Their Path vs. My Path - Destructive Comparisons

Three months ago, I began a long trek through the gospels. At one chapter a day, I have finally finished. My method was simple. Read through the chapter, underline things that stick out, go back through the chapter with a journal and write down the underlined bits and thoughts/comments/cross referencing.
What better way to wrap up my journey through the gospels than with my favorite chapter in all of the gospel narrative? If you have never read John 21, you really should. It is packed full of awesome stuff. From the way people react to difficult situations, to trust. From what it looks like to actively follow Jesus, to insecurity. The sheer number of things this chapter alludes to is enough for me to spend several blog posts dissecting, but I shall only focus on one.

When most people think of John 21, they think of the all too familiar passage where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him in verses 15-17.
There are many speculations about this passage. What Jesus meant by "Do you love me more than these?" in the first verse could mean a variety of things. Did Peter love the Lord more than he loved his fellow disciples? Did he love Jesus more than his fellow disciples loved Jesus? (For Peter often claimed to have devotion that outweighed the others.) Or maybe, did Peter love Jesus more than he loved these things (his job and his fishing gear)?
Whatever it is Jesus exactly meant by the question, we don't know. Maybe Jesus wasn't specific on purpose. Maybe he phrased it the way he did so Peter could bring to mind whatever he might be putting before God in his mind. Whatever the case, I do believe the threefold question was designed to stand in contrast to the time just a week or so before when Peter denied Jesus three times.

While this is a good passage, people often don't know that the third time Jesus says, "Feed my sheep," isn't the end of the conversation. In fact, it's not even the end of His thought. Within the same breath of saying, "Feed my sheep," Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."
As explained by John, who was both listening to this conversation between Peter and Jesus and lived to see Peter's famous upside-down crucifixion, Jesus said this to "indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God."(v. 19)

As you read on, Peter looks back over his shoulder while he and Jesus are walking and talking, and sees John following them. Why John followed them, he doesn't say, but Peter does seem concerned as to what God's plan is for John as well. He asks, "Lord, what about him?" (v.21)
There's some history between John and Peter you should know. Basically it goes like this. Jesus had about 70-80 disciples. The Twelve were his closest. The others would follow most of the time, but the Twelve rarely left his side and were with him during most of the most important things. There were three of the Twelve who were even closer than the others. Simon (who Jesus called Peter, which means "the rock"), John, and his brother, Andrew. Not much is said about Andrew, and, honestly, I think that's because he got it better than John or Peter ever did. If you notice, Peter and John were always trying to prove which one of them was the best. They both wanted to be Jesus' favorite. It kind of makes you wonder if the reason John refers to himself as "the one whom Jesus loved," as he did countless times through out his writings, was because he felt left out after Simon was given a new name by Jesus.

So naturally, with all this competition going on, Peter wanted to know what the Lord had in store for John. Just like Peter, we often look at what God is doing in other people's lives and wonder if God is handing us the short end of the stick. I mean His will in their lives looks so much better than what He's doing for me.

Sometimes, I think, we get so distracted looking at God's path for someone else that we stumble off our own and get lost in the woods around us. According to Jesus' reply to Peter's concern, He seems to hold similar sentiment as I do.

He says, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"

Jesus wasn't saying John would live forever or anything like that, but asking Peter if he would still trust and love his Lord even if His will was for John to live forever while Peter died.

What I think this all comes down to is whether or not you trust God's will in your life. Yes, His will for someone else's life may look more exciting, fun, or glamorous, but each path has it's mountains, struggles, and pitfalls. We just don't always see that in another person's life because we're looking at it from the outside.
If the answer is "Yes, I do trust God's will in my life," then you shouldn't worry about whether His will for someone else is better than his will for you. 

We just must stop comparing our lives to other's and start trusting God's plan with wonder and faith.

Your path may seem narrow and rocky, but God has some glorious things to show you along the way.

Not So Hopeless Wanderer

How most people see the Octo

I recently had a very good conversation with my friend Denica McCall about perspective.
Well, that wasn't exactly what we were talking about, simply what I saw. You see, it started as a very pointless conversation over text, in which I decided the octopus emoji best fit my mood. If we both had the same type of phone, there'd have been no problem. But since I have a Windows phone, and I meet very few others who do, our emojis look different.

How I see the Octo

While I use the emoji in moments where I feel like I should use a face, but don't know what to use, most other people don't see the derpy, awkward expression from the octopus like I do.
Does this stop me from using them? No! And I was quick to explain this to her.

But that got me thinking...
Why don't I do the same thing with all of life?
Who cares if other people see what I see? Should that stop me from doing what I love or trying to make connections?
No. It shouldn't.



For example, I wrote a post recently for Holy Week. If you haven't read it, you should. (Click Me!)
In the post, I talked  about the cycle of remembering and forgetting. How it's something we can't really stop, but that doesn't mean we can't learn to work with it. It also doesn't mean we should beat ourselves up over it.
While that post was awesome in it's own rights, I didn't say all I had to say on it. It was partially because, like the post suggests, I let myself forget where my worth lies.
My worth does not lie in the opinions of other people.
But still, I let what other people might think, keep me from sharing one of the biggest inspirations for the post.

If you've spoken to me, you know a few things: I love music, I love words, I love God, and I don't learn things easily. God knows this too, obviously. He knows I need to see something a million different ways before I really get it. I may understand before, but until I see it a few times or hear it a few ways, I will doubt that I really understand it as fully as I could.
Because of this, I don't generally talk (or blog) in depth about things I'm learning from God until I feel like I've got it (unless you're in my inner, most trusted circle).
For a month, God's been teaching me about this cycle of remembering and forgetting, but it didn't seem to really click until last Sunday.

I had just bought the 2012 Mumford & Sons album, Babel, and was loving every minute of it.
Why did it take me three years to buy the second album of what is easily one of my top three favorite bands? I don't know. Maybe it was God saving the music for me, so I could discover it fresh while learning all of these things before I attached different meaning to the songs.
Either way, my brother and I were jamming out to the new tunes and I was looking up song lyrics while listening.
The song "Hopeless Wanderer" came up. This was exactly the song I needed to hear. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had only just learned about the cycle and, in the weeks following, I was in a state of remembering. The weekend I bought this album, was my first period of slipping back into my old rut again. It was this song that helped me remember that this is just a cycle, that I must simply turn to Jesus again.

"How does Mumford & Sons help you make connections to God?" Some of you may be wondering.
God doesn't belong in a "Christian" box. God is everywhere and he can show us amazing things through even a random secular, English Alternative rock band. I see a lot of spiritual themes over Mumford's music, but maybe that's just me. I like looking for God anywhere and everywhere, and He frequently presents Himself in places I would never have expected.
Just listen. Really, here. Listen.

First off, I don't know about you, but the first thing I thought when I heard the line, "Don't hold a glass over the flame, don't let your heart grow cold. I will call you by name, I will share your road," was when Jesus tells his followers not to hide their lamps under a basket or a bed, but to let them shine brightly for all to see.
But that's not what struck me about the song. No, that was the verse where the song got it's title.

Source: Flickr

"But hold me fast,
Hold me fast,
For I'm a hopeless wanderer."

This is me.
This is me crying out to God, "I am a hopeless wanderer, forever doomed to the cycle of remember and forget! So, hold me fast, Lord. Keep Your hold on me, for without You, I am doomed to wander for nothing."

It's all over the rest of the song, too! Do you hear it?
No? Oh well. Maybe it is just me.
Jesus shows Himself to me in some weird and glorious places.

We are all hopeless wanderers, but Jesus stooped down and chose to walk alongside us on this wandering road.