That I Might Win Some

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with a man these days.  :-) His name is Paul.  I like spending time with him because we have a lot in common and we have great conversations.  He stimulates me spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and many times we don’t agree, especially when he says “this is just My opinion”.  I thank him for making that stipulation every time he does for then he liberates me to respond the same way.  :-) We have a healthy relationship now, but it was not always this way.

For a long time, even though I liked spending time with him, I hated some of the things he would say, and I would ignore him whenever he brought up certain topics, for we just did not see I-2-I neither eye-to-eye.  Hmmm.  Anyhoooo, I would just reject those conversations and move on to doing something else.  Then I experienced some deep life-changing encounters with life and the Lord Jesus Christ which broke me and the mold of my opinions and I could no longer ignore those topics I ignored before.  These encounters changed (and continue to change) my way of dealing with things (and people) that I either don’t like, or just don’t agree with, which have been enriching to say the least.

Lately the phrase “that I might win some” has been sticking to me like a fly following the food on my fork. ;-)  Thus I could not ignore it.  I took a long gander at I Corinthians 9 (you can read it for yourself of course) and this part of his discourse begins at verse 19, but the very words themselves are nestled in verse 22b “I have [in short] become all things to all men, that I might by all means (at all costs and in any and every way) save some [by winning them to faith in Jesus Christ].” Amplified Bible. Now I don’t like taking verses out of their contexts for doing so leaves them open for intentional and non-intentional misinterpretation and misapplication.  However, if you read the verses surrounding verse 22 you will see that my friend Paul is very clear about the meaning of this verse.

He is not saying that we become murderers to reach murderers, neither lawless to reach the lawless, evil to reach evil people, etc. but he’s teaching us one of the reasons why God calls and chooses His own to “suffer” in this life even though we have “everything we need” in Jesus Christ Who resides inside of us, and "in Whom we live and move and have our being"; And why some of us will be rich in this life and suffer “differently”; Why we are teleported to other continents to live among the natives ‘there’, all with Jesus Christ residing inside of us.  It is that we may “win some” for they will be able to observe our lives as we endure the same “difficulties” as they do, but holding onto Jesus Christ and being held by Jesus Christ.  Our going THROUGH difficulties and sometimes coming out on the other side victorious victims, and other times victorious victors, but always triumphant because of Jesus Christ who is able to keep us in the fire – before, during and after. 

Paul is teaching us that being a Christian does not exempt us from the difficulties of life that all people on the globe experience, but Christ is the PreservaTOR (spell check doesn’t like that word, but “preservative” is not for human designation/application, and it doesn’t mean the same thing in French.) keeping us from the inside from being annihilated by the difficulties we encounter.  “We BEcome that we may win some.”

What are you becoming?  What have you become because of all you have endured in life thus far?  Everything, and according to Romans 8:28 God means EVERYthing, has been an important ingredient of the beautiful ______ (you fill in the blank) you have become, and what you will be, for life is an evolution, not from apes and monkeys, but from the you of yesterday through the you of today, to the you of tomorrow.  Eternity.

Where were you when God created the heavens and the earth?  This is a question God asked Job when he had much to say about the tests and trials he endured up to the very skin on his body.  Where was I?  Only in the mind of God.  I had nothing to do with my parents coming together, but God did.  He saw everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.  And the impossible.  And still He continued.  God has designed for our lives to touch one another, to touch the lives of others, some we may meet face-to-face while others just through Facebook, etc.  But yet, because you were here and you cooperated with God for becoming who and what He thought of you (Jeremiah 29:11) becoming and doing in the earth, other people are being inspired to be all they can be, that which God designed for them to be.  So they may BEcome and thus win some. 

“He that winneth souls is wise” is the King James Version translation of this verse in Proverbs 11:30.  The soul is made up of the thoughts, affections, emotions, will, intentions, intellect, and intelligence and anyone who is a psychologist and psychiatrist, or a minister who counsels like a pastor, knows the challenge of trying to convince someone of thinking differently for positive change; one must use wisdom and patience to pass through all the hoops of the soul to help others “see the light”.  Heck, to see the light yourself.  LOL!!  But we all know the power of “show and tell” right?  It’s not enough to tell someone about how good the coconut cake tastes, but if you gave them a slice I’m sure you would win them over to it.  Thus the reason for what you are going through today, that you may win some.

