To Know One's Self

Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”

Benjamin Franklin was not the brightest bulb. Pun intended. His well documented stupidity of electrocuting himself with a kite lives in infamy. So why do we listen to his quotes. Knowing one’s self is not hard, you’re just expecting more of yourself than what you are.

“Who Am I?” This is a question that seems to plague young people these days. Like we’re supposed to know our special talents and what we want to do with our lives. We’re supposed to have a “vision” for our future and make “life” goals and reach for the stars, but we end up grasping at straws and mixing metaphors.

Wake up already! “Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). I know I’m a mess just like everyone else, and if you think you’re not a mess, you’re lying to yourself. Stop worrying about the mess and start cleaning it up.

Everyone wants something to change in their lives; whether it be, a different job or you just want to start buying more absorbent paper towels. The trouble is, you know the thing you want to change but you don’t know what to change it to. The fact is, it’s not that you don’t know yourself, it’s that you don’t know the options. So get out to the store and see what paper towel brands are available in super absorbent.

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” (fortune cookie) When I was growing up, if I didn’t know a word that my parents used I would ask them and they would say, “Go look it up.” I am ignorant because I rarely followed their advice. But I never thought for a minute that I know what the word means when I was never enlightened to the meaning. You can’t know something you never knew. You can’t forget something you never heard. Stop thinking you don’t know something about yourself. You’ve spent your entire life asleep and awake with that person. 

Be Still and Know

“Be still and know that I am God.”

This is what I heard from God today. I started praying out loud and it just poured out, my worries and fears of now and the future. I didn’t even know I was so worried. So that’s why I’ve been breaking out this week. When I was finished with my little rant, I thought about asking God to cure my zits, but I decided to go a bit deeper and asked him to make me content in my circumstances. He spoke to my heart and said, “Be still and know that I am God.”

This phrase is not new to me. I’ve read it plenty of times somewhere in Psalms, but I couldn’t remember exactly where so I looked it up. Thank you biblegateway.com!

Psalm 46:9-11

New International Version (NIV)

⁹ He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields^[a] with fire.
¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

¹¹ The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

God is my defender and my fortress! “Be still and know that I am God.” No matter what happens God will defend me, and keep me safe. God is so mighty and he knows where I need to be, I don’t need to worry, just be still and know.

Broke, Single, White Girl

When I came home from college, I felt lost. A broke, single, white girl living in her parent’s basement. I thought my identity was nonexistent because of my lack of worldly things. My not-so-stable job or jobs combined with my failing internship search was making me feel like a failure in my field. My status as “single” was making me depressed. While it seemed like so many people my age or younger were getting married, I was still waiting to get asked out for the first time. My church was no help in my identity search, I felt completely out of touch in my home church.

I was being consumed with the way culture and people around me perceived things. I could either go on and hate my circumstances or ask my self the question I knew would take me to the answer. “What is the greatest thing in life?” The Sunday school answer to this is correct, but whenever I ask that question, this verse comes to mind.

“’Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment…” (Matt 22:36-38 ESV)

I realized, I had not been following the greatest commandment faithfully. I was leaving God out of my new identity, but that only leads to failure and doubt. Something I was fully aware of when I was focusing on an identity apart from Christ. Remembering who God is and what Jesus had done let me take a look at the identity I already had. A woman saved from hell by faith in Jesus Christ, A follower of Jesus and a sower of this good news of Christ.            

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”(2 Corinthians 5:14-17 ESV)

This is my true identity. Jobs, relationships, money, friends, they can’t define my identity because I am a new creation in Christ.

