Un arma peligrosa

“Pues, si pudiéramos dominar la lengua, seríamos perfectos, capaces de controlarnos en todo sentido.”

Santiago 3:2b

Se que lo que estoy apunto de escribir va a molestar a algunos y habrá algunos otros que piensen que es una exageración pero  creo que es importante la manera como nos expresamos y las conversaciones en las que decidimos tomar parte.

Es muy fácil y para algunos incluso divertido molestar gente con lo que posteamos en Facebook, Twitter, etc. y al menos yo por mi parte decidí hace poco dejar de tomar parte en ciertas conversaciones. Muchos podrán tacharme de mil cosas: santurrón, hipócrita, cobarde, panchoso, etc. pero es importante preguntarse “que es importante para mi?” y en mi vida yo tome la decisión de buscar ser congruente entre lo que digo que creo y  mi forma de vivir.

Los que me conocen saben que me encanta discutir y como en alguna ocasión publiqué en mi blog incluso prefería ganar una discusión que ganar una amistad, y eso esta mal, no debemos dejar que nuestros errores pasados nos definan, no podemos ir toda la vida con el argumento “así soy yo”, “siempre he sido así”, Dios nos llama a cambiar, a crecer, a madurar, a no conformarnos (imitar) a este mundo.

 “No imiten las conductas ni las costumbres de este mundo, más bien dejen que Dios los transforme en personas nuevas al cambiarles la manera de pensar. Entonces aprenderán a conocer la voluntad de Dios para ustedes, la cual es buena, agradable y perfecta.”

Romanos 12:2

Lo que me da mas tristeza es ver como mal usamos nuestro tiempo, nuestras palabras, Dios nos llamo a hablar vida no muerte, Dios nos llamo a animarnos unos a otros, a amarnos, no a despedazarnos en FACEBOOK.

Por supuesto que no puedo decirte que hacer o no hacer en tu vida, que postear o que no, Dios te dio libertad, pero si me gustaría invitarte a ser un mejor administrador de las cosas que Dios puso a tu disposición y eso incluye tu vida en las redes sociales, no se te olvide que tu puedes llegar a ser la única Biblia que alguien lea, tu vida puede ser el único contacto que alguien tenga con Jesús y su evangelio, qué están leyendo tus amigos (o los amigos de tus amigos) en tu vida?, estamos siendo luz? Estamos siendo ejemplo?

Me ha costado mucho pero Dios me ha permitido no engancharme como antes, no es fácil ir en contra de tus impulsos pero uno de los frutos del Espíritu es el dominio propio y ya era hora para mi de dejarle al Espíritu hacer lo que mejor sabe hacer….transformarnos.

Los dejo con este RT de @DamianAl11 y aunque suena algo agresivo creo que habla claro:

”El que calla no siempre otorga, a veces no tiene ganas de discutir con idiotas”.

“pero nadie puede domar la lengua. Es maligna e incansable, llena de veneno mortal. 9 A veces alaba a nuestro Señor y Padre, y otras veces maldice a quienes Dios creó a su propia imagen. 10 Y así, la bendición y la maldición salen de la misma boca. Sin duda, hermanos míos, ¡eso no está bien! 11 ¿Acaso puede brotar de un mismo manantial agua dulce y agua amarga? 12 ¿Acaso una higuera puede dar aceitunas o una vid, higos? No, como tampoco puede uno sacar agua dulce de un manantial salado.”

Santiago 3:8-12

Are you talking about me???

One thing about being married is that your wife will never hesitate to tell you the very things you need to hear (and that will help you grow) even when you don’t want to hear them.

Yesterday my wife gave me an amazing lesson of humility, the kind that strips you down naked (soul wise) without any possible comeback, the kind of lesson were you wish you could say, well that those not apply to me but you know it does.

A few days ago we started this Bible reading plan to cover the whole book in a year (thank you YOUVERSION) and yesterday we were reading Luke 8 and it talks about the parable of the sower (we have read this story 100’s of times) and after reading this section…

14The seeds that fell among the thorns represent those who hear the message, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. And so they never grow into maturity.15And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.