The challenge for me has been that which I saw myself as, according to the models around me, and also my understanding and interpretation of what I “heard” and “saw” in my heart and imagination that I would be, and do – does not fit the original thoughts of God for me.  I’m just being honest.  Thus life has been a series of evolutions (going around in circles and cycles, but never being the same after each rotation) for the winning of my soul to the picture of God’s thoughts for my life.  Wonder Woman does it best for me. :-) My SHEro.  She finds an inconspicuous place and looks left and right to make sure no one can see her, and then she turns and turns and turns until she becomes the powerful woman she was born to be when on that “island” of women, before she took her first flight in that invisible plane to the land of uncivilized men.  LOL!!  And so God has brought me to a “remote” place like John’s Isle of Patmos where I turn, and turn, and turn (He turns me on the Potter’s wheel) until I become the one God has created me to be.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Life is a series of evolutions and revolutions from beginning to end.  Sometimes you have to revolt against sin, sometimes against the satan, sometimes against the pull of others, and sometimes against yourself.  But that’s fodder for another meal. :-)

  

I was created to “BEcome that I might win some” – to become what God designed for me to become.  Life is about discovering why the Lord created us and then cooperating with Him daily for the fulfillment of our purpose on earth; An adventure, a neverending story.  Many times we will have to cry out “uncle!” to the Lord depending on what He has created us to be and do, and whom He has created us to win and where, because many of us were not born where we will bloom, prosper, operate and die; for we do not belong to ourselves.  My friend Paul said it twice, and it was more than just his opinion:  “You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own].  So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.” I Corinthians 6:20.  And 7:23 “You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for by Christ]; then do not yield yourselves up to become [in your own estimation] slaves to men (including yourself) [but consider yourselves slaves to Christ].  Amplified Bible.  (Parentheses mine.)

I added “including yourself” to this second verse because I was a slave to my own purposes, desires, understanding, and will for myself.  I was a slave to my own emotions and dreams for my life, and I drove myself to pursue them as fast as I could because I knew how short life is, and can be.  I thanked God for breath and such, but I had a lot to do, in His name of course, yet I thought it was all on me.  I did not mind helping others along the way, and sometimes I lived to do just that, but I did not realize that I was created to BEcome what HE designed me to be for HIS glory, and thus it was up to Him, not me, HOW I would BEcome, WHERE, and WHO I would “win”.  But the first soul that I needed to win was my own.  I am not my own but I’ve been bought with a price, to make a positive difference in and for somebody else’s life.  But the first soul I must win, before this all ends, is my own.  

Peace.

Living From the Inside Out Part II: The Art of Learning

I love learning, new things, a new twist on old things, new concepts, new dimensions. Learning new things doesn’t mean I have to agree with everyone or everything; just be willing to see, hear and consider what I’ve not seen and heard before. I can still always say “no”. I love receiving incoming missiles of new information and revelation that can be used for practical living, and just for fun too. I agree that a mind is a terrible thing to waste (and so is time). When I returned to school to study psychology I loved having more to do than I could handle. I’d rather have a plate with too much food than not enough for guess what? I could always take a doggie bag and munch again later. J This is how I feel about learning. Surround me with books and information and I can munch on them forever.

Learning is not to be confused with memorizing. Even though I believe in memorization, I don’t live by it. For me and to me memorizing information is only temporary and lasts for a short amount of time. For instance, one subject we studied in high school was “government”. Well, I’m not a very political person, don’t like politics nor the spirit of politicians. But I know that if I am going to become a well-rounded person I need to break through many of the topics I don’t like, and decide to learn about them and identify what I dislike about them as well as how they apply to real people and ordinary living. Or is that ordinary people and real living? Hmmmm.

Back to the government class – I managed to finish the class at the end of my senior year with five A’s and one B for the entire year. I recall studying for the tests the day and night before taking them, and the morning of. I would go to school hours early, and thank God that my government class was the first class of the day, and I would polish up on everything. Then I would go in and ace the tests. But if you asked me a day or two later what many of the topics meant that were on the test and how they could benefit me and others even now, I must be honest and tell you I don’t have much to say. Why not? Because all I did was memorize the information. I did not try to learn it for understanding and application to life. It was not my “favorite” topic even though the teacher was great and I had great classmates too. (My favorite class was band. J But not for this blog space.)

Hmmmmm again. Five m’s this time. Memorization comes in handy when you need to ingest and retain information right away and for short-term situations. But if you want the incomings (I love the lingo of military, police and sci fi movies) to stick to your bones (not my thighs please) so you may be able to use the information again and again in the future, then this is where learning comes in.

For instance, when I’m trying to learn new songs I will write out the lyrics so I can see them – take a photo of them with my eyes so they can be downloaded to my brain as a photograph. I also read them aloud to myself without the music and learn the story in the lyrics. I then study the song to try to understand from where the writer is coming, and to try and relate to him or her. I try to establish a relationship with the song through the lyrics as well as the music, but also the writer. I invest time and concerted effort into the song.

Now I don’t want to have a long-term relationship with every song I may sing because sometimes I’m asked to sing songs that on the surface seem to be “okay” but the spirit behind the artist singing and marketing the song is of such that I don’t want to become intimate with. So I relegate that song to be memorized and not learned. I may wait for the last possible minute to work on it, or I may carry it around on paper even to the performance so I may deliver it well, but when the performance is over, so is my relationship to the song. Memorization is for short-term relationships while learning is for life-long ones, in my opinion. (After all, this is my blog. Thanks for reminding me.)

