Monday 22 December 2014

God's not dead

No, I'm not going to try and come up with an argument or debate to convince you. This is just some thoughts related, in part, to the movie God's not dead.

A college student, Josh, is challenged by his psychology professor when all the students in his class are told to write down three words and sign it. "God is dead". But Josh doesn't feel that he can do this.

"But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." - Matthew 10:33

Josh then sets out to try and prove to his class members that God is not dead. At the end of the movie he is at a Newsboys concert and all the people attending are told to send the message "God's not dead" to all of their contacts. And so are you. Yet I didn't. I sent it to the ones I for some reason felt that I should but I didn't send it to all of my contacts. Why? Maybe because I get annoyed by the amount of posts or pictures on facebook that say "Share this if you love Jesus" or "99% won't repost this, be the 1% that isn't afraid to stand up for God." Is Jesus really going to measure how much you love Him by how many likes on a social media website He gets? Maybe I just don't like getting told what to do or just tend to question things like that, but I didn't like getting told "let's show God how much we love Him" by sending a message I was told to.

What do you think? I'd be interested to hear your opinion on sharing things like this.




Saturday 20 December 2014

In which I learn how to work blinds



I thought that you might enjoy this somewhat amusing story of something that happened to me earlier this year :)


Earlier this year I spent a few weeks living in a dorm. It had one window, adorned with blinds, that faced the parking lot and my bed was beneath it. On the first night once we had closed the blinds and climbed into bed I discovered that the bright lights outside were not held at bay by the white blinds and kept me awake. Besides this fact, my room mate and I were woken up at 2am by an alarm clock. My alarm clock that had somehow been broken during the trip and didn't go off at the time it was set to. Great way to start out with my room mate! (Luckily she didn't hold that against me and we became good friends. She is awesome by the way.) After that we used her alarm clock.

With no more misbehaving alarm clocks I still had the nuisance of the lights outside that persistently shone all night. Our attempts at solutions didn't yield wonderful results. We tried hanging things onto the blinds and I spent two nights sleeping on my mattress on the floor. That wasn't a very thought through plan as the base of the bed was not solid so it really didn't make much difference.

Two weeks later we were both sitting on my bed and suddenly she has the idea to turn the blinds shut the other way, with the slats facing up instead of down.

It took us two weeks to discover how to work the blinds.

And to finish off with, on the last night during the couple hours sleep we did get between spending half the night lying in the passage talking and seeing people off we were again woken by an alarm clock. In a box. In another box on my room mate's desk.


Thursday 11 December 2014

Perseverance

This morning I joined a few hundred other people in doing the Parkrun, a 5 kilometre run. Or if you are me, a 5 kilometre walk interspersed with attempts at running. Somehow I am able to dance for 7 or 8 hours in a day and sprint but I cannot run long distances.
Perseverance is something that dancing has taught me. Even when you've been dancing for hours and hours and your legs feel like jelly and your feet hurt more than you thought was possible, you just have to carry on going. When you think you can't go on but do anyway you are building strength. Right now that feels like the analogy for my life. Sometimes it feels too much but you can't quit. It gets better even if it doesn't feel like it right now. Once you get your breath back you can start enjoying the journey again. Even in the midst of it all God is right there and you're never truly alone even when it feels like it and even though it's terrible being in the middle of a hard time it will all work out best in the end cause God's got a much better plan for you than anything you could ever think up for yourself.

~ I wrote this a while ago, but never published it~

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Divergents and reality

A few months ago I watched the movie Divergent and recently I've been thinking about it. In the movie there are five factions: Amity, Abnegation, Dauntless, Candor and Erudite. These factions each value one virtue: peace, selflessness, bravery, honesty and intelligence. They are expected to act a certain way and fulfil certain roles. At 16 each teen takes a test which tells them which faction they fit into. They then have the choice of which faction they would like to join. Forever. However if they don't pass the initiation into that faction they are left factionless. Outcasts. The test is meant to determine which faction they belong to but for some it doesn't work. Because some, like Tris, can't be narrowed down to one trait. Divergent.

But being Divergent isn't seen as a good thing. People are threatened by Divergents and see them as dangerous. Why? They can't be controlled, can't be labeled or shoved into a pre-determined box that makes them easy to manage.

I know there are debates on whether the faction system could actually be introduced into reality and if the movie takes it a bit too far to be realistic, yet it does happen now, though in a less extreme way. Even now people are labeled and put into boxes and told what they are like and how they are expected to act just because of a part of them. People are too complex for that. Sure you may be an "arty person" but that doesn't mean you aren't a "history person". People do have different traits and have different weaknesses and strengths but you can't put them into a "faction". Just because they have a certain characteristic doesn't mean that you can define them by it. I am a dancer. I take great delight in the fact that I have done many years of ballet yet I love action movies and want to do things like paintball and abseiling. Most people don't expect that and I like that I am different in part to what they would expect. Labels don't define you. They may explain a part of you, an interest or an achievement but they don't explain you. You're made up of so many more characteristics, traits, interests and quirks than that and that makes you a very unique person.

Tuesday 9 December 2014

A good friend

How do you classify a good friend? Is it someone that listens? Someone that trusts you with their thoughts and that you trust? Is it someone that does all they can to help you when you need it? Someone that you would be willing to put in a lot of effort to help or cheer up? Or is it just someone that you laugh with and get on well with?

How would you define a good friend?