November 25, 2005

So last week I ran out of money far before I could make it to church with a tithe, which was in all honesty, something that really, really bothered me. Today I ran into a small paycheck, but I had planned to set aside enough to cover my tithing this week.

When I got home, I realized that I owed my mother and grandmother for bills this week, and it left me with exactly 11 dollars, which was less than my tithe should be for the week by one dollar.

I was picking up a book to read later on today, and found bookmarking the book EXACTLY one dollar. It was then that it hit home to me that God was probably putting it in motion for this to happen.

God has also made something abundantly clear to me lately. In our entire lives, we compete with others to see who can be "the most" of something. In my case, it involves who can be the most underground with what they read and listen to and believe. I am not an exception to this idea. I have spent the last three or four years always trying to find the next "it" band, author, movie, or anything that would give me the edge and make me slightly cooler than my friends. It exists in every person, whether they'd admit it or not.

That's just not us.

I mean, sure we put ourselves there in life, but God didn't intend for us to be the people that lived our lives competing with one another, I feel. The need to more indie is not something we need in live to survive. I think God made this very apparent to me over the past couple of days. By this, I don't mean I'm going to stop reading what I read, listening to what I listen to, and the like. I mean I'm going to stop doing it for some of the reasons I've been doing it for the past while.

Lately, I've been spending time in many different houses, particularly late at night, and with a variety of friends. I've repeated this many times, but these times are when you see the face of God so thoroughly that you cannot protest to His presence in our lives. The face of friends laughing is a sight so beautiful that you cannot deny God's involvement, and to laugh with a friend is a worship we often forget exists.

I'm struggling with an idea that God has presented me with. I don't doubt His truth in what He told me, but I didn't realize how hard it would be to get through the rough patches. There comes a time where you wonder if what you thought was God talking to you about something might have been you telling you what you wanted to hear. Regardless, I feel that sometimes for a truth as vast as God's, some hardships are always neccessary to endure.

The question presents itself to me though, how much hardship are we willing to take before we give up on something like that? How far will the devil go to convince us that we are doing nothing but believing ourselves, and that we can't be listening to God if it's that hard? If the hardship is endured, how awe-inspiring will the prize be?