True Spirituality

This week, you get to read a guest post/devotional, written by my very own father! :)  ~Photobug

If you are like me, you've heard more and more people claiming a spirituality distinct from "religion."  I have known people who claim that all the great spiritual leaders such as Buddah, Jesus, Mohammad, Hindu Shaman, or one of the Saints, all somehow tapped into a true form of spirituality apart from institutionalized religion.  They say that it doesn't matter who you follow, as they all access the same divinity or transcendental experience.  

Most of these great spiritual leaders either left us with or used some form of sacred text that served as the basis of their spiritual quest or mantra.  With this in mind, and a desire to indeed seek true spirituality, I think it worth considering something that Jesus said with reference to the sacred text he claimed to base his life upon.  Recorded in the gospel of Matthew (Chapter 5, verse 19), "...whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."  Reading that part of the passage immediately preceding this one makes it clear that Jesus is referring to the commandments in the Old Testament, in particular what has become known as The Ten Commandments.  For many of us, The Ten Commandments conjurs up a threat of rigidity and judgment - so contrary to the freedom we expect to find from true spirituality and yet one of the world's great spiritual leaders (Jesus) selects out this portion of sacred text as quintessential for an authentic spirituality.

This has caused me to wonder if over time - either knowingly or unknowingly - formalized religion has somehow tried to ascribe authority to itself by claiming a certain ownership of The Ten Commandments and that this has resulted in a distorted picture of the text - that maybe there remains in The Ten Commandments a link to the true spirituality that many of us seek.  

Since we are free to follow any of the great spiritual leaders, and since Jesus is regarded along with the rest as a great spiritual leader, I made a decision some weeks ago, to spend some time reflecting on The Ten Commandments recommended by Jesus.  Over the next few weeks I will be sharing posts on each of The Ten Commandments.  I invite you to share your thoughts and comments on my reflections.  Enjoy!


Be sure to check out my dad's blog, www.totheheartfromthestart.blogspot.com, for his wonderful series (a new part coming out each week!) on the Ten Commandments!

On Focusing Your Subject (Where it needs to be)

A couple months ago, it was Spring Break. My sister and I were very excited about that fact, because my parents had promised to take us to visit our grandparents in Florida! In Florida, we all had a grand time, doing all the things that we usually do when we are there. But one experience stands out for me.  And no, it wasn’t going geocaching or walking the beach. It was cropping my grandfather’s pictures.

Cropping?

Yes, cropping!  A few days before we had arrived, my grandfather had attended an antique car show at a nearby airport. Being a huge antique car buff, he took a lot of pictures of all the cars. That’s fine! But what really stuck me was how much better a photo became once it was cropped. It may have been an okay photo to begin with, but besides the car (the object my grandfather was photographing) there were all sorts of different distractions. There were people standing and sitting in the weirdest postures and in the weirdest of places; lengthy tables and other cars that were halfway cut off in the shot.

But it was amazing the difference once my grandfather took that little “crop” tool on his computer and got rid of all those distractions. Now the main focus was on the car—the original object of his photo—and he had turned the photo from being okay to being superb. I watched him do this, too; time and time again this happened. Every picture that he cropped turned out ten times better than it had originally been. And all that had happened was getting rid of some distracting pixels.

You know, that experience has got me thinking. Our lives are a lot like those photos!  We have so many things going on in our lives that if a photograph could be taken that represent our lives, I have a premonition that there wouldn’t even be a subject! There would just be an absolute ton of elements all crowded in and jumbled…God would probably be in there, but I doubt that he’d be the subject.

But there’s a problem with that.

God demands first place in our lives. It’s not an option. As Christians, we need to make God first place in all that we do. In our photo illustration above, that means putting God in the center of everything; putting the spotlight on Him and making Him the one and only Subject of our photos.  That’s hard to do—there’s so many other things we gotta do in life—but let me tell you a little story to illustrate this point.

Perhaps you’ve heard of this illustration before. It’s one that I read about in a magazine years and years ago, and it was said that this could be a good illustration for a children’s story. I’ve never told it as a children’s story, but I have remembered it. Here goes:

When you go to give the children’s story, take a few items along with you.  You’ll want to take a jar, plus plenty of stones that are both large and small.  When you give the story, inform the kids that you need to get all the stones into the jar. The little stones represent all the cares of this world, while the big stones represent the important stuff of this life, such as God. First put in the little stones. They fit, but now try to get all the big stones in the jar. Some of them fit, but not all. Tell the kids that you are going to try it again, first putting in the big stones.  So you do; after all the big stones are in (they all fit) you insert the little stones. Miracle of miracles, they all fit! Why?  Because they occupy all the spaces left by the big stones. In other words, they fit into the nooks and crannies. The important point to make here is that your goal—getting all the stones in the jar—only worked when you put the big stones in first.