There are so many methods for learning, and I enjoy learning new methods for learning too. This keeps me on my toes and keeps life exciting. Subjects that intimidated me in school as a youngster now appeal to me because I see from a distance cognitively, and up close and personal experientially that I will benefit from them the more I know. For instance, marketing and economics (Econ is what my fellow geeks in school would call it). Now I must understand these topics in order to understand why some products do well in certain geographical regions and not at all in others. Also investing and investments. Ugh! But hey, I know when the compound interest begins to roll the dice in my favor, I will be glad I invested (pun intended) my resources. Anyhoooo . . .

To put in my time and money (especially when it comes to attending a university for instance, or other learning institution) means I am serious about what I’m uh . . . learning. Education is too expensive just to relegate to the top half of the brain through memorization. Aren’t you glad that your doctor, lawyer, firefighter, and other serious public servants are required to put in the time and energy to LEARN rather than just memorize information?

While studying to become a nurse, we worked with cadavers. Yeah, cold dead peoples' bodies. We had to learn all the organs and veins and arteries, what they did, to what they were connected, abnormalities, why they happened and so on and on. It was so much information to learn in such a short amount of time that I burned out with the cooking. J I knew that I needed to learn the information and why I needed to learn it and that it would benefit me later in life for life . . . but I was tired of learning something I was not excited about learning. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy learning and understanding how the body works etc. but at that level, I don’t think that’s what I need to know in order to do what I desire to do, now that I know what I desire to do (“to thine own self be true” means you must put in some time learning YOU).

You see, the fun part of learning, (can you say “art class”?) is learning information about topics which not only will benefit you for life, but which you enjoy. Like I said before, sometimes it is necessary to learn things that are “boring” but we don’t have to build our lives around learning boring things. We just need to be willing to eat some peas, okra, brussel sprouts and other fibrous green veggies that we hated as children, in order to nourish our bodies in a healthy way. Boring but important subjects would fall into the category of “vegetables I hated as a child”. LOL!! Yes, like politics. They’re not going to go away and we will be affected by what we know and don’t know. (Ignorance is not bliss. We need to know what a “Stop Sign” means so the end of our life will not come when we’ve only just begun.) It’s just how will we be affected and what will we be equipped to do about “it” when the rubber meets the road and stuff starts to hit the fan?

The art of learning has within itself the willingness to be stretched beyond one’s current capabilities to embrace new experiences and the willingness to change one’s mentality to accommodate the presence of new information as a reality, and not just as abstract principles on paper (or the computer screen). To be willing to let go of the “old” to receive the new, especially when the old has already fulfilled its purpose and it’s expiration date has come and gone. When we learn something, we never lose its benefits no matter how old the lesson(s). Au contraire. Instead we build upon it, and it makes room for new learning. We mature through it , because of it, and by it.

Sure enough the art of learning does involve change and if we are afraid of change, then more than likely we may not be having much real fun in life. I have never been one who could draw beautiful pictures, but I do love colors, crayons, magic markers, paint etc. I loved finger painting because I didn’t have to explain what I was creating. Because I did not know. LOL!! I loved it when the art teacher would change us from one form of art expression to another for it allowed me to investigate what was hidden inside of me that I enjoyed and would be willing to become vulnerable to expose to the world. Of course children laugh at what they don’t understand, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. We are no longer children, but laughter is good for the soul and body. (Learn to laugh at yourself, in a nice and healthy way.) Change is a part of the art of learning which enables us to move from what we’re not comfortable doing to what we finally discover to be our niche.

Learning has so many colors. Maybe you learn best by seeing, your cousin learns best by hearing, and your aunt learns best by touching. It doesn’t matter how you learn, it just matters that you keep an open mind and a willing heart to learn and to use different methods for learning. Repetition is a part of learning too, but some people say they only need to hear or see something one time, and they believe they “have it”. That’s cool too. Whatever floats your boat, but just don’t ask me to believe that you will make a good doctor, for I would prefer that you take a second and a third look before making certain decisions, and incisions. J

Some of my favorite Bible verses are found in the book of Proverbs: “Get skillful and godly Wisdom, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation); do not forget and do not turn back from the words of my mouth. Forsake not [Wisdom], and she will keep, defend, and protect you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of Wisdom is: get Wisdom (skillful and godly Wisdom)! [For skillful and godly Wisdom is the principal thing.] And with all you have gotten, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation).” (Proverbs 4:5-7) [Amplified Bible] ((Pretty repetitive isn't that one?) Some people believe that if you speak about verses from the Bible that they only apply to things connected to the church, but this is not so. The God of the Bible created the universe and all knowledge and wisdom originates with Him. He knows marketing and economics, nursing and psychology better than all of us. Wall Street has nothing on Him (“Can’t touch this”!). He is our sea and wealth of knowledge and understanding. Wisdom was with Him when He created the world, so if we want to learn anything well that we learn, we need to consult the Greatest Teacher and Artist in the universe.

The artwork our Creator has given to us is for our living and for our enjoyment, and its purpose is for us to spend time learning Who He is and how much He loves us. The art of listening is to aid us in the art of learning, and the art of learning is for the art of living. Listen well, learn well. Learn well, live will. Stay tuned for part three: The Art of Living.

Peace.