The Post for BaHuman
Bahuman:
I dedicated a post to you, because the comment was just becoming ridiculously long and so is this post. sorry.
There seem to be a lot of assumptions going on here that are leading to confusion and misunderstanding. Not abnormal, it happens a lot. So let's clarify.
First of all, i do care that you react to my posts, i enjoy it. as much as you may not agree with me or like what i say and as much as some of it may frustrate me, i like to hear and i like to be challenged. Im not quite sure what you meant when you said "its not necessarily helping you." if youre referring to first comment you made and my post after that id say it didnt help me. first of all, i didnt post to seek for help. i posted to put out what was on my heart. I sought the Bible for help, not random people who read my blogs. And my reaction to your comment was that i didnt understand what you were trying to say. to say that i "sounded" like a christian sent me in a little confusion. i took it as you jumping into conclusions about who i am and attacking me, which im still not too sure if thats your intention. anyways, lets tackle things
-my (apparent) position of Peter. My only reply to this is that you said it best yourself, "So I think what the scene about Peter's denial is telling us that even the strongest rock can falter... and be forgiven, and trusted, and loved, etc. etc." This was my underlying point. No follower of Christ is ever perfect or is ever going to be perfect. We often place the men in the Bible on a pedestal and say "They were so great." My point was to take a story of one these great men and show "They were men, just like us. And just like the rest of us, they falter." You quoted Matthew 16:18, about Peter being the rock on which to build the church. Read on into matthew 16:21-23. Jesus is predicting His death and Peter says "No Christ! This wont happen to you." He is saying he will not let that happen. Christ turns to Peter and says "Get behind me Satan. You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Peter wanted to prevent Christ from dying on the cross, not knowing that the pain of the cross would bring salvation to the whole world. But Christ knew and was telling them this was God's will. My point is this--Peter didnt look at the big picture...he reacted off of emotion. He was a believer, but his faith was still that of a child's, there was many trials Peter had to face and many more things he had to go through to build up his faith and make it strong. He first of all, had to take on the perspective of God's will and not his own.
-My (apparent) position of myself. I fear that you read my posts and my studies and assume that I am some depressed individual that sits around in her dark apartment and wallows in all her woes. That all I can do is sit and shout out "WOE IS ME!!!" This is not the case. I am much too busy to sit for long periods of time and think about how i screw up and am a failure. Id like to make a reference to one thing you said--that "chasing your tail does not get you any further." I dont accept this because I dont like to think that i am chasing my tail. Im in fact, doing the opposite, i am chasing after something else. I am chasing to go deeper in my relationship with Christ and chasing to know Him better. Chasing my tail is what i would have been like last year. Some background info about me is that i spent the better part of a year being the person you think I am and doing nothing but cursing myself until one day, about 3 months ago, i woke up and said "im an idiot!" im not going to get anywhere if all i do is beat myself up and focus on myself and all the ways im failure...life doesnt work like that, Christ doesnt work like that. But this is not the person I am now. I have a life. I work 25 hours a week, go to school for about 30, study for about 15 and the rest of my time is spent either hanging out with friends or driving to see my boyfriend. I dont have time or cant afford to cut off communications...id be....depressed and alone...and I CANNOT handle to be like that, i cant stand it. so its funny if you think this is the person i am because im probably the opposite. Ill give you credit, though, i can see where you would think i just sit and chastise myself and think of how a failure i am simply by reading that. But if youre a person who listens to sermons often or reads the Bible often then you would understand that taking such a perspective is healthy. The purpose of the reading the Bible is to apply it to your life. I think it would give you more cause to attack me if i said, "peter was a screw up...man im not like that at all." no, i posted what i said because i identify with peter, i applied his story to my life. I, personally, go into reading the Bible with the perspective that I have nothing figured out and that it is there for me to learn from and to relate to...and thats what i did. And you know what? It encouraged me because now i can look at that...like you said...and say "peter screwed up, even the greatest can screw up and falter and still be forgiven and loved and still be the rock of the church. i guess im not as much of a failure as i feel sometimes." its encouraging to know the founders of the Church were human and not perfect.
--ill have to check into that book you were talking about...sounds interesting.
--from your last point, it sounds to me like you are not a follower of Christ, which makes it difficult because thats probably the cause of all this confusion and misunderstanding. So I hope im shedding light to things. To answer your question/comment about faith, faith to me is not rituals or gathering in a community, or what i do alone in my room (im not attacking you personally). Faith, to me, is freedom in Christ. Its having a relationship with God, the Creator of the world...i dont know about you, but before i knew Him, that was something that blew my mind
Anyways, this is terribly long. Sorry for that. And other people dont know what were talking about, but it was worth a post for me. I just wanted to get everything out in the open and hopefully put a rest to this confusion. If you have any questions or further comments I, of course, want to hear them.
P.S.- The "talking waffles" is kind of an inside joke between my boyfriend and i. We say it when we dont understand what the other person is saying.
I dedicated a post to you, because the comment was just becoming ridiculously long and so is this post. sorry.
There seem to be a lot of assumptions going on here that are leading to confusion and misunderstanding. Not abnormal, it happens a lot. So let's clarify.
