On Faith and Love...and Following

 ....Lately I've been running on faith...what else can a poor |girl| do? But my world will be right, when love comes over you... Eric Clapton (Running on Faith)

 
Living a faithful life sounds pretty straight-forward. Have faith, be faithful, faithfully follow.  Thankfully for me, I have been pulled from the fiery pits of hell so many times that I don't have to try to have faith, I can do nothing except have faith.

In spite of myself, God loves me, leads me and saves me, usually from myself. In the traditional hymn, How Firm a Foundation, we are reminded that

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

“The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

Faith is the most important thing in my life.  Faith empowers me, allows me to live with hope and to remember that God loves me; no use trying to hide or change to earn that love.  He knows me through and through.

And loves me still.

Faith is, indeed, the foundation of my being. 

Matthew 17:20

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Additionally, I've talked a lot about love and how important it is to incorporate the recommendations found in  Corinthians into our own lives

http://charlotteinmalang.blogspot.com/2011/07/let-love-rule-really.html

Like many other things about which I write, walking in faith and serving in love are not as simple as they seem and can be quite challenging. Much like treating ALL people with love (in addition to those we "select") we either follow in faith or we don't - there's no picking and choosing.  We submit or we don't. God either knew us before he formed us in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5), numbered every hair on our heads (Luke 12:7) and orders our steps (Psalm 37:23) or He doesn't. 

DISCLOSURE - I am not trained in scripture comprehension, application or anything similar...I am a regular person trying to live a faithful life and I'm sure that the verses I noted above can have other meanings or may not apply in the way that I mean for them to BUT they help me to lead a loving and fulfilling life. I don't use scriptural references to try to justify actions, manipulate or denigrate others, or to argue.  The purpose is to assist in communication.

Having faith means many things and especially for me, when I am challenged, experiencing something "weird" or questioning tenets held to be ever so absolute, I know that God is at work in my life.  I try to listen, follow and submit.  I try to get out of the way.  Having faith means tuning into something greater than myself.  Having faith means that I have to be willing to take chances, to step into unknown or scary territory, and even occasionally do things that I'm not very sure about (probably for a host of reasons).

As I try to live in faith and love, it is certain that I have free will and am responsible for my actions, but it is also certain that God knows where I'm going.  He may even have a plan for me and I will try, with my heart and my humanity, to follow.

When I reflect on where I've been in my life and where I am, it is ever so obvious that I was never alone. 

I Believe:

• My steps are ordered
• God will lead me 
• Everything will be OK
• (That's all I need to know)

Procrastination...and Purpose

What you do when you procrastinate is what you should be doing for the rest of your life...

(Procrastination is defined by Merriam Webster as follows: "to put off intentionally and habitually".)

This post popped up in one of my Facebook feeds and I thought about it quite seriously.  Why is procrastination such a bad thing? Think about what you're doing when you procrastinate; maybe it's having a little fun, maybe resting, maybe doing some mandatory work around the house.  If nothing else, it can truly make what you value quite clear.  Getting things done is my "joie de vivre", but oh how I procrastinate! If whatever needs doing isn't getting done now, maybe it's because I'm living in the present! (and whatever is getting done at the time is more important that what I thought I needed to do)

What do you do when YOU procrastinate? What? You mean it isn't always the same thing? (could that possibly mean that something just happened to be more important at that particular time?)

For me, writing blogs and creating newsletters is VERY important, but oh! how I've procrastinated! The justifications include everything from not having an idea about what to write about to having too many things to write about! Too many things is really what it is - life is moving here at the speed of light and how can I possibly record what is going on in any kind of comprehensive way? Therefore, I procrastinate and continue to live the life that is so amazing and that completely overwhelms me in an oh! so awesome way!

(...little did I know that I was on the right path...)

Thus far, it sounds as if procrastination is pretty much justified...but while riding my bike recently, I had an amazing thought!

If what we do when we procrastinate is really that important, why do I procrastinate with arguably the most important thing that I have to do while I'm here??? 

Previously, I believed that learning the language was among the most important of my goals here and I often got put out with myself that I wouldn't sit and memorize a string of structure rules or force myself to read high level newspapers to reinforce those proper structure rules - and of course I wouldn't subject myself to TV to learn, so I must be really lazy about my language learning!  What I've come to realize, however, is that  I can learn the language all I want and if I only use it to translate what my American mouth wants to say to an Indonesian ear, I may not be communicating as well as I would like. In fact, I may not be communicating the way that I want to communicate, at all.

As I've said before, "knowing" the culture and seeing how it plays out are two completely different things.This newest epiphany feeds into the ocean of cultural differences of which I have not only known, but that I experience on a daily basis.

At any rate, I can get by with the limited language skills I possess.  I can express necessities, chat politely with people and understand what other people are saying very well.  However, language is laced with cultural colors and without a clear understanding of how that works and how to appropriately apply vocabulary, at the least I won't be an effective communicator and at the most I could offend someone - and I certainly do NOT want to do that!

The weather here is hot and humid at times, but it has nothing on my fine city of Charlotte, NC. At least it cools off here at night, at least the shade usually provides respite from the heat and at least the buildings are built in such a way that they can ensure fresh air and adequate ventilation.

Sometimes, however, inside certain buildings made to accommodate air conditioning, if the air is low and the windows are closed, most Americans would expressively describe the condition as "stuffy".  It doesn't mean hot - it doesn't mean anything about the weather...it's a feeling that relates to the difficulty to breathe.  Not only is the culture of Indonesia more socially oriented, the language is also more passive and ambiguous, less direct and less expressive... SO...that means that although the word for stuffy is "pengap", you certainly don't SAY it, because that is too direct for goodness sakes (and the word is also laced with negativity); just say that it's "hot". 

...that is a double-edged sword for me because if I say much about the heat, people may assume I'm from the part of America that doesn't understand heat and then they think I don't like hot/spicy food, fried food or eat rice and a host of other issues arise ~so~ I like to be careful (and that is going to mean being quiet sometimes)...

This may not sound like a big deal, but to me it really is - after all, I tell my students all the time, language learning isn't about perfect pronunciation and perfect grammatical structure, but about communicating.

So back to procrastination.  All that time I was a little miffed with myself for not being more disciplined with my language learning. Now I realize that had I memorized all those things, I would just be constructing perfect sentences that might be misleading or highly offensive.  Thank goodness I am not always very disciplined. Thank goodness for procrastination.

Saved again. Thanks be to God.