After an unsuccessful attempt at putting a picture on my blog, I thought the only other thing I could do is "publish a post". Any advice on how to put a picture on this thing would be greatly appreciated. And here I thought I was a man of the "00's"......

Well, I left off with a mention of God and Christianity on my last post. The reason is that one is very important to me - in fact it is the most important thing to me. The other is a term that is tossed around by society like a cigarette butt being thrown out a car window. Ok, so sadly both are tossed around that way. To me, God surpasses all things in terms of importance. The reasons are countless but one major one is that He transcends this earth. He is eternal while all other things are......ternal (?) How about temporary? However, I usually have that fact reversed in my life. A new client that I may get or my plans for the weekend are what I think about while I am lying in bed. Not God. I confess that I think about God when I am in church (and not always then) or when I am staring out over a beautiful landscape or on those rare occasions when I shut the heck up and be quiet for a minute. As a human - selfish, easily distracted, easily influenced - I find myself concerning myself with stupid stuff like what is for dinner or why can't I buy an Infinity G35 rather than what is eternal. What is going to LAST. The crazy thing is that God still loves me. If I were Him, I would have drop kicked me into the Atlantic a long time ago. But He forgives and forgives and forgives and forgives and loves and loves and loves and.....you get the idea. He loves me. That is crazy to think about. He loves you. Even if you think things that would get you arrested or if you do things when you get that feeling in your stomach and you know that it will hurt someone else but will give you some twisted feeling of satisfaction and self importance. God still loves you. That is the God that I love. Unfortunately, those that are on this earth that follow God and are asked to share His message and His love to the rest of the world have messed up huge and made a big mess that no P.R. agency would ever want to try and work damage control on.

Christianity - and specifically Christians including and especially yours truly have messed things up big time. The world looks to Christians to be the example of who God is and how He acts. The problem is that we are trying to reflect a perfect and beautiful God when we are anything but perfect and beautiful. We are weak, sinful, self indulgent beings who are being asked to love the way that God does. The thing is we can't. At least not all the time. We are just as fallen and hurting as the rest of the world. We just don't like to show it. Even worse, we try and think of ourselves as BETTER than people who are not Christians. Where is THAT message in the Bible? We cast judgment on people who have problems we don't have (like our problems are better or more accurately less worse than someone elses - please). It is a natural HUMAN thought to have. But it is about as unnatural a thought for God as is possible.

So, for those of you who may read this that may not consider yourselves a "Christian" (and I can do my best to explain the definition if you like) or even religious - I'm sorry. I have been a bad example of God. I am a sinner. I am as far from perfect as the next person. I am no better than you. I have just realized that I am a sinner and asked God to forgive me and help me do a better job of serving Him. What that looks like, I'm not sure. But I know it starts with loving others more than me. That is a tall task for a sinner like me. But there is no better time to start than now.

Thanks again for reading.