She says: “we are that seed that fell among the thorns right” and I was about to say, “no honey, let me explain you” when she continued with her rhetoric “I know we have been thought many times that we are the seed that fell on good soil and the seed on the thorns are those other Christians that never commit and rarely come to church, you know THOSE Christians but here it’s very clear, it says that the seed that fells on good soil produces a huge harvest and we don’t have a huge harvest do we?”

It was hard to swallow but she is right, we often think that we are the good people Jesus talks about and other people are the bad people, it’s never us, but how often do we really stop and examine our lives and let the Holy Spirit prune us? There is a big difference between going to church and being a disciple; the Bible tells us that our fruits are the evidence of our true relationship with Jesus so let’s pause for a minute, let’s put our egos aside and allow the Spirit to show us the areas of our lives where we need to make adjustments, the areas we need to surrender so truly be seed planted in good soil.

Because it’s not the same to know about Jesus than to know Him and be like Him.

The beauty in darkness

***This week I was so blessed by a message from Pastor Steve Furtick that I want to share what it learned with you****

Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Tick tock… Annoying isn’t it?  So it is waiting isn’t it?

Especially in the time we live in is so hard to develop the virtue of patience because we have learned to get everything fast, and if I can have it right this second even better. The other day I was watching the Vergecast (www.TheVerge.com) which is a great podcast that discusses technology and culture, and they were talking about the announcement Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) gave at 60 minutes the other day about how in the next 5 years if everything works right, they would launch Amazon Air, a delivery service that would bring your product to your door in 30 minutes thanks to the Drone technology (flying robots how cool is that!)… WOW!! I’m not sure what amazes me the most, the fact that we could have flying robots delivering stuff all around us or that we can’t even wait more than 30 minutes to get our stuff.

For those of us who have grown up in church there is a phrase that I’m sure will be familiar, “God Moment”, I have used it, maybe you have used it, it’s something we have even heard from the pulpit, it’s just part of our culture, it’s when something amazing happens that wakes you up spiritually, something you needed and only God could do and then…BAAAMM!! It happens and just makes your day, but let’s be honest, those days are the least among our days, but why??

In the New Testament we find 2 Greek words translated as time: CHRONOS which means clock time, real time, you know, like, I’ll meet you at 2:30pm, that’s chronos. And we have KAIROS which literally means the right moment or the opportune moment and it describes that moment when God blows your mind, when He breaks in and touches the mundane and makes the natural, supernatural.

And I know there is no harm intended when we use this expression, I mean I get it, I know what we mean by it, but if I were God (which thank God I’m not =D) I would be a bit frustrated by it because well, He created time, all of it, every second of every minute of every hour…you know where I’m going… time is His so since when God only gets credit for bits of time? How come we don’t feel the same sense of owe all the time?

Eugene Peterson wrote a commentary on Galatians 6:7-10:

Acts of faith aren’t like pebbles dropped in a pool that make a few temporary ripples and then sink to the bottom, inert. They’re seeds planted in the soil of life, and they will come up one day. The harvest is inevitable.

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest (verse 7). Decisions are seed. Attitudes are seed. Acts are seed. Prayers are seed. Thoughts are seed. And all of it will come to harvest.

The person, though, who looks for quick results from planting seeds of well doing, will be disappointed. If I want potatoes for dinner tomorrow, it will do me little good to go out tonight and plant potatoes in my garden.

Long stretches of darkness and invisibility and silence separate planting from reaping.

Many times we miss the blessing because we are waiting on the blessing…excuse me? Yes, we are so desperate to see the fruit that we miss all that God has for us between the sowing and the reaping, God is as much God when the seeds are being planted as He is when we enjoy the fruit of the labor, God is there in the dark moments, in the invisibility, the silence, while the seed is buried in the soil, He is there in every second, it is us who can’t see because we don’t know what to look for.

We don’t see Kairos because it’s dressed as Chronos, we don’t see the tree because its dressed as seed, we can’t recognize the divine because its dressed as mundane.

Let’s put our impatience aside, let’s learn to enjoy each season, each day, and lets look for God on every moment of our lives, He is there, even in the mundane waiting for us to open our eyes, He came into our world and changed everything when He send His son Jesus to die for our sins on the cross and He not only died but after 3 days of darkness, invisibility and silence, broke through again and transformed our eternity forever!!!

Let’s stop living in Chronos waiting for Kairos and let’s remember that Kairos is living in our chronos.