whats up with *hollyweird* ?

I see A LOT of movies!!!!! I go every other week and see 2 at a time. I was once an aspiring actor so i LOVE seeing movies!!! Something ive noticed recently... over the last 2 years actually hollyweird seems to be making movies with a positive strong moral message alot more. I saw You Me and Dupree last week.... fun movie and the theme and ending was one of very redeeming values when it could have just been a funny wild lil comedy where anything goes and the characters are all messed up and have no hope for anything better or worth looking forward to. I dont know just seems quite a few movies lately that previously ended with no hope or purpose or positive outlook have been ending in hopeful positive love faith and good expectations. Whatever it is hope they keep it up!!!!

the *perfect christian*

I wonder what one looks like???? They will have to emulate Jesus in almost every single detail actions as well as thoughts and attitudes. I wonder lately at alot of the *testimonies* so many people tell or give where they finally respond to God or have an amazing conversion experience and from then on their life is totally transformed by Jesus and the Holy Spirit forever and they just walk in complete union with God and live happily ever after. Seems to me that most of us just dont have that kind of *walk with God. I mean look at the apostel Peter..... he was one of the few humans to live with Jesus and be around Him 24/7 for three years not to mention be part of His *inner circle* alonmg with james & john.....and he denied him 3 times..... doubted His resurrection.... and then had to be chastised by Paul for being a hypocrite among the jews after having the vision/dream where God showed him the Gospel was also for the gentiles. Paul called himself *chief of sinners* present tense!!!!! Martin Luther founder of the Protestant Reformation was extremely prejudiced and violently anti-jewish in his later years. I guess i just wanted to express a frustration with wanting to be at a certain level or place as a christian but also realizing it is a journey and Jesus and The Father are here to push and guide me along to deeper mature growth and to not be disillusioned when i fail and trip over myself and give into sin at times or whatever failure i have happen key is to carry on in perseverance looking ahead to Jesus and the joy of eternity with Him forever!!!!

Any thoughts???? What say ye????

stream of consciousness

My very first memory is of laying in my crib looking up at a diorama

I had my tonsils out at 4 suffered WAYYYYYYYYYYY too many earaches :(

I loved chasing fireflies at night in jersey (west coasters have no clue about this)

We actually had a milkman deliver our milk in jersey wow

I almost got held back in kindergarten

i won *most improved student* in first grade!!!

I took a longggggggggggg time to learn to tie my shoes and how to tell time especially *quarter-till*

I HATE MATH!!!!!!

I loved catechism when i was going to it

I was scared of going to confession lil booth waz so dark i dont remember what sins i confessed I do remember saying the Our fathers & hail marys

I went to an all jewish summer camp cuz my mom was camp nurse and we were CATHOLIC!!!!! LOL

I loved the sound tires make when they go over grates llike the ones on bridges near water

I actually bought a winky dink and you kit to use on the tv!!!

Hmmmmmmm well just a few odd tidbits there add any fun or nebulous ones of your own if you stop ny and take a look have a good one!!!

Jesus in the Storm

I have just read an exposition on a website discussing the passage in the Bible where the disciples are caught in a calamitous storm and jesus is sleeping through it. I have read this story many many times and usually come away impressed with the fact showing Jesus took control and showed them all He was God and would always be there no matter what the situation as someone they could trust. Upon closer inspection..... we recall almost all the disciples were fishermen or at least used to helping with fish as well as in the seas... plus as Jews... they were all too familiar with Gods use of the seas as a means to express Himself whether it be His protection power or anger. The greek word used in the passage indicates more than just a rainstorm it was a truly malevolent typhoon type storm with huge waves crashing upon them water filling up the boat faster than they could get it out sensing a possible capsizing and drowning..... and Jesus...... slept!!!!! As fear and panic gripped them all they went and woke Jesus up.... and of course Jesus immediately calmed the whole scenario and made all normal again.

