Make Me Useful

It's been a great day! Sundays are usually pretty bleh for us. We wake up, go to church, then lay around and dread Monday. Today was different for a few reasons. We didn't go to church this morning (we went on Saturday), and we had an entire weekend to enjoy each other. My schedule changes quite frequently, and my last schedule just gave us Sunday. The addition of Saturday to our weekend really made a difference. I feel recouped, refilled. Energized.

Church was good on Saturday, too. Sagebrush is beginning a series called "My Own Worst Enemy". We're studying the life of Samson. He was born into a great family and he did great things, but he was his own downfall. We're studying the parallel of Samson's life to our own lives. This week we spoke about pride. I find myself being very prideful about a lot of things. I feel like I "deserve" better sometimes. I try and I try and I try, and when I'm still trying, it seems that there are others who aren't trying as hard as I am but going much further than I am. They're more efficient. They're like a modern VVT-I motor pumping out 140 horsepower while getting 42 MPG. I'm the 1970 motor eking by with 50 horsepower and I'm lucky if I get 20 MPG. Weird analogy, but I feel like I'm less efficient than others. I make excuses... At the end of the day, it's my pride. I can forever just feel like I deserve better, or I can humble myself and look for real purpose. When others succeed, I should feel happy for them. They are the ones that deserved the promotion, or job, or whatever it is that they have.

The other day, Lindsey and I watched that Denzel Washington movie The Equalizer. The movie was okay, but it opened up with a really cool quote from Mark Twain. "The two most important days of your life are when you are born and when you find out why." That hit me. One, it's important that I was born. That by itself it big. Sometimes I feel like I have no worth. Especially when I try so hard to reach a goal and then I fail. After I fail at something I feel a sense of worthlessness. It's not fun. The feeling doesn't usually last. I get back up and keep trying at life. After recent failures, I began to think about purpose, though. I began to wonder what I'm here for. I believe I'm here for something. I know there are some schools of thought that think I don't have a purpose. I'm just a random collection of star dust that so happens to have a brain... What you do is for the now. Please yourself. -- I think there's a bigger picture. I feel that I have purpose. People always say. "God's got a plan for you". Or, "God's plan is perfect". Those are the last things I want to hear sometimes after I fail. But when I think about it I let it stew. I believe God's wisdom is infinite. God created the stars I was gazing at a few nights ago. God created this universe. Creation is all around me. There is so much about life humans don't understand, and I believe that there is One that understands everything... This Someone cares for me and created me with talents that can be used. I am useful. I hope I can find what that is. I hope I can put my pride aside and listen. I want to find out what that is.

I'll leave this blog post with some photos I took today. (We went to the zoo today.) Enjoy.