Best Intentions

Sometimes you have the best intentions are heart.  You offer to do something thinking that you will have the time, energy and effort to be able to do it without a problem, but then those good intentions come back and bit you in the butt.  You end us with issues that you weren’t intending, kids sick, time being sucked away.  Then people get upset or angry even or you just feel like you have failed.  Sometimes, even with the best intentions, things just don’t work out how you planned.  Even if the people that you were working with do not get upset, you do because you know that you said that you were going to do one thing, and didn’t end up doing it and it just eats at you.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have been in this situation.  The most memorable is when I was meeting someone for the first time and I offered to help them with a power point presentation.  She gave me all these pictures and asked me to do it and I told her that I could and I could get music with it because in my version of power point (more advanced than hers) I was able to.  Well, the computer that I was working on was outdated and slow, the pictures weren’t going into the site very well and the music would not load.  The power point still had everything that she needed it to have in it, but she wasn’t happy because I had said that I was going to do something, and was unable to do it all due to circumstances. 

I remember overhearing her tell my boyfriend at the time that she didn’t like me because she thought that I was a liar.  I was crushed, I walked around the corner and I said, I don’t think that I am a liar, and her response was that she just was disappointed because she felt that I mislead her and that I misrepresented myself.  Since then I have been constantly trying to make up for it with this lady.  I am always trying to on-up the power point presentation that I flubbed even though she has most likely forgotten about it. 

How many times do we misrepresent ourselves though?  We say one thing and then do another.  We say we are going to do one thing and then go off and are unable to do that thing the way that we thought that it should be done.  We can’t control the circumstances surrounding the situation just like I couldn’t control the fact that she had a slow computer and outdated programming, but we try to and when we fail, it is crushing.

Something that is awesome is that the Bible never misrepresents itself.  It doesn’t say that being a Christian is easy.  It doesn’t say that it makes our life all better and nothing can ever hurt us again.  Nope!  Jesus, Paul, Peter and many of the apostles and early disciples were persecuted, killed, stoned, harassed, beaten, imprisoned for their beliefs.  When we share the gospel with others, what do we usually share with them?  The good things about being a Christian, not the nitty gritty- not that it might be difficult and that it isn’t always glamorous.  But it sure is right.  It can give you the peace that passes all understanding, but it also might take you on the ride of your life.  Taking you to unknown places, making you talk with people that you would never talk with before.  Are you ready for that? 

I am not going to misrepresent myself or my faith, I am going to tell you that it isn’t always easy, but it is so worth it.  This morning I was looking for one specific verse in my bible- the one that I was planning on but instead I came across this chapter and fell in love with it for today.

Psalm 63

“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirst for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.  Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I love, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 

My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 

Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 

My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. 

They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth.

They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. 

But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God’s name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.”