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| Letters to Strangers, No. 1You were waiting on the platform in Köln with me. We waited for the train a long time. I noticed you because of your backpack, and I thought because of that, maybe you were an American. I really wanted to talk to you, to see where you were going, and where you were coming from. It’s nice to unexpectedly meet someone from home when you’re in a strange country. It makes things friendlier. But you were listening to your music. We traded a glance, and that was all. I waited for you to take your earphones off so I could smile shyly and say hi. You never took them off. But I wondered about you as we sat in different rows in the train. I decided you were a student backpacking across Europe. I approved. I still wonder what we would have said if you had put your iPod down, and we had talked. Since I saw you that day on the platform, waiting there alone, surrounded but untouched by all the others around you, I decided to change something about my own life. I will talk to strangers as often as possible, so that instead of strangers we can be chance acquaintances, if only for a brief moment. I like the idea of leaving a small mark on the lives of strangers. An original idea? No. But a good one. That is what I got from you. Thanks.
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| When God loves me so much that it hurts -Okay, and now in English! I meant to write both out, but I've been busy and forgot.
I've been here already for almost two months - sometimes it feels like forever! But things are going well. I've had my ups and my downs, but I've been learning to recognize the presence of God, and I know He's with me every day, and that helps! Really that's the big lesson God's been teaching me in the last year, and especially since I left on my trip! - to trust Him! To trust that He is good, no matter what the circumstances, or what I feel like, or what my outlook is. I am choosing now to trust that God IS good, and to treat that as an unalterable, fixed FACT in my life! It will sometimes seem that He isn't good, or isn't there, or isn't working for my best, but I refuse to believe those things because I KNOW the truth - He is perfectly, completely Good! And I am not. Not at all! God's had to teach me that, and a very difficult and hard truth it was to learn! But the next one was easier - He's good for me, because I can't be! I can try all I want, and I'll fail worse every time! But if I let Him work out His goodness in and through me - somehow, I become His goodness!
You know what God showed me recently? He brought to my mind the verse "There's a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it leads to death." And suddenly it made sense in a completely different way. I had always assumed that it meant that that the way of the unbelievers is the way of death, but that we as Christians don't have to worry because we're in the RIGHT way! But what God has been teaching me suddenly came together, and I saw that as Christians, we can still live in the way of death. We are alive, but that doesn't stop us from living our own way if we're determined to. And my way, no matter how good and "righteous" it looks to me, is also the way leading to death! Because it's not God's way, and any way that isn't His is WRONG. So I can choose my way, which looks right to me, but will result in a spiritually dead life, bearing no fruit -- or I can choose God's way, which means rejecting mine. I've been learning to want God's way, even when it's the opposite of mine - and usually, it's the opposite of mine! But when I choose God's way, my life becomes simpler. Not easier--actually it's very hard! But simpler. And more and more I know one thing - I WANT God's way in my life. Even when it's something hard. Even when it hurts. And I know that what God wants is most often not what my flesh wants. But that just means I have to change. Change is hard. But better that then living my life MY way against God's will! | | |
| ...nach einer lange Weile, bin ich zurück!Also, meine Freunde, ich hab' hier für eine lange Weile überhaupt nichts geschrieben, und das ist echt schade! Jedenfalls, ist heute ein neuer Tag, und deshalb, schreibe ich 'was neues.
Ich bin schon seit einem Monat in Deutschland, und es geht mir gut. Alle Tage sind nicht immer ausgezeichnet, natürlich, aber es geht immer leichter, und ich weiß auch, dass Gott jeder Tag bei mir ist, und für mich, reicht das. Genau sowas hat Gott mir im letzen Jahr beigebracht: dass nur eine Dinge lebenswichtig ist; dass ER gut ist. Immer. Es kann scheinen, als ob er nicht gut und gerecht ist, aber die Wahrheit immer die selbe ist: Gott ist gut. Und ich, gar nicht. Gott hat mir diese Wahrheit beigebracht, und ich fand es echt schwer zu lernen. Nachdem ich es gelernt hatte, war aber die nächste Wahrheit leichter: er ist gut, weil ich nicht kann. "Nur einer ist echt gut, und der ist Gott selbst." So hat jemand geschrieben, und es ist wirklich die Wahrheit, obwohl wir immer lieber mit der Wahrheit kämpfen wollen! Wir wollen gut sein - oder vielleicht, nicht gut sein, sondern Recht haben. Denn es heißt ja: "Es gibt einen Weg, der zu Männer gut scheint, aber führt zum Tod." Ich hatte immer gedacht, dass die Meinung dieses Verse handelt von dem Weg der Ungläubigen, und wie dieser Weg "gut" zu den aussah, obwohl der eigentlich tödlich war. Wir, die Gläubigen (so dachte ich), mußten dieses Verse auf keinem Fall merken, denn wir schon in dem richtigen Weg standen. Aber jetzt sehe ich es ein bisschen anders. Eigentlich ist meinen eigenen Weg AUCH der Weg der Ungläubigen, unf führt mich zum geistigen Tod. Und darum muss ich meinen eigenen Weg ganz verlassen, und muss mich eher für den Weg Gottes entscheiden. Und ich muss auch immer dasselbe als Gott WOLLEN, und sowas ist unglaublich schwer. Denn ich weiß, dass der was Gott will, ist meistens (wenn nicht immer) gegen was ich will. Und das heißt, dass ich mich ändern muss. Und mit Änderung kommt immer Schmerzen.
Aber lieber Schmerzen von Gottes Hand, als ein Leben ohne sein Führung! | | |
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| I'm beginning to think it's time to weed out the jerks in my life. *scowl*
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