"God help them see that I am right"

Human conflict is something we all deal with everyday. How we handle it seems to constantly change. As Disciples of Christ we are to always react with love. Obviously that is much easier said then done. So how do we worship God through our interactions with people who don’t lift us up. I guess the answer is to try. When people get mad at us, yell at us, or refer to us in a condescending manner, it is hard to react in love. I know because I, like all human beings, have a problem doing this. I tend to argue back, alienate them, or simply write them off saying that what they say means nothing. The problem is, it that it does mean something. It hurts, it wounds, and it affects the way we dialogue with the person in the future.

I have these kinds of encounters probably just has much as anyone, and how I react is not always Holy, actually most are unholy reactions. Sometimes when someone puts me down I react by attempting to put them down, sometimes I try to be “better” then them. This doesn’t solve anything, it just makes it worst. Sometimes I’ll tell other people about how mean or even unholy the person is, instead of making things better, I stain myself with sin. We all do this to a certain extent, but how do we stop our instincts.

The only two answers I have been able to come up with are prayer and a good friend. I find it healthy to have one (sometimes two) friend to talk to about these unfriendly encounters. I get to vent without gossiping, and usually it helps me realise that what really matters is what God thinks. The other way is to pray, and I don’t mean to pray ‘that God leads the person to see the truth’, because that actually does no one any good. Instead prayer for your relationship with the person, and pray that you can love them has Jesus loves them.

Anger and frustration are not bad, but what you do with them can be problematic.

Finding ways to deal hopefully and lovingly to hatred, anger, frustration and bitterness: that lies at the heart of WORSHIP.

I know he can, I know he can, I know he can

hey everyone. well it's late but for some reason I felt I needed to say my bit for the day. I was just thinking about the many people in my life. Like just today I had a practice with my worship team. The different people, with different experiences and different ideas can make some very interesting (and fun) situation. But it is kind of a random group. All from different parishes, we didn't even all know each other when we first started. But there we were people who used to be strangers working together, struggling together and celebrating together. We are doing an event for the diocese of Montreal in a couple of weeks and the organizers asked if we could put a choir together for it (normally we are 6 vocalist, 3 guys and 3 girls). So next week our random group will welcome anywhere between 10 and 25 new random people to join us in leadership. Yes it is only for this one event but it is still a partnership. These new members are probably even more random then the first group, but that's the point. We don't need to see or understand the link between us, we don't need to know how well we will work together, we don't even need to know how many can sing harmony. Instead we trust something called providence, a cool little gift that well make those who are meant to be there availible. A cool little gift from God. We so often forget that God truly does take care of us, we give Him trust and he won't let us down. And so I trust that there will be a large enough choir, I trust that God will bring guys who want to see, I trust that our key changes go smoothly, I trust that all instruments will be in key, I trust that we will be ready, I trust that He really did call us to this purpose. Now it's my turn to practice, my turn to have the meetings that are needed, my turn to type up changes, and my turn to do my job. I know that if I do my job, God will do His, because that desire to serve lies at the heart of life, it's worship.

Cleaning up

I am one of the most disorganized people in the world, I swear. My bedroom usually is covered by a couple feet of stuff. I end up having to spend an entire day to tidy it up. The funny thing is that sometimes I think my life plays with my room. This is what I mean.
My room is not the only place that I am disorganized. I get behind on my schol work, I forget to do things for my worship team, I leave things I need at home when I am out. I find however that when my room is clean all these other things fall into place. It is easier to get my work done, and I remember things better.
I think it's like my relationship with God. When it's cleaned-up it all seems so much easier, then when their is a mess. Because sin just gets in the way, is meeses the place up. Gossiping on the table, laziness on the floor, resentfulness on the back off the chair. It gets to a point where I can't even get to the bed, the place of rest and peace where God is sitting waiting to have a conversation. And if I can't make it their the conversations end up simply being a raised voice trying to cover the distance.
Cleaning my room as actually become a type of worship to me. Because as I work alone, with my music tuned up, God comes and keeps me company. As I pick the dirk clothes off the floor, He takes the resent of the back of the chair, when I put my books away on to the selves, He clears the gossip of the table. We end up being a pretty good team.
Speaking of which maybe my room is in need of a little cleaning.
try and find your own way to clear out the mess. Because it's at the heart of LIFE.

Supporting our Churches

Hey, today I want to talk about one of the weakness in the Catholic Church. I used to be evangelical, I even went to Bible College, so I end up having different view points on certain things within my now Catholic faith. One of them being the lack of tithing.

Alright I know that this is not a general catholic problem, but it seems to be a pretty serious one in Quebec. Our churches need this support. There is a church near my house that is in desperate need of a new roof, a roof that is going to cost close to one quarter of a million. It seems that everytime they start building up some money for this project that something else breaks down that needs attention. I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is a member at this church and he seemed quite concerned about the issue. After he caught me up on the situation I was left wondering ‘how quickly would this problem be solved if people in that church were tithing.

In the Old Testament it was a Law for the Jews to tithe, because they had to take care of the dwellings of God (temple), as well as the keeper of His house (the priest). We do not find this command in the New Testament, however we do hear Paul referring to taking up collections for the work of the saints. He also says that we must be joyful givers, not resentful of what we “give-up”.

So how about today, should we be tithing? I think it is time that we really look at what we give to the church. Is our Sunday pocket change actually able to support our churches? Well it is at least something to think about. Remember Worship is at the heart of life.

The Power Problem

You know power is a stange thing. I think I am only starting to figure out the human desire for power. For example you look at Genesis Chapter 2. You got Adam and Eve in the Gaden of Eden, they've been given everything they could ever need, but that wasn't enough. No they wanted to be like God, they wanted the power. So many people have told me that the original sin was lust or lack of obedience but a disagree. I really believe that the original sin was pride and the desire to be in charge. let's start at the beginning.
You have the serpent who is the adversary. Then their is the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent says that the tree will give them the power to judge what is good and what is evil, so that they can be like God. The eating of the fruit, symbolizes the making of a covenant will the serpent. The story continues with the consequences of these actions. Eve is told that she will desire her husband and that he will ruel over her. The ultimate battle of the sexes right? But this was not God's plan, God created them equals, Adam himself said she is like me (bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh), but God says that because they both took the fruit desiring to be powerfull they will both continue to desire to rule over each other.
Now what am I getting at? well it is about figuring out how to live a life of WORSHIP. Knowing the backround to why you sometimes to silly or stupid things is important. But what is even more important is to realise that it is not the human condition to be power hungry individuals, no that is not what we were created to be. God then made them clothing out of animal skin, this is the first blood sacrifice, the first time that we hear about an animal dying for the sake of God's children.
In a world where we all want to be in control, and we all want to hold power even if it is just a little, we need to remember that this desire is what started it all, it's what seperated us from God in the first place.
SO WHO HAS THE POWER IN YOUR LIFE???

Second attempt

This is my second blog. The first one people could not post, so I decided that I needed a new one. I like dialogue, I enjoy critism, and I want to share. Share what? My thoughts, my faith, my life. So this is where I will attempt to share my life, and what is at the heart of life, WORSHIP.