Swift Kick

 Sometimes God just needs to give us a swift kick in the butt to get us to stop and smell the roses. In this case, it was my butt and the roses weren’t so much flowers as they were answered prayers. I had been unfocused and uncertain about everything in my life. Lately I just started drifting. You know the drift. The one where you just do what you have to do and not really care about anything. I was so bored I couldn’t even keep that up for a week. I was so unfocused I couldn’t even focus on not caring about focusing. So as the Holy Spirit was urging me in my heart to do, I went to the Bible to get my focus back. And guess what I found. A passage about who God is and how he wants us to seek him, (When talking about who God is Paul says, "God did this so that men would seek him & perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." Acts 17:27), which brought to memory other verses I know about seeking God. God was reminding me that he wants me to continually seek him.

Part of my unfocusedness was because I was worrying about certain things I didn’t have, so in seeking God, I thought about what he has blessed me with lately. I found that many of my prayers have been answered in the last couple months. I am amazed.

1^st a few months ago I prayed that God would lead me to a church where I could connect and serve and learn more about him. Prayer answered!

2^nd I asked God to put someone in my life who I could be close friends with to share our hopes and struggles. Prayer answered!

3^rd I needed income. He gave me two jobs.

4^th I asked God to use me. He led me to a class to teach me how.

5^th I asked for understanding, and he showed me how quickly life can change.

6^th I asked for wisdom, and I keep seeing how stupid I am.

7^th I asked God to keep his Holy Spirit nagging on me when I’m not doing what I should. It was coming in loud and clear.

I see that I don’t need to be unfocused and uncertain about my life. God has a plan. I just need to seek him and he’ll lead me when and where he wants me to go.

Kiss of Victory

Kiss of Victory, Sir Alfred Gilbert, 1879-1881

The best pieces of art to me have passion, skill, and beauty. Of course there’s something to be said for the disturbing, grotesque art. Which would be “eww.”  But I’m talking about the pieces of art that make you feel something (other than a sick feeling in your gut). That tell the story before you read the informational plaque. A young warrior falls back in death and is greeted by a kiss of an angel. The skill alone to carve such an image is impressive. It also tells a story. His fight has helped bring victory. The angel kisses him as he dies; yet, this angel has a peaceful look because it knows this is not the end for him. What’s so beautiful about it is that it’s one end to a battle but there’s also a new beginning for the man.

No Sleep Tonight!

What if...

I want to be more bold, more out-there. I just seem to mess up, take the easy way, and then I’m left beating myself up about what I should have done or what I should have said. What I should have done and said probably would have gone over really well. But alas, I’m here to wallow in the “what ifs.”

“What ifs,” haunt me like the ghost of an angry x-wife with rabies. I just can’t stop replaying it all in my head. It makes getting back to things after a weekend away just that much harder. I have no idea what to do with myself, so naturally I plan a bonfire party.  

Wild Cows

Have you ever seen a wild cow? This weekend I visited my grandparent’s farm in the extremely small town of Platte, South Dakota. They raise cattle. On Saturday, I followed my 82 year old grandpa around the cattle yards. He drove his four-wheeler and I drove the mule (the motorized vehicle, not the animal). The cows were used to him driving up close to their pens, but they were wary of me. They instinctively sensed my unpredictability. I am so unpredictable that I went around a second time alone singing to the cows. I don’t think they favored “Tonight, We Are Young;” although, it could have been my voice or my bright blue sweater that was scaring them. 

Were cows so anxious when they were wild? Apparently, farms nearby to my grandparent’s farm, are brining in mules (this time I’m referring to the animal) to protect the cows and lamas to protect the sheep. Now I’m wondering about wild sheep? What are wild sheep like? I digress….

Now back to the wild cows. Cattle type cows need to be protected, milk cows need to be protected…. I don’t know any other kinds of cows. My specificity isn’t important. The point is, why are there no wild cows roaming the plains like buffalo and wild horses and wild boars. I think we need to preserve the wild cow. We’re already preserving the mountain lion, like the one that howls outside my grandparent’s house every so often. I’m not saying that we should have less cattle farming, I love meat! I just want to see a natural wild cow roaming free and being its crazy wild self. Like when you go to Roosevelt national park and are stopped in your cars whilst buffalo roam all around you just to roll in the dirt on the other side of the road.