Jesus asked them all..... O ye of little faith why are you afraid???? He had been with them now quite a long time .... they knew Him.... knew His ability..... yet look closely at whatthey said to Him when they woke Him up...... "do you not care whether we live or die?? *


WOW........ I saw that and it hit me like a slap in the face....... they KNEW Jesus ability, that He had power over wind and sea and that He was messiah.... YET they doubted His care for them...... His love for them....... O MAN....... Isnt this the KEY ISSUE we have in our relationship with God???? Like with Job...... do we trust Him???? do we love Him???? and how can WE expressed in Jesus own disciples.... question whether God loves and cares about us. FAITH........ simple unadulterated childlike FAITH...... that no matter what we face no matter how scary hard rough difficult painful or whatever we think of it GOD IS FAITHFUL..... HE IS THERE FOR US!!!!! This hits me to my core because this is my seemingly endless struggle every day can i REALLY REALLy TOTALLY trust God????? I mean look my dad died of skin cancer..... people die every day from all kinds of things..... natural disasters destroy huge amounts of land and kill millions in one fell swoop unpredictable disaters and accidnets happen all the time.... can I trust God????

My rational mind of course says YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!! ALWAYS FOR ALL ETERNITY YES!!!!

then.... theres the small scared voice deep inside,,,,, seeing all these bad frightening things happen and feeling combination of guilt shame for being bad for not obeying or having stronger faith ...... worried if i can ever really trust God..... ultimately that scared lil voice needs to know and realize... YES ALWAYS YES YES YES!!!!

Really hope to hear comments from any of you about your dealing on this subject.... sure does help to lay it out on the blog lol brings some relief hope day by day we ALL experience His loving care for us internally deeper deeper and deeper!!!!

being 'stuck'

Still marinating my thoughts about self-sabotage. and thanks very much for all who commented and any who looked in. I am a psych major although not currently in school and so have had a long time of dealing with the whole nature vs nurture environment vs genetics debate that endlessly goes on. One of my early memories is going to an amusement park as a kid i think i was 5 and seein ga ride called the 'wild mouse' basically a small rollercoaster. My sister who was 2 my dad and i all went on it dont ask me how a 2 yr old got on this ride maybe because we were in new jersey and my dad was a cop!!! LOL anyhow.... I was scared and didnt like how i felt on the ride while my lil sis loved it!!!! AS life went on it seems like i was always a lil more shy hesitant and fearful about things than my sister. To go with this. i had a grandma who was an alcoholic and i later learned favored boys over girls. My dad struggled with skin cancer he originally got while in the army and so was in and out of hospitals quite a bit.... my mom was a fulltime nurse so i spent a large amount of my formative years with my grandma and she was extremely overprotective and exuded a spirit of fear and getting hurt by other people or the world out there.

I wonder about these influences NOT as a means of casting blame..... who knows what caused my grandma to become like she was or why my dad got skin cancer and it stayed with him the rest of his short life. I just see how i feel 'stuck' in this inner web of fear alot of the time. Before i turned 30 I always had a struggle with an irrational fear i would get cancer and die as my dad did. i think maybe this was a means of connecting with him somehow. i KNOW God is in control Jesus overcame death and sets me free fro mit and gives me eternal life BUT somehow my emotional/heart side of me struggles wondering if I have had enough faith i havent been obedient enough I let things shake my confidence to much and so much junk that just makes my head spin. I wonder if all of us have our own.. 'unique to us' struggles like theones ive shared and whether we will ever overcome them on this side of eternity sometimes i think i expend to much energy on getting rid of these struggles as opposed to just spening time and energy enjoying loving and praising Jesus and Almighty God!!!!!!!!

