Please live responsibly

You know what I've been thinking? That our Society has a problem dwelling on the past. We have such a hard time moving on and I think it is hurting us because we keep reminding ourselves of some terrible event or some trend that used to be cool. We are no longer creative but rather dull. We are no longer inventive but innovative. Ideas are taken and stolen rather than thought up and birthed. In the business world one idea stems others to copy and own a marketing strategy rather than think up thier own creative way of selling their product. General Motors wanted to please their customers by giving them "the employee discount" on any new automobile purchased. One week later all the other leading manufacturers adopted the same "employee discount" in hopes of winning the cusotmers. Now The Brick is offering the same discount. Do you see some kind of trend?
Hollywood can't seem to shake the idea that nostalgia is were it's at in motion pictures.
All the hip and trendy clothes that made fashion a statement in the 60's and 70's are now making a come back.
George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century once wrote "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". I find this a little scary because there are tons of historical down sets are now back and haunting us once again. Things like the oil shortage crisis back in the 1970's, what happened then is now back taking it's toll on those us who were not around then. But what I find the most discouraging are more worse things like world wars, and other historical tragedies. Must we go through this again and again? Is there any way to avoid it. History says No! Although I'm thankful for my life and all that it has to offer I am discouraged about my surrounding and crumbling society.
To be frankly honest we all have become pigs wallowing in our own mess. WE are to blame. There no one else. Will things ever get easier? It may for a while until we forget again. Then we will only be condemned to go through it once more. When will we learn--will we ever? What kind of world will our young ones grow up in? The same world we did just as we are living out the world as our parents and grandparents once lived.

"Generations come and go, but nothing really changes...History merely repeats itself. It has all be done before. Nothing under the Sun is truely new"
Ecclesiastes 1: 4, 9

As Christians we have only one thing to truely remeber " [all] this pleasure is from the hand of God" (Ecc 2:24)

Please live responsibly.

It's been said that during our life span if we live to be 70 years old we'll spend almost 20 years asleep, almost 10 years watching re-runs on TV, 7 years eating and drinking, 5 years in some sort of transport, 18 months just waiting in line, 6 months waiting for traffic lights to turn green, 18 months using the washroom, but you'll also spend almost one month and five days picking your nose, which is kind of funny because allot of us spend more time picking away at our nose than we spend thinking about God or how we're going to spend eternity*.

You know I meet tons of young people who say that they "live for the moment", you know take it one day at a time. You know that's all fantastic but what about when we die? Do we ever think about that? I mean it's going to happen. It's...inevitable. There is no escape from death. When I hear people say that they "live for the moment" that means that no matter whats happening in their life they will always be stuck in that moment. Bono from U2 wrote a wicked awesome song called "Stuck in a moment that you can't get out of". One of the lines goes like this, "

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

Now I'm not some super genius but I've learned that in life we go through situations whether it's family problems or friend problems or stuff about how we feel about ourselves. Sometimes we feel so worthless; what's the point in going further in life, it just looks more screwed up than what it is now. But that's not the
way it is intended. Yes we will go through times and situations that seems like we'll never make it out alive. Sometimes all we see is the crap and the garbage - and that sucks. But what I have learned is that the way is it supposed to be is that Jesus wants to be found in the crap and the garbage. Along time ago, almost 2000 years to be exact Jesus purposely died for all the crap we do and all that we go through. Sadly, allot of people choose not to believe that or they have never been told that. So for allot of people the answer to life's problems are either found in some high or some drunken romp just so that the problem can go away for awhile. But alas when we wake up from our bout of problem solving we find
sometimes we've gotten our selves more hurt in what we think is the best solution. All to often we end up thinking that if we unload our problems or our issues and hurts on people who are just as screwed up as we are that things will magically disappear with the help of someone else in the end, however, we have
nothing to show for our problems other than two majorly screwed up people.

Life is...weird. But it is one of the greatest gifts we have ever been given. God wants to be included in all of our lives no matter how screwed up we are. Jesus wants to be found in the crap of our lives, but we also wants to see us through that. He wants nothing more than for us to look to him for that way out of our issues. He wants nothing more than for us to find him and give our lives meaning.

What would life be like if we suddenly realized that living for Jesus meant living for eternity?

What if that were true?