First of all, i do care that you react to my posts, i enjoy it. as much as you may not agree with me or like what i say and as much as some of it may frustrate me, i like to hear and i like to be challenged. Im not quite sure what you meant when you said "its not necessarily helping you." if youre referring to first comment you made and my post after that id say it didnt help me. first of all, i didnt post to seek for help. i posted to put out what was on my heart. I sought the Bible for help, not random people who read my blogs. And my reaction to your comment was that i didnt understand what you were trying to say. to say that i "sounded" like a christian sent me in a little confusion. i took it as you jumping into conclusions about who i am and attacking me, which im still not too sure if thats your intention. anyways, lets tackle things
-my (apparent) position of Peter. My only reply to this is that you said it best yourself, "So I think what the scene about Peter's denial is telling us that even the strongest rock can falter... and be forgiven, and trusted, and loved, etc. etc." This was my underlying point. No follower of Christ is ever perfect or is ever going to be perfect. We often place the men in the Bible on a pedestal and say "They were so great." My point was to take a story of one these great men and show "They were men, just like us. And just like the rest of us, they falter." You quoted Matthew 16:18, about Peter being the rock on which to build the church. Read on into matthew 16:21-23. Jesus is predicting His death and Peter says "No Christ! This wont happen to you." He is saying he will not let that happen. Christ turns to Peter and says "Get behind me Satan. You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Peter wanted to prevent Christ from dying on the cross, not knowing that the pain of the cross would bring salvation to the whole world. But Christ knew and was telling them this was God's will. My point is this--Peter didnt look at the big picture...he reacted off of emotion. He was a believer, but his faith was still that of a child's, there was many trials Peter had to face and many more things he had to go through to build up his faith and make it strong. He first of all, had to take on the perspective of God's will and not his own.
-My (apparent) position of myself. I fear that you read my posts and my studies and assume that I am some depressed individual that sits around in her dark apartment and wallows in all her woes. That all I can do is sit and shout out "WOE IS ME!!!" This is not the case. I am much too busy to sit for long periods of time and think about how i screw up and am a failure. Id like to make a reference to one thing you said--that "chasing your tail does not get you any further." I dont accept this because I dont like to think that i am chasing my tail. Im in fact, doing the opposite, i am chasing after something else. I am chasing to go deeper in my relationship with Christ and chasing to know Him better. Chasing my tail is what i would have been like last year. Some background info about me is that i spent the better part of a year being the person you think I am and doing nothing but cursing myself until one day, about 3 months ago, i woke up and said "im an idiot!" im not going to get anywhere if all i do is beat myself up and focus on myself and all the ways im failure...life doesnt work like that, Christ doesnt work like that. But this is not the person I am now. I have a life. I work 25 hours a week, go to school for about 30, study for about 15 and the rest of my time is spent either hanging out with friends or driving to see my boyfriend. I dont have time or cant afford to cut off communications...id be....depressed and alone...and I CANNOT handle to be like that, i cant stand it. so its funny if you think this is the person i am because im probably the opposite. Ill give you credit, though, i can see where you would think i just sit and chastise myself and think of how a failure i am simply by reading that. But if youre a person who listens to sermons often or reads the Bible often then you would understand that taking such a perspective is healthy. The purpose of the reading the Bible is to apply it to your life. I think it would give you more cause to attack me if i said, "peter was a screw up...man im not like that at all." no, i posted what i said because i identify with peter, i applied his story to my life. I, personally, go into reading the Bible with the perspective that I have nothing figured out and that it is there for me to learn from and to relate to...and thats what i did. And you know what? It encouraged me because now i can look at that...like you said...and say "peter screwed up, even the greatest can screw up and falter and still be forgiven and loved and still be the rock of the church. i guess im not as much of a failure as i feel sometimes." its encouraging to know the founders of the Church were human and not perfect.
--ill have to check into that book you were talking about...sounds interesting.
--from your last point, it sounds to me like you are not a follower of Christ, which makes it difficult because thats probably the cause of all this confusion and misunderstanding. So I hope im shedding light to things. To answer your question/comment about faith, faith to me is not rituals or gathering in a community, or what i do alone in my room (im not attacking you personally). Faith, to me, is freedom in Christ. Its having a relationship with God, the Creator of the world...i dont know about you, but before i knew Him, that was something that blew my mind
Anyways, this is terribly long. Sorry for that. And other people dont know what were talking about, but it was worth a post for me. I just wanted to get everything out in the open and hopefully put a rest to this confusion. If you have any questions or further comments I, of course, want to hear them.
P.S.- The "talking waffles" is kind of an inside joke between my boyfriend and i. We say it when we dont understand what the other person is saying.
posted by stacey at 5:04 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks Luke. I was a little curious about that verse and what the context was, but i never got around to researching it.
So here I am, twenty minutes before midnight, logging in for a quiet blog and I find a whole post (and nothing too short, either) dedicated to me. Cool :-)
- I wrote my first comment assuming that you were, indeed, a depressed individual who wallows in her woes. I jumped to that assumption without double-checking any of your other posts. My apologies for that. I was randomly hopping blogs, and encountered yours. It sounded intelligent, but very, verrrrry moody. All I wanted to do, was leave a little post saying "cheer up!".
- Even though I didn't intend to be offending, I can now see I was probably being too agressive. I realized my mistake only after your puzzled, defensive reaction, and that's the only reason I bothered to make a longer, more nuanced post. If that longer post was an implicit "sorry", I'm now offering you my "official" apologies for making snide remarks about sounding like a christian.
- without wanting to strand in a theological discussion, I was raised catholic. But somewhere in my teens I decided that, if there was a loving and caring God, he probably wouldn't smite me for not praying or attending church, as long as I tried to be a Good Person (tm). I admit that laziness was at least part of the reason for my change in church-going habbits :)
- I was a little surprised about the amount of reaction I got from you, but all in all, I'm happy we clarified this. I guess I'll think twice, though, before I post another comment one someone's blog! :-)
Take care. Keep smilin' !
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