Im so glad to have begun writing on here again always feels good to post and wondr who out there might stop by. I also very much love to see the awesome people who blog as well and have such incredible lives to share!!!! feel free to share as you like and if you ever wantto email me or talk on messenger im open to either or both!!!!

self sabotage

Thinking about intimacy with God the other day a friend commented and led me to think even further about why and how i avoid this myself. I believe a good portion of the reason is to avoid disappointment and letdown. My dad died of cancer when i was 8. I had no idea he was terminally ill he and my mon chose to not tell my sister and I this for what to them were good reasons im sure. But... when he did die it came as a shock and i think in my 8 year old mind/emotions trying to get a grip on it i became scared that by having intimacy let it be God or people could cause a major hurt to happen like losing my dad to death. This is a hard thing to get a handle on for me somehow. I know in my mind the reality of death happening and why and we all have it happen but that doesnt fix the emotional pain of it or free me from the pain i felt as an 8 year old boy suddenly with no father. I often wonder how this has affected my view of God and how i relate to Him emotionally. Ikts like im afraid somehow he will die and disappear as well as my earthly father did. I KNOW thats crazy but remember im not speaking from my MIND here but from my heart and I have lived almost 45 years on this earth struggling to bridge the gap between my understanding and my emotions. I hope these thoughts strike a chord with some of you or if you see me as needing to be put in a rubber room well let me know!!! LOL i just hope a few stop by and share their ideas on this issue.

Intimacy with God

Isnt this what we ALL want???? Well... let me rephrase.... isnt this what all CHRISTIANS want???? My immediate response is DUH!!!!! of course they do!!! Looking below the surface though do we really???? Believing in God is one thing..... having intimacy with Him is quite another. Look what happens to those who did have intimacy with God..... they usually experienced severe pain tribulations untold sufferings loneliness rejection wow sounds like just how i want to spend MY life!!!! yea riiggggghtttttttttttt!!!!! hebrews has a whole chapter called the hall of faith discussing all those in history who were heroes of faith......and who lived lives that sound more like hell than heaven but thats from a HUMAN perspective I posted about time the other day and how people in jesus spent it. I wonder if they would view our life in USA or europe or any well-developed country as close to being heaven on earth because we have so much ............ so many things that make life so much more enjoyable and less of a struggle yet how spiritually deprived are we??? Even with all we have as christians how much do we lack that intimacy with God??? Preaching to myself as much as anyone people once again all who stop by feel free to share as you so choose. Peace!!!

Time

Sure is a weird thing really isnt it??? How do we really understand time anyhow??? That clock or watch thats not really time its just a man-made attempt to control time. Why is it when your having fun or enjoying yourself time always runs too short. When your bored outta your mind or hating whats going on time never seems to end??? I wonder how the people in jesus day spent their time????? i mean hey NO TV..... radio...... cds...... videogames....cars.... what kind of toys existed then????? Transportation was by foot only so always seeing the same faces day after day year after year no amusement parks sports stadiums well they DID have the colosseum in greece and rome!!!!!

It seems we are so *fast-food* oriented as a culture now difficult finding time for God and when we DO we dont know how to spend it and what to do with Him!!!!! i wonder how people back then dealt with relating to God????? Things that make you go hmmmmmm!!!

prayer

Such a simple thing on the surface...... talk to God move your lips or do it silently by thinking inwardly to Him..... cant be any easier right????? I think prayer ranks up at the very TOP of the list many ministers,evangelists, missionaries and christians on a whole state as being tough work and something they wish was better in their lives. I wonder why this is????? Paul tells us to pray *without ceasing* obviously he means maintaining an attitude of prayer or inner running dialogue with God as seeing if we were to try and do this the common way all of us would be on our knees in our bedrooms and our world would cease to function because we all would be praying without ceasing chalk one more up for NOT taking scripture LITERALLY eh?????? *small grin*

Time is such an evasive thing we never have enough of it or sometimes its tooooooooooo much when we are stuck with something or someplace we dont want to be and wish time would just move on fast. I know for me I have so many times when i pray my mind drifts i have no idea why it happens so often though and other times I wonder where my prayers are i feel *stuck*!!!! is that due to sin needing to be repented of???? Areas of pride disobedience or unbelief???? Does God understand if we have certain habitual sins we struggle with for years on end sometimes free of them a long time but still they end up popping into play at times???? Just thoughts ive been marinating on this subject.