Does the "Heavenly Accountant" wear dress shirts?

It’s 68 degrees Fahrenheit in my room tonight. Nine degrees warmer than its usual chilly temps. The reason for this “heat wave” is that I’ve been ironing my father’s dress shirts. He is an accountant, and as everyone knows, accountants must wear dress shirts. Except for Wednesdays, Fridays, and any other day that he feels like breaking this “societal rule.” Benjamin Franklin once said, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” So why not liven things up with a polo shirt!

Tax professionals will tell you to invest your money wisely and save your money for the future. These are great tips for money, but it’s not going to matter once we’re dead. If you can’t take it with you when you go, what will matter?

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21

Jesus said to invest in heavenly treasures. (Matt 25:31-40) Invest in learning about God, helping the poor and needy, sharing the gospel of Jesus with everyone.

I get caught up in having things, finding the perfect job, having fun, and concentrating on the shallow, fleeting happiness of things that could never make me whole. I wonder why I let myself get so distracted from what matters when life is so short. Because I will never forget that Jesus died so we could have eternal life, a life where death and taxes don’t exist. My heart has been transformed by that truth. I put my faith in Christ as my savior from sin and death. Because of that transformation I want to do what is right and good in God’s sight. So I will take advice from my “heavenly accountant” (Jesus), and invest in lasting, heavenly treasures.

Christian Death Metal: Oxymoron

I have always thought of myself as being open to many different types of music, but there are now two types that I know I don’t enjoy: Death Metal and African Drum music. Those African Drums are just a little creepy, especially after the theatrical production of Jumanji. Concerning Death Metal, the metal part could be enjoyable but the death part puts me off. When I speak of the “death” part, I am referring to the screaming. That must be the “death” part because they sound like they are dying, or that they are the monster that is going to kill some one.

I went to a concert a while back, which was related to me as one that was hosting a few “Christian” bands. I put it in quotations, because only God knows what in the world they were screaming. I should have realized, when I was looking up the venue, what type of music would be played at this hole in the wall place; yet, I blindly followed my friend. She needed some one there with her. I know I wouldn’t want to be in that place alone. I don’t know if the genre was really “Christian Death Metal,” but the screaming and “devil voice” parts seemed to resemble the screaming and “devil voice” parts of regular Death Metal. Call it what you may, “Christian Death Metal” is an oxymoron.

There wasn’t a very large crowd there. It’s no wonder. The greasy long hair, the red lighting, the screaming, the spitting, the awkward couple of people “dancing” like they are mentally retarded zombies… It’s not a pretty picture; and yet, I wonder how the lead “vocalists” can keep up the angry looks on their faces.

Death Metal musicians are simply very sad little boys that are just too emotional to cry, so they scream like banshees. So in a way, “Death Metal” suits them since a banshee is a spirit whose wailing warns of an impending death. But if they claim to be Christian, they must be holding just a little too much onto the death to sin part, and forgetting to focus on the alive in Christ part. If they kept the metal and just changed the vocals to joyful sounds, they wouldn’t have to be an oxymoron anymore, they could be called Christian Alive Metal. That’s a corny way to think of it, but they don’t really need to change. Their message was clear when they stopped the screaming for a moment to give their mission statement. They wanted to encourage people and let them know that Jesus loves them. As long as they are encouraging depressed youth with banshee screaming it could be good. God can even use this to draw people to him. It just wasn’t helping me because I couldn’t tell what they were saying the rest of the time, while they were screaming their lyrics.  

Brink Girl to Stay

I'm back at my original blog: Brink Girl
With a haitus from the Brink Girl blog for two years, attending college, writing a different blog, and growing as a person (spiritually, mentally, somewhat physically), I am back to connect with the world.

I will be posting new blogs every week, so don't forget to follow me here or follow my twitterings: @Brink_Girl