The obvious application is that our lives will only work when we put God in first. You may be like me sometimes, wanting God but having so many other things that must get done before Him. But no. That’s not how it works. In fact, that’s a recipe for disaster! We must make God first place in our lives.  In terms of our cropping illustration earlier in this devotional, that’d be similar to cropping out all the unnecessary distractions and making God the subject of your photograph.

“And God spoke all these words:… “You shall have no other gods before me.”” --Exodus 20:1, 3

It really is the best for us to put God in first place in our lives. With Him in first place, in center stage, everything else will fall into place. You may not believe it, but it’s true.  Make God the subject of your photo--your life--today!

The Best Scholarship

Lately I've been really focused on college. Why? Well....because in a few months I'll be IN college! So as you can imagine, this second semester of my senior year has been quite hectic and college-focused.

It started out with me being accepted (yay!!) to the local university, and then the scholarship essay writing took over my life. Every Sunday in January and February--and some in March, too--I would spend some significant time working on essays that were required. First I'd write a first draft, and then bring it to my dad for his suggested revisions. We'd mark up and change just about everything that I had written, and then I'd go and make those changes, printing out another copy. And so the process repeated...sometimes up to six or seven times!

Early February found me interviewing the university's head librarian, as I was at that time considering becoming a librarian (now I'm registered as a biology major). On Valentine's Day there was more college focus--this time, a free open house that the university put on. I loved the free pizza (who wouldn't?), but it was also nice to get to talk with the different professors and learn some more information.

Then in March it was a visit with the university's disability services coordinator. Since I am disabled, that does disadvantage me compared to other non-disabled students. So we were trying to figure out what accommodations I might be able to get, that would "level the playing field" for me. Don't forget the long talks at night about college, or the Sundays where my dad (a chemistry professor) takes me to the chemistry lab! There we play around with all the equipment, and try to figure out what will be hard for me with my disability. And I hear from Dad that coming down the line are some chemistry and math problems he's making for me so I can brush up in those areas!

I'm probably not remembering everything here, but you get the idea. (Did I mention that this month I will be registering for classes, and get the joy of figuring out my freshman year schedule?) Add to all that school, about 19 hours of part-time work, and trying to have a tad bit of fun now and then...it's an understatement to say that I'm busy!

Being so busy, the whole college thing can get quite overwhelming at times. Since about the time when I was in 8th grade, Mom has been searching for scholarships, discounts, and other ways to lower my college bill. It can get quite stressful thinking about how big the bill is, honestly. I know college is a good thing, I know it's the next step, I am getting excited about it...but I do tend to get stressed about the bill. Over the past several years our family has been actively saving all we can for my college, but the other week I got a "financial aid award" letter detailing what scholarships and discounts I may be eligible for. Praise the Lord, all the puzzle pieces are coming together!

I've been mulling this over for several years, and now I'd like to share this fact with you: we all need a scholarship to heaven! When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, there went all our merits and right to heaven. We--the human species, descendants of the original sinners--have transgressed God's law, and the result is death, and no eternal heaven with God.

But God couldn't stand to have us eternally separated from Him. He created us because He loved us, and wanted a way in which we human beings could once again have a chance to accept Him as our Savior and live with Him forever. So,

"God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." ~John 3:16

His one and only Son! The best gift that God could give! He gave that Gift to us, and for us Jesus--our substitute--lived a perfect life. Then He died our death on the cross, so we could have His life. I don't know about you, but I know for me I get a little numbed to that story, since I've heard it so much for so long. But really think about it! God died for His creation, and gave us a "full ride" scholarship to heaven. How amazing is that?

This is the best scholarship that I've ever run across. There's no long essays to write, and there's not a lot of requirements. All we have to do is accept, and believe on Jesus as our Savior. Will you accept this scholarship today?

Good Friday

My life has been so crazy busy right now, Easter has really sneaked up on me this year. School, part-time work, and lots of college prep really take up one's time! (see future devotional for more explanation of this thought). I'm really excited about the Easter pagent that our church and local univeristy put on--but other than that, I really haven't given Easter any thought. Honestly, I just don't get excited about chocolate bunnies and brightly colored eggs!

What I do get excited about is what this holiday really stands for...Christ's death and resurrection! This (above) video from Ignitor Media captures my thoughts exactly, and they say it a lot better than I could! I was really blessed when I first watched this video, and I hope you are too.

~Photobug