As always please do share your insights on anything you read . I love any and all feedback. Thanks for viewing!!!

theology of emotion

This whole subject has been on my mind for a long time now. It seems like emotions can never be in the center or balanced its like they are WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY OVERBLOWN... or..... they are subdued and held in check ala Mr Spock.... i know this is a generalization and yes many can have a balanced emotional state of being im talking overall here though. How do we keep control over our emotions??? Do they just spring up whenever something sets them off???? How do we separate the Holy Spirit and our emotions from each other???? Are our thoughts intricately linked to our emotions????
Can our emotions be saying one thing to us and then totally change in an instant to a directly opposite idea or attitude????? Can descriptions of thoughts/attitudes be intertwined with emotions or are they meant to be kept apart????

Hope this isnt a hodgepodge of confusing stream of thought there LOL Just stuff swirling within my cranium lately please leave all thoughts/feelings/comments as you desire to share :)

preterism

This is a term for a certain view of eschatology or end times. It means 'past' as in already occurred. I have been to Bible College and Semianry and until last year, had only heard this term ONCE by a professor in my freshman year at Bible College. Why is this??? I think its because those who hold to this view are branded as heretics and troublemakers because they are in diametric opposition to the mainstream widely held view of dispensational premillennialism which has become even more cemented into the culture by Tim lahaye and jerry Jenkins 'Left Behind' books series.

As i have been studying about and researching preterism however i become more and more accepting that it is very accurate in its viewpoint. Look and see if the term 'second coming' occurs in the Bible????? I think youll be surprised what you find. 70 AD was the destruction of the Temple and jerusalem as well as the entire Mosaic system and the law and sacrificial system. Jesus prophecied this even in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 23. He also predicted His return, saying it would be to those in 'that generation'. Preterism holds Jesus kept His word and returned by judging apostate Judaism and instituting the New Covenant as He came to establish. C S Lewis is quoted as saying that Jesus failed to keep His promise of returning as He said he would and he saw it as the most embarrassing aspect of Christianity we are talking C S Lewis here people!!!!! Major reason why many jews refuse to accept Jesus as Messiah has been noted as for His fAilure to return as He said He would also.

NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE DIDNT FAIL!!!!! HE CAME BACK AS HE SAID HE WOULD IN 70 AD!!!!! Our problem is we viewed Him as meaning a literal physical appearing but He never said it would happen that way!!!!!! He came back in judgment on Israel and to establish His New Covenant as promised. Needless to say all the ages we have had every generation proclaim 'Jesus is coming soon'!!!!!! I think we need to check our Bibles more closely and realize He did return and wont be coming back but we will all going to Him when we pass from this earth into eternity!!!!

Gods goodness

Just amazing to me how awesomely good God is!!! All the junk that goes on in His created universe and He makes sure we keep going and especially with us being mostly oblivious He makes sure we are given what we most NEED! NOT what we WANT but need!!!!!!!!!

I am especially thankful He takes care of us no matter how many times we stumble and fall along the way!!!! I sit back and wonder about those christians who claim life is spectacular and they have a constantly upward swing to God and live totally in synch with the Spirit nonstop!!!! Are they on the same planet Im on????? Seriously if we were able to live perfectly spotless lives free of all sin..... why would we need Jesus??? And..... why would we need the Holy Spirit?????? Grace is something we CANT earn and DONT deserve!!!!! Praise God He sent His Son into the world to save sinners!!!!!!! Something else i just discovered when the Apostle Paul was talking about himself and his unworthiness apart from Christ...... he said and I am chief of sinners!!!!!! PRESENT TENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even the Apostle Paul struggled with sin!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he saw Christ DIRECTLY AND HEARD HIS VOICE!!!!!

Just my lil soapbox and hope to be reminded we are NEVER to sinful for God to love us!!!!