51: There Must Be A Reason, Right?

The Title: We are all a certain way for a reason; created with different talents and having gone through different life events to help people.

There are certain things I don't like about myself that I can't help. Having a mood disorder is one of those things. I get so upset with the fact that I didn't do anything to get this, yet I have it and have to work through it for the rest of my life. I always asked God, "Why did you let me have this? It hinders me, it makes me feel different in a bad way, it makes me really sad about myself". I always saw it as a weakness, and yes, some people do try to hold it against me and use it as ammo to hurt me. But what I've realized is God also equipped me with a certain skill set to cope. And when I'm coping, I can think clear enough to see how I can help others get through this same issue or ones similar to it, because I had to fight this battle.

Sometimes you're going through something and you don't understand, but then you come out of it and realize, God was simply setting up the stage to use you to get the glory for His kingdom. You and someone else can have a completely different life, but end up having a similar mission from God. This is super apparent when it comes to Paul. Paul says,  "they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles." (Gal. 2: 7&8) God had a mission for Paul, God had a mission for Peter. He took their different life experiences and gave them the task of preaching to specific groups. Now, let's apply that to our lives.


So I have a mood disorder. God didn't plague me with a problem. He blessed me with an opportunity to reach out to people with depression or to provide support for people with family members dealing with bipolar disorder or to help others except themselves a little better than they have in the past. It's really all in your thinking. We weren't haphazardly created. God has a reason for every detail of our creation. 

50: Excuses, Excuses

(This is the 50th post of janigan.blogspot.com's "It's Not So Krystal Clear". If you like what you've been reading share with a friend. I'll keep writing, even if I only have an readership of 2 people. Doesn't matter :-)  )

The title: It's about all the excuses people make about why not to follow Jesus.

I found Jesus at a young age, and though I swayed from left to right while trying to get in line with Christ and made PLENTY of mistakes, I still always believed in Him and His power in our lives. When you believe and especially as strongly as I have, you get questioned a lot and people throw a lot of daggers at you. Sometimes you're told that you're flat out wrong and if you believe in something you can't see, you're crazy. Sometimes you'll have hard times in your life and when you do, people will ask "where is your God?" Well, I've seen people with pretty empty lives and I can't imagine that they are as happy on their best day as I am on my worst, because I have God and this is my comparison:

If you don't believe in a higher power you can get trapped in hard times, because you don't know how temporary this earth is.  "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" ( 2 Corinthians 4: 17, 18). Earth is gonna go away, let's face it. It's stated in the Bible a ton and if you follow science, things aren't looking so great. But let's say you don't believe in the apocalypse, you're still gotta die someday. Inevitable. When you're a Christian, you prepare for this, by aligning yourself with God. You know this life isn't the end all, so when you face hard times, you don't have to worry, you know you'll make it through and even if it sucks, who cares, there'll be heaven where things never suck.

The Unsaved (and I don't mean that disrespectfully) have a lot of pressure on their shoulders. Jesus carries my burdens. But first I have to hand them over to Him. Knowing this, when I actually do hand it over to Him in good faith, I know He will take care of it. But if you don't know Christ as your savior, you're stuck trying to figure things out.

Religion is too hard, too many rules. Math is too hard too, but if you wanna be a Chiropractor you work through it right? Same thing. All the rules God made are for our own benefit. No sex before marriage- so you don't have an accidental pregnancy with a guy that can run across the country and be hard to track. No drugs- you can die from that stuff. Love your neighbors - the world would be better if everyone loved. Go to church- If you wanna follow God, it's helpful to learn more about Him in a supportive environment. It's only like three hours long, people go to the bar for longer than that. Saying following God is too hard, is like saying " I don't have will power and I don't want any", because trust me, God will give you the power if you ask.

Christians have no fun. If I'm not fun, it's because I'm a boring person, not because I'm a Christian. It's just that your perception of fun changes. Some activities you can't do anymore, but you replace them with positive ones and if your heart's in the right place, you can accept that change.

Some Christians are not good people. This goes both ways. Some Christians aren't good people and some Non-Christians aren't either. You may encounter a Christian who has not grown in a certain area and so they treat you wrong. Don't base your whole judgment of a religion and a God, based on this. You wouldn't reject a house if one out of 280 shingles was outta place on the roof.

Some non-christians fail to see how much they're loved. I've seen people put up with a lot of crap they didn't have to put up with from people, because they didn't know how much they are loved by God. I'm thinking of this from a boyfriend-girlfriend perspective. Sometimes girls have terrible boyfriends and they keep going on with the hurt and disrespect, because they don't know the worth God has put on them or the fact that God has a prince waiting for them if they would wait for him.

I could literally go on with this list for sooooo long, but I feel like people would stop reading. If I was reading, I know I would. I'm a slow reader. But I hope I inspire people to stop bull pooping themselves. Living in sin gives you an emptiness. I remember waking up after doing something crazy and wanting to cry, because I didn't know what the point of my life was. I had no purpose and I was trying to please a body made of flesh that will one day rot. No alcohol, pot, or guy could make me as happy as God has and for that I'm extremely blessed and others can be too. We all can!

49: You Jesus Freak! (and other subsequently related things)

The title: It's about my seemingly ongoing fear of being labeled and my longing for fellowship....

Sometimes I wanna share the Good News of Jesus or just talk about my life from a spiritual standpoint. I find myself battling with the thought of "Am I talking about God too much?". In my mind, if you see something moving, you oughta testify. I'm sure others agree. But I don't have a ton of Christian friends. In some ways I've avoided Christians my own age, because I'd encounter a lot of judgement and being parented over instead of having a comfortable friendship. But I know that's not all people my age, I just didn't encounter the right people.

I don't try to force my friends to be Christians. I don't think that's right. Yes, I share the word with them, but I know that people come to God in many different ways and it's not solely my job to save my friends. Who knows, maybe someone will come along and they'll inspire them more than I could ever do. And if that does happen, I'd be overjoyed. I just try to show them that God is good by living my life right and hopefully they see Him moving on my behalf.

So about this Jesus Freak thing...
People that talk about God a lot are sometimes called Jesus Freaks. Some Christians have taken this and made it into a positive. I can see how it would be a positive, but I still find myself a few steps away from being not afraid to talk about God freely. And it sucks. I get so excited when I meet another Christian. It's like going to Japan, not knowing any Japanese words, tapping a guy on the corner and surprise, he's American.

When I went to look at an apartment today, the landlord was showing me around and we start talking about Halloween and how he doesn't take his kids trick-or-treating. There's a slight hesitation and then he asks me if I'd "accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior". And instantly, everything became super comfortable. I knew we could speak the same language. Don't get me wrong, I don't think all Christians are "good people" automatically. But you can tell a serious Christian from a person just using the title pretty easily, or at least you should be able to.  Similar story to the last, I bought my car from a Christian family. My pastor and pastor's wife from my old church went with me and it was like one giant Christian pow-wow right there in the parking lot.

So what am I ranting about? I guess I want to talk about God and not just on Sundays or in this blog...