Church today

Today for church I didn't go to a church building, I didn't meet with some friends and pray, I went to a friends house and helped them move. Do I feel like I should be ashamed that I skipped church to help a friend out? No, no I don't. What is church but a place for us to meet together with other believers and offer worship to God? What is offering your service to someone but a time to put others in front of you and offer worship to God through selflessness? I went to church today, but it was a serving church - a church of helpers.

Is Marriage Necessary?

Tonight at work, my manager and I sat and talked for about half an hour (We had worked and talked for about an hour before) about the question of whether or not a marriage relationship was necessary to be spiritually complete, as far as, you cannot feel as though nothing is missing in your life unless you have a spouse. The basic fact that all Christians must accept is that God created man and woman to enter into a marriage relationship, which is sacred and holy, and between only them. God created us to need the intimacy, not just sexual, but emotional and spiritual, that comes with marriage. Is marriage necessary for completion? Depends on who you ask. My manager believes that some people have a spiritual gift from God to work past being single and achieve spiritual completion for God, but the default for all humans is to need a spouse.
Now is a spouse all that one needs? No, of course not. You need a satisfying career, satisfying friends, and a satisfying relationship with God, among other things, to feel complete. But God created in us a desire and a need to be intimate with someone - to connect our souls with someone else in a way that only comes through marriage. You can be intimate with a close friend, but nothing comes close to the intimacy of sharing your life with someone. God created us with a desire to have community with people, and especially with just one. However, the intimacy with your spouse will never override the need for intimacy with God.
Do we need to share our lives with another person? Personally, I don't need to. Do I want to? Heck yes I do! I want to get married, have kids, and enjoy the sacred joy that comes through marriage. Is it necessary for me to live my life to the fullest? No, it isn't. I could go through life and enjoy it and be single my whole life. But I, along with every other person on this planet, need intimacy with my friends, desire intimacy with my wife, and require intimacy with God.
We have a need for intimacy, God has a need for it too. Why did God create people? He knew we would sin, he knew we would break his heart by requiring him to damn billions of us to Hell; so why would he do it? I believe God created humans because he had a need for intimacy with us. He had a need to have community and intimacy with us. Was God incomplete before he created us? By all means, no, he was totally complete - he's the essence of completion. But he desired intimacy with us. He desired with all his heart to have us share our lives with him.
So is intimacy required for living a complete life? Yes. Is a spouse required? I believe not, but you must realize that if you don't have a spouse, you will have to find that missing intimacy in both your close friends and more so in God. Don't fool yourself into thinking that a spouse is the key to completion - that only comes in God. A spouse is the sprinkles on the cake. Is a cake complete without sprinkles? Yes. Is it more enjoyable with them? Yes it is.

Occasionally, I need to make choices where either are bittersweet, and either ignites the fear of regret in my mind. It is at times like this that I wholly pray that I would not have to make the choice and that God would take one of the choices away from me so as to clear the way to the correct end result. I don't know which of these choices are the right ones, and I don't know which one I want to make. Either is great, and either leaves people hurt. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place while deciding on a choice that will lead to a soft field. I pray for strength; I pray for guidance.

So I found out today that the job I'm working at Orange Leaf has dropped the days I can work each week down to just Friday and Saturday, which means the maximum number of hours I can work each week is 14, which is the minimum I need to be able to pay the expenses I have. It may be time for me to pursue another job opportunity.

Celebration!!

Thanksgiving break is almost here! Hooray! But along with that comes the ever-closing imminence of finals. Having a week to sleep in will be nice, though it will be tainted with my efforts to finish my final papers in my classes. Pray for strength, as I will be - both in my school life and in my personal life. 

I Love You

The word "love" in English has many meaning in this one word; you can say "I love my car. I love my dog. I love Hannah Montana. And I love my wife." The Greeks had 4 words for love. Philia is friendship or affectionate love; Storge is the kind of love you have within your family toward its members; Eros is love of the chemistry and attraction sort - Socrates has stated that eros love helps the sould recall knowledge of beauty; and Agape love is unconditional love through all circumstances.

I feel that in today's society, far too many people pull out the "I love you" within a relationship before they truly realize the power of that statement. With most relationships within highschool or college, the people in the relationship say "I love you" when they truly only realize eros or philia. It is perfectly fine to say "I love you" to a friend, but to say it to the other person in a relationship, you have to look at how exactly you love this person.

The best love relationships have all 4 of these Greek words in the love. The best love comes when you're best friends, physically attracted to each other, unconditionally love them, and feel as though the person is a family member and love them as such.

Do not be so quick to pull out this phrase in a relationship - I definitely will not. I have realized the power of this phrase and how much better it will be if I monitor my relationship and wait until I can truly say "I love you" and mean all four Greek terms within it. If I can manage that, it will make my future marriage have much more hope and be much more enjoyable.

Thank you to the Wendts for introducing this to me.

How easy would it be for us to lose sight of where we want to go? How simply extraordinary is the effortlessness which it takes for us to slip into a spiritual and moral coma and lose all virtue, hope, and might. We may, at any time we are inattentive to our state of being, lose control of our spirit and spin recklessly and hopelessly into the dark abyss that is lone. We all will and need to be accountable for our actions. Do not think that a lonely man driving in the dark night for a lifetime will not eventually fall asleep. We must have passengers who ride along, keep the drive enjoyable and productive, and save us when we begin to drift off the path and into the wilderness. Our friends are like shields, our brothers like guards. This way anyone who attempts to infiltrate our lives with the poison of the world, even may that be I, I pray now that they be dashed on the ground and skewered by the men who I have put in the forefront of my defense. Look at the life you want. Look at the life you would be terrified to have. The path to that future is a slow slope. Be sure you have guides to help you along the way.

The End Result

We had a discussion today in the Student Center about where you go when you die. Do you go to "purgatory", that is, a holding place where you wait until the Ressurection, or do you immediately go to Hell or Heaven? One kid believed that you simply die and do not have a consciousness or person until the final call happens and Christ raises you from the dead and judges you. Most of us had differing views on this matter, but it was great to talk about things that no one can know for sure. Oh, the conversations I have at Ozark.