Analysis

Ever see a stranger and analyse them?
Facial features, loudness, maturity, weight, height, voice, hair. Little judgements you take in as you first meet a person. Finding a reason not to like them because maybe you're intimidated, possibly someone of the same sex or some glorified person in your school/college who everybody seems to love.
Those people probably hate those imperfections that you're finding too.
A comment that might pop into my head about a girl wearing so much makeup I feel sick could be the disguise of someone who completely hates the way they look.
It might be quite easy to find the goodness in people that you know and love, or the people who are timid and weak and maybe a bit of a loner. And I don't know about you, but for the people who are well liked and seem to have it all going on, I'm very quick to make judgement on stupid insignificant things rather than search for the goodness all those other people find in them.
Why destroy when you can encourage. I'm STILL learning its such a better use of my time! I'll get it in the end.

Emptiness & Oppurtunities

Ever feel like a walking dead person? Staring into space, giving nothing out yet taking nothing in? It talks in the bible about a living corpse, without God, the last couple of days that has been more relatable than I would have liked.
Numbness. Things that happen in life that make you become numb to life in general. Criticisims, attack, words, feelings, rejection. Life throws it all at you, and as a person you can only take so much before it either completely breaks you or just goes over your head. Thats my personal response to it anyway. Becoming empty. Not accepting all the rubbish but then not filling your life with God either. For me praising in the storm is pretty hard, not because I don't know Jesus is my saviour and that he can't help me, but because I get comfortable in nothing-ness.

So as I walked my dog Murphy today I prayed, out loud, timidly, but I invited God back into my heart once more. Life makes it so easy to harden your heart; what a stupid waste of time.

Then, I asked God for an oppurtunity to speak to someone about him, and then I stopped praying out loud as I saw a man approaching, not that I was ashamed, just that people get scared when people approaching arfe talking to themselves. The second I stopped speaking this man shouted "Is he alright?". Murphy was staring this man out, that awkward moment when he's deciding if he should pounce on the stranger or just wag and lick him to death. I was like "Oh yeah he's fine!". This guy was so jolly and chatty, walking in the opposite direction as he was asking me how to get to the dam. As I started walking away I felt the urge to turn back around and use the excuse of showing him where the dam was (he looked a little lost) to talk to him. I didn't. Instead I stopped, staring into space, ignoring my feet.

Now I have no idea if that was the oppurtunity God gave me that I completely missed, so I made sure I prayed for someone else to reveal God's goodness to that guy today. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, living an empty life has no risk. We have to risk to ever reach out to people. People may say 'God never talks to me' or 'I dont know what God wants'. I've learnt we often need to get out there and try to know what God wants for us. After all, what harm would it have done to go and speak to that man if it wasn't the oppurtunity God presented? I'd have still been showing Gods character.

Step out into uncertainty and don't miss any oppurtunity.