogglingly tasty. Like, I should stop thinking about it because it's making me hungry. Anywho, we were eating and talking and stuff, and I felt like being funny, so I said: "Okay, Mrs. [Thomas] is pretty awesome. She basically runs the whole church and can harmonize like a boss."
At the time, it seemed legit. This lady, whom we're calling Mrs. Thomas is one of the head administrators at our church. She's responsible for events and organization and... it seemed at the time like everything except head preaching. And she really can harmonize like a boss.
Obviously, it was a slight exaggeration, but I did make it to my brother's Twitter with that quote. So, yeah. Much proudliness points for Andrew.
My quote didn't come up again for quite some time.
Enter important reality. It's kind of boring, but it really struck me.
Becoming a church member has been something I've been wanting to do for a while, so I printed out the form to do so and read it. Part of the form dealt with understanding and agreeing with the church's statements of faith as found in the constitution and bylaws of the church. I knew those documents existed, I'd just never taken the time to read them. Well, it was time to read them.
Y'know what I found? I'm dumb. That's what.
Basically, the constitution and bylaws have a ton of information for leadership roles in the church and who does what and how council meetings should go and what discipline should look like and how to resolve disputes and how to vote for deacons/deaconesses... I was kind of blown away by what was there. Not because it lulled me to sleep, but because I saw how sincerely my church leaders cared about creating an accountable, God-honoring set of rules that exemplify the Scriptures. Reading it made me think back to the idea of who runs our church. Not the senior pastor, not Mrs. Thomas.
Just God.
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My second self-realization: I forget about the planks in my eyes too often... and it is so easy.
A few weeks ago, it was Christmastime! Yay! As usual, our church had a small Christmas cantada, with music and candlelight and singing about the birth of Jesus. It's always a wonderful time, and I wanted to share that with our neighbors. So, I wrote on some sticky notes saying that it would be great to have them there and attached the notes to our bulletin inserts about the event. Sadly, however, I wasn't going to have time to give the invitations to our neighbors. Accordingly, I gave the invitations to my little brothers and asked them to walk around the cul-de-sac and put them in the mailboxes when they had time.
Flash back to the reason why I wouldn't have time: a speech tournament! I was preparing for this tournament the Monday before at my church where our club meets, and rode my bike to get there on time.
That Sunday, two things happened at the same time. My little brothers told me that they hadn't remembered to hand out the invitations like I asked, and my dad reminded me for the 5th time that the bike I rode on Monday had been left at church and he would have to bring it back that night.
Gosh, I was so mad about my little brothers forgetting such a simple task... I completely forgot about my own small responsibility of taking care of the bike.
That night, none of our neighbors came to the cantada and my dad had to ride the bike home from church. Good work, Andrew.
It made me think about the value of forgiveness. Not the kind that comes from me, or my dad, or my little brothers.
Just God.
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My third self-realization: I think about myself too often. I'm sure you can relate. It's human nature... but just 'cause you can relate doesn't make it any less awful.
On December 19th, our family remembers a rather difficult day in our history. I won't go into the whole story, but will just say that now, whenever that day roles around, we like doing something special, just as a family.
Well, last time that day hit, the little guys and I were at home with our parents. Not a whole lot was going on, and we were sort of thinking of something to do that evening, but nothing came to mind. I wanted to make it special, but wasn't quite sure how.
We (little guys and I) were in the boy's bedroom throwing ideas around and whatnot, and I suggested we watch a movie. I had wanted to watch this particular film for a few days leading up to that, and I thought it would be fun to do and stuff. In my mind, it was perfect: I got to watch the movie and my family got to hang out for a while. Win win...
Until I got punched in the face by my little sister. And by punched in the face, I mean severely humbled.
While we were talking about what to do, Rebekah says in her completely adorable, regular voice: "What if we made dinner for mom, or gave mom and dad money to go to dinner together?"
I guess I don't really need to tell you how I felt after that.
It ended up being a very nice night where we had a regular dinner at home and didn't watch any movies. That made me think back to an important truth: we didn't need much more than our family and the One who put that night together for it to be special.
Just God.
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"Love, we need it now. Let's hope for some."
Andrew
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