Perspective

New post time! It's certainly been a crazy week for me, don't know about you guys. I'm glad to be working more though; it keeps me from getting too lazy, plus I like being busy. I've been able to see a lot of cool things this past week; I got to see an eye removal (enucleation) surgery from a horse, did you know that horses have the largest eye of the land animals? And a cat has the largest eyes in relation to its body of all mammals; it's why they look so cute! I even got to play with the eye afterward and feel the thickness of the cornea and how hard the lens was. Sorry if I just completely grossed you out, but I thought it was kinda cool. :)
Anyway, so I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about this week, because I've kind gotten hit with some different things personally between God and me. First off, I'm part of a girl's bible study for the summer, and we're reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love, which is awesome. If you haven't read it, READ IT. It's one of those books you kind of dread a bit, because it socks you right in the soul about areas of your life with God, but it changes how you view God for the better, so go! get it! now! Okay, maybe not right now. But the first chapter is literally about how you view the creator of the universe, and it really made me think about what my perspective of our Lord is, giving that this past week's Sunday school lesson was "misconceptions about God". God isn't a police officer God who sits there on the highway of your life with his sin detector, just waiting for you to mess up. Nor should he be viewed as "a man" or like a human, because He's not. He's also not a distant God who created us and then let's us do whatever. This is an area that's hard for many people, including me, because for us to fit God into a mental picture, we end up shrinking Him down into our limited thinking. As Francis Chan said "He cannot be contained in this world, explained by our vocabulary, or grasped by our understanding". We do however, get two accounts of seeing God, one from John in Revelations 4, and one from Isaiah in Isaiah 6. Both depict God on His throne, and if you need help thinking of who the God of our creation is, who the God is that gave His Son for your life, read those two passages. The descriptions are amazing! And convicting, when you get to vs. 8-11, because the elders and the beasts at God's throne worship God day and night, saying "holy holy holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come" and "thou art worthy, or Lord" over and over and over again, like a cd on repeat. Only they don't have batteries that wind down and eventually stop. It's kind of intimidating to think about how weak my worship of God is to that.
Which brings me to my other thought! I had another convicting day this week about how I use my gifts for God. I'm a musical person; I love music, and I love to play music on the piano and oboe, and sing as best that I can, though it's not very good. I remember when I was little, I used to love recitals and concerts, and being able to show off how good I could play those two-three songs for proud parents. But somewhere along the way, it seemed playing became a competition instead of just fun, and sometimes, it still is, or feels like it is. I know that if I practiced more, I probably would be better, but a lot of times, I feel my playing is inadequate compared to other musicians. I now get so nervous playing in front of people that my hands shake, which really sucks for playing piano. So instead of loving recitals or playing for people, I dread them, and try not to do it often. Which really hurts God, I now realize. God gave us all talents and gifts; just because you may not be artistic or musical, you have a talent that God gave you, whether it's being awesome at hands-on work, where you could do well in a missions field building things, or are talented at conversing easily with people. I Corinthians 12 tells us that God gave all of us different gifts, because we are one body as believers, and all of our gifts come together as complete. You see, I  was practicing, and in a song that I was working on, a pretty arrangement of Sweet Hour of Prayer, I kept messing up the same phrases, or same measures, or I just couldn't get it to sound as it should in my ear, and I became frustrated. It's what I do with most songs, actually, and though I practice them I never perform them in front of the church or an audience. But when I don't use my gift, which is the gift of worship, then it hurts God. I think the best way to compare it is when someone offers to buy your dinner. I'm the worst at accepting other people's payment for me. But when I don't accept it, then that other person feels bad, because they were just trying to do a nice thing and I rejected them from giving to me. It's the same with God; He gave us these gifts to use, but when we don't use them, it's like we're saying, thanks, but no thanks. And God is hurt, because we're rejecting a gift from Him to us. I don't know about you, but when I realized that, I felt even worse than I had when I was playing and getting frustrated. So my challenge is one that I'm trying to work on, and one that I hope you will too. Don't let your gifts from God stand idle, and don't think you have just one. You can be musical, able to converse easily, and have more gifts, and it's important to use all of them. I know it's tough, especially if you have trouble with your gift like me, but it's something that God can give you strength for, and He wants you to ask for His strength. So evaluate yourself, learn what your gifts are, and put them to work!
Those were my thoughts for the week. I love ya'll, and am praying for you. I hope all of you are having fun on your summer break, and I wish you a early Happy 4th of July!
-Kelsey