Wednesday, January 8, 2014

What Makes Us Who We Are? Part 1

    I'd like you to take a moment with me and think of three times when you didn't respond to a situation well, and three times when you did.
   What comes to mind?  Even grab a journal and write them down if you want to!

   What about that time you shared with someone?  Or when you didn't have enough money, so you stole something from the store?  The time you talked badly about a friend because they'd hurt your feelings?  Or when you helped a stranger simply out of the goodness of your own heart?
    As you write these down, look as if you're an outsider.  Can you forgive yourself for the poor choices, are you touched by the good ones?

    I thought about this today, because if our actions really define us, looking back--from human standards--can we see our true essence?  A bunch of bad choices?  A life lived for the sake of others seeing that we always chose correctly?   
    Will looking at the good make any of these bad choices seem better?
    Or am I looking at this wrong?  Doing this exercise, will we see something more: 
    Imagine a computer programmer who makes a program designed to alter photos to look like paintings. He's intentionally made the transformation process a bit flawed, hoping the final computer product will look man-made.  Is this how God engineered us, to be perfectly flawed?

    I'll post a story about a "bad choice" tomorrow.
    But at the end of this exercise, I hope a greater point will be made.
    Until tomorrow. . . .

7 comments:

  1. Huh. I can think of so many good and bad choices, but I'm afraid the bad might outweigh the good.

    Love,
    Janie

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  2. I try to learn from my bad choices and then not dwell on them too much. Alas, because of the humaness of me, I'm sure there will be other bad choices to come, but all of life is a learning experience.

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  3. "Is this how God engineered us, to be perfectly flawed?"

    What if... what if he did make us all perfect, and society is what makes us believe we are flawed.

    My children are not cookie cutter kids, yet it's those differences, struggles, and challenges that make every person's lives that they come into amazingly changed. And if I had been given cookie cutter kids, I would be no where near the woman and mother I am now. Maybe God gives us ONLY his perfection, and leaves it up to each one of us to unwrap all the layers to find it. Some of us only chose to open the top layer, while others look all through the tissue and the plastic wrap to explore every nook and cranny of that gift.

    Maybe the "bad choices" are just simply a choice, that helps define weather our perfection stays hidden or lays exposed for everyone to see.

    Geez... what the heck has gotten in to me? This is way too heavy for 3pm in the afternoon. :)

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  4. One of my good choices was to have you as a friend, & I'm not going to tell you about the bad ones!!

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  5. I have good choices and I've made bad choices. What I've probably made most of, though, were dumb "probably didn't think this through" choices.

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  6. Bad ones I've made a few but they bring us to where we are at our zoo

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  7. This sounds like painful homework. I can already think of a bad one. Maybe I should think of 6 good ones and 3 bad ones so that I don't feel so bad about myself...

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