Never Surrender

We all have times when we don't feel special, and we are all wrong for thinking this.  We are all very special to God.  Jesus died for you, he died so you could live without the horrible guilt of sin weighing you down.  God gives all of us a purpose in life, to live for Him, to spread the word of His love and glorify Him.  Everyone that commits suicide takes God's plan for granted.

Some people would justify suicide by saying that they want to get to Heaven faster.  There are no shortcuts to Heaven.  Throwing away precious life that God breathed into you isn't going to get anyone into Heaven.

Suicide is a very tragic thing.  It is not tragic in the way that a murder is or a shooting is.  Suicide is tragic because the person who took their own life should have known better, it is tragic because it is stupid.  There is no way to justify a suicide, I don't care how you look at it. 

Suicide takes the lives of 30,000 Americans every year, and all of them are preventable.  If you are depressed, just ask the God of Comfort to comfort you and cast out your worries to Him.  You are underestimating God if you think He can't comfort you and forgive you of anything you feel guilty about.  God is bigger than any problem you have, He can and will help you overcome any problem you have if you let Him.  The reason anyone is depressed is because they think their current situation will never change.  When I am depressed I always have to remind myself that to be in time means to change.  As long as we are on earth our situation will always change.

When someone thinks life isn't worth living anymore because they are hated, I think they should take a look at Jesus' life.  He was hated so much that there were attempts on his life before he was crucified.  He only had twelve people that he trusted and one of them stabbed him in the back.  He had to resist every temptation that came his way, that is harder than even we could imagine.  Jesus had to endure all this and he never once considered killing himself.  He did all this so you could inherit eternal life.  He didn't give up on any of us, why should we give up on him?

Suicide is the most selfish thing a person could do.  The only person you think about during the act of suicide is yourself.  You think that you wouldn't be missed?  Death always devastates someone. 

I pray I have proved in this post that suicide is never worth it.  It is the stupidest most selfish thing a person can do.  Never surrender yourself to such a tragedy.

Imperfections Become Irrelevant

Do you ever feel self conscious?  You feel embarrassed because everyone in your class is finished with a test before you, or you feel inferior because you want to look like someone you saw in a magazine or on T.V.  You think you would be so much happier if you look or act a certain way. 

Everyone on this planet is self conscious about something, but nobody has to be.  When I draw a picture or write a post I can always see a flaw.  I think my picture looks weird or I find a typo in a post a month after I wrote it.  Immediately I think, "everybody who saw this must have thought I was a moron!"  Then I have to remind myself that it doesn't matter. 

It doesn't matter what people think of the mistakes that I make because it doesn't matter to God.  When I say mistake I don't mean sin, I mean imperfections that are outside of morality.  The reason you and I feel self conscious is because we all continuously compare ourselves to other people.  When I make a mistake at school there is always someone in the room that yells, "FAIL!".  They announce that I failed because they are comparing me to everyone else around me. 

The Bible has a wonderful simple solution for this age old problem:

If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  Each one should test his own actions.  Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.  (Galatians 6:3-5, NIV)

These verses state that you shouldn't compare yourself to others because each persons actions are their own.  We live in an imperfect world.  If a twisted broken person like me compares myself to the broken world around me I am caught questioning every action I take.  I am caught questioning what would look good in the eyes of others when I should really be questioning what is good in the eyes of God.  When I finally do start wondering what my mistakes look like to God I feel a burden lifted off my shoulders because the typo in my post or the imperfection in my drawing isn't a failure in God's eyes.  God could care less about them because they aren't a sin and they don't keep me from Him.

C.S. Lewis agreed when he said:

"Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks."

I hear my friends tell me that they don't like certain features about themselves, and I tell them I haven't noticed it before.  I didn't tell them that because I wanted them to feel better about themselves, I told them that because I meant it.  When you see a friend of yours you don't notice any of their imperfections because you focus on the things you like about them.  You shouldn't be self conscious about anything in front of your friends, if they are really your friends they will be oblivious of your imperfections.  Everyone looks flawless to someone.

