Jesus is messing everything up!

I am reading a truly fantastic book right now. It's Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.

Shane's a follower of Jesus who has some amazing stories and some real concerns about Christianity and the Church. Says one of his close friends,

"I stopped being a christian in order to follow Jesus"

I consider myself a Christian, but I defientaly understand where Shane's friend was comming from when he made the statement. Christianity has gotten really messed up! For many Christians around the world, Chruch means nothing more than a pretty sanctuary on Sundays, where you can hear a nice sermon that makes you feel good, then leave and go back to doing whatever it is that you want to do. (I'm not excluding myself from this problem, nor do I think it applies to as many people as it used to..not with this Irrestible Revolution in our midst) We love the idea of Jesus and Christianity, but not when it ruins our comfortable lifestyle. Said the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard,

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly."

So here's where I am struggling. I believe that we should all live a life thats spent glorifying God and doing His work. But what does that mean for me? Can I not go to a nice college, attend law school or become an editor or author or wherever I'm lead, and still follow God? What if I want to live in a comfortable home, have nice things for my family? I know the story where Jesus tells a rich man that he must give all that he owns to the poor in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. But money and possessions WAS that's man's god. It's not my god, and I'm not very materialistic. So am I still a good Christian if I want to be sucessful in buisness? Not for the sake of being powerful and rich but accomplished and loved? Does every true Christian need to go live in a third world country in order to do gods work?

I don't think so. I think his work can be done anywhere, and needs to be done everywhere.

Good Day

Nice Friday Night

Movie Tavern :D

Crappy food, cute movie (Yes Man)

Loud ride home

"All the single ladies"

photography

with lots of sprinkles

First Post

At the suggestion of my sister Katie, I've finally gotten around to starting a blog! This is a new and incredibly different challenge for me. Writing is a passion I've always had, and it's only competitor is my love of literature. But writing in a forum where others might possibly stumble upon my random thoughts leaves me feeling a bit vulnerable. I've always liked keeping journals. Some of them are for my thoughts, some for poetry and some are for fictional writing. As much as I enjoy writing down all sorts of things...I've never loved sharing it. I hardly like looking back at my work, because the second I do I see it through the eyes of another and have to judge its quality and  search for cliches. Though it's likely that no one will bother to read my blogs, (and who would blame them?) the fact that someone might freaks me out a little. 

I guess that's not a bad thing.