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Fryedadday
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Name: Matt
Country: United States
State: Ohio
Metro: Cleveland
Gender: Male
Interests: learning what it really means to be a follower of christ and teaching those around me to likewise. love like you were dying
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
AIM:  frye02
Member Since:
10/24/2004
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| oh lovesometimes i don't get people. sometimes i don't get emotions. sometimes i don't get relationships. but one thing i think i understand is love. i'm not a professional lover by any means. but i think i can discern between what love is and what love isn't. love is service and sacrifice. love is choosing to allow someone or something become more important than yourself. your physical, emotional, and spiritual state. it's knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you will not only die for this person or thing, but even harder, you'll live for it. i struggle listening to people speak about love. i feel like i've been given a perspective on love that is true and genuine. i have a hard time with relationships because they are the most complex things in the universe. emotions, psychology, genetics, circumstances and setting all play a role in relationships. not to mention on top of that more relationships play a role in relationships. it's bizarre. i can't grasp it. it's like picking up a hand full of sand, it all falls out eventually except what sticks to your hands. i am puzzled and yet i am yearn to be positioned in them. the way i see it is that jesus showed us that nothing is more important to him than relationships. if you look at his life and the relationships that he built, they were layered with truth, sacrifice, and love. if i am ever a fundamentalist, i hope it's on my stance on love. i hope that people see that i will never let go of love. as much as love can hurt, and stretch, i know that it's the only way to be god like. it's the only way to holiness, it's the only way to live freely. to love.
1 corinthians 13
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If
I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making
everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain,
"Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If
I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be
burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no
matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without
love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end. Love
never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues
will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of
the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the
Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
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| if this is what life is like, i don't want to be a part of it. it's hard to be in love with life when there doesn't seem to be anything to be excited about. what's so great about waking up, going to work, coming home and going to sleep? what's so great about finding joy in things that just don't last. i just want to be passionate about what i do. i want to love life again. it's hard to tell if it's a condition of the heart, or if i'm just struggling with where i am. i feel like i'm in a lose-lose situation. if i move from where i am living somehow i am a bad friend. if i stay i potentially get more unsatisfied with life. this isn't where i want to be in 6 months. this isn't where i want to be tomorrow. i don't believe the lie that when you graduate from college life is supposed to be hard for a little while. i wouldn't have gone to college to get thousands of dollars in debt to be uncomfortable with where i am. who knows, it's probably just a condition of my heart.
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| i used to lay awake until 1 or 2 in the morning when i was young on christmas eve. i used to lay there waiting for the reindeer's hooves to clatter on the rooftop or wait for santa to come through the front door. my parents used to tell me that they gave santa a key to our house because we didn't have a chimney or a fireplace. i figured that santa must have done that to a lot of houses in my neighborhood because i didn't know anyone that had a fireplace.
so i would lay there until late, and then be awake at 6 in the morning anxious to see what santa had delivered. i would lie there whispering my brothers names, "shaun, ryan, are you up?" and i would do that until they were awake. the next phase was to sneak downstairs to see all the gifts that had "anonymously" arrived under our tree. after our sneaky brains were satisfied, we would wake up our parents and tell them that we were ready to open gifts. now that i'm older i actually like to sleep in, so what a sacrifice it must have been for my parents to wake up that early and actually enjoy christmas morning. to be honest i don't know if they ever enjoyed it. not because they had to get up so early, but because i really didn't care or pay attention to there existence on that morning.
after tearing through all of our gifts, the thrill was over. we would clean up the family room, begin the building projects of our toys that came with the smallest parts that would be lost within two days anyways and mom would begin our beloved christmas breakfast. what a fabulous day. i can honestly say that i rarely thought about jesus, especially at a young age because i didn't get the concept of receiving gifts on someone elses birthday.
i feel like this thought has carried on with me throughout the years. like i have developed some psychological draw about my relationship with god. i usually can't wait to see what he has for me. i pray and pray, kind of like i would ask and ask for a certain gift. i'm not concluding that asking for god to do things is bad because jesus teaches us that we don't receive because we don't ask. but i feel absolutely selfish sometimes. this must be why grace is so key to our relationship with him. god knowing that i am going to ask for things that don't matter, and sometimes only talk to him when i'm in a bind, really makes up for a poor relationship. imagine if the only time someone talks to you is because they need something or want something from you. how annoying, right? we are all guilty of this i'm sure. that one guy in your class that knows how to do every homework assignment that you just can't figure out. or that girl who will make out with just about anyone. i mean come on, let's just be real, we've all been there. i guess what i'm getting at is, motives.
i feel like most of my relationships stem from very selfish motives. thoughts like, "this person is cool so maybe i'll be cool too" or "this persons musicianship is amazing, maybe he'll want to make songs with me so i can be famous". there are hundreds of possibilities and examples of this and all i can say is that god's grace is covered in those relationships for me. the people that i've pursued relationships with based on what they can give me actually turned into relationships that drew me closer to my walk with christ, although those weren't my motives. so why weren't they? for obvious reasons, i just don't think like that. i wish i did. i wish that the first thing that came to my head after meeting someone is, wow this person is loved by god and i would love to grow in that love with him/her.
now as i lay in bed i have new motives. i have a new understanding of the world in which i am a member of. to love. be loved. and to grow in love. it's a wonderful place to be and know that god is working in your midst. to know that the relationships that we have can be renewed by his grace. to know that love is something we must choose everyday. now when i lay down at night i don't just share my fears and my wants and my thoughts, but i ask for god to give me opportunities to love better. what do you pray for?
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| what is good god is up to something. i'm not exactly sure what it is, but i am super pumped about it. i'm not just talking about in my life or just in the lives of people that i know, but in the world. i keep having these visions and dreams of a world that seeks to do what is good. it's the kingdom on earth. it's one of those things that don't make sense to do to be honest. realistically it's not going to happen. but what's cool about faith is that it's supposed to look like that. i don't know how it's going to happen. all i know is that when the human race fell in the garden, we as humans have been trying very hard to get back to where we are supposed to be. it took a very long time and that's when Jesus came. jesus lived out this life that was contrary to who the jews expected the king to be. jesus was so controversial that he was killed for it. but before that he showed us how to love. how to live. and through that the church was established. but the church isn't the end. the church had/has a responsibility and they caught on to it right away. it was to love all for no reason other than because god loves all. this would eventually bring heaven to earth. the kingdom here and now. somewhere the kingdom was lost. it turned into wars and crusades, blessings and cursings, christian vs. secular. god is up to something huge. i'm not sure what it is, but i am super pumped. it's just time for people to humble themselves and pray. prayer is key my friends. god wants to speak to his people. i'm tired of waiting around for it, it's time for action. it's time for truth to be discovered, it's time for all of god's people to be freed from bondage. i can't wait.
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