But when we feel self conscious about how we look it can be very stressful to dwell on, knowing that people see us everyday.  The Bible just happens to have the answer for that too (and  no, it's not plastic surgery!).

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.  (Ephesians 3:10, NIV)

This verse states two things; that God created us and our features the way they are for a purpose, and that God has a plan tailored specifically for us.  Moses is a perfect example of this.  Here is an interesting chat between God and Moses when God commanded Moses to speak to the king of Egypt:

Moses said to the Lord, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.  I am slow of speech and tongue."
The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth?  Who makes him deaf or mute?  Who gives him sight or makes him blind?  Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."  (Exodus 4:10-12, NIV)

God created us exactly the way He wants us to be.  God has a special plan in store for every single one of us.  God put the desire to be a missionary in my heart,  I know no foreign languages but I know God will help me overcome that.  I know that if God wants me to be a missionary He will help me learn different languages.  God gives us imperfections and weaknesses so we can grow closer to the One who is perfect.  God gave me this weakness because I need to rely on Him to overcome it.
 
So don't feel self conscious.  God loves you just the way you are, and if God wants you to overcome a weakness, He will tell you and show you how to overcome it.  Don't compare yourself to others, focus on God and you can't go wrong!

Praying At A Pole

I saw God work in a very powerful way today.  Someone encouraged me to lead SYATP (See You At The Pole) which is an international day of prayer for schools.  On this day every year students gather around the school's flagpole to pray before school starts.  The students pray for things going on around the world like for the soldiers overseas and for their school campus.  SYATP has to be student led event so I decided to lead it.

I sent a forwarded message out about the event a couple days ago, since it was such late notice I didn't think a lot of people would show up.  Well my dad and I showed up early at the school.  My dad bought doughnuts  on the way to school so people had an extra incentive for coming.  Only five people showed up, so I decided to do some last minute advertising.  The school hadn't opened it's doors yet so I told everyone waiting outside the school doors what SYATP was about, one person came, but after dissing the doughnuts my dad bought he decided to leave.  A couple minutes had passed and the school doors opened so the early risers could go inside twenty minutes before class started.  I sprinted in the school with another student and we told everyone what it was about.  Then one of my friends (who had a very high influence among her peers) yelled "I think we should do it!", and just like that about twenty-five kids stood up and walked outside to the flagpole.

When we were all flocked around the flagpole we had to start immediately since I had already wasted five precious minutes herding people outside to the flagpole.  First we read some Bible verses to introduce the prayer, then we formed a circle and held hands.  Almost all of us prayed at least once, it amazed me at how personal some of the prayers were.  I could feel the Holy Spirit warming our hearts in the cold morning as we prayed.  Even some teachers stood silently outside the circle with their eyes closed in prayer.  God brought about 30 people together before Him today.  I had almost lost hope and I honestly thought that nobody would show up.  I feel ashamed.  It's as if I had forgotten we were praying to a God with unlimited power and glory.  God performed a miracle today.

This also brings me to another point I have been meaning to write about for a while.  A lot of people didn't care about praying in front of the flagpole this morning.  Sure, they believed in God, and they were thankful for Him, and that's all that matters in the end, right?  Wrong.  It happens all over the world, especially in America.  People except that there is a God, and that Jesus died for their sins, and they just assume that gets them a free pass into Heaven.  I am not writing this to criticize people at my school that didn't come to SYATP, lots of people couldn't come because I didn't let a lot of people know in advance and because lots of students aren't used to getting to school early. 

Back to the point, God wants us to take action for Him.  That is what about thirty people did this morning, they took the opportunity to show their love for Jesus.  Jesus gave his life for us and I had some kids staring at me like I was stupid for even mentioning the word prayer.  Jesus gave his life so I could have eternal life with God, praying by a pole is the least we can do.  All we can do to spread the glory of God is all we should be doing.  It makes me sick that some people think they are entitled to a God that loves them.  God could have just given up on us when Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, but He didn't give up on us.  I will never understand that.