The Third Person Watching.

Love movies?

Me too!!!

Today, I am going to give you movie lovers, something to think about.

Have you ever seen one of those movies where there has a been a misunderstanding and a relationship is broken because one of them made a mistake?

Remember how you kept hoping for them to come back together. Remember how you thought the person who messed it up deserved another chance? How you kept telling the other person to forgive.

Deja vu. Right?

Do you know why?

Because you were able to see that person in places and circumstances that the other characters in the movie( suppose they were real) were not able to. This made you much more sympathetic to that character. Much more sympathetic than the other characters in the movie. You had a better picture of what it would be like to be in their shoes.

So what?

Well, like Shakespeare did, let us imagine our life to be a movie, or a play. We get mad at many people. We all go through situations where we misunderstand people.

Are we going to think about what that third person would say? That person who knows the whole movie and every step along the way?

According to me that would be God.

I am a Christian and sometimes when I get angry at people I try to ask myself the question, “What would Jesus say?”.

We don’t know what it’s like to be in their shoes. Maybe we would look at them in a different way if we knew each and every part of the movie. It may not always be the reasonable thing to do. But one thing is true. If we would all ask ourselves that question, we may start a revolution of forgiveness and love.

We live in a world that is based on equations. A world where every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. It always balances. But change occurs when we get a different result. When you forgive and accept somebody who has wronged you, an imbalance is created for the better. Something that makes them think and helps them to forgive somebody else.

So next time you have a chance, think of that third person.

And advertising your view helps to make a difference. When you do something remarkable for somebody you think doesn’t deserve it and others ask you,

” What are you doing, bro?” 

Tell them, “I’m thinking about the third person!!!!”

 

WHATCHA GONNA BE?

What is your ambition, kiddo?

When I was a ‘kiddo’, I sometimes found this question pretty boring but at the same time, very amusing. It was too common a question but at the same time a chance for my innovative little mind to create something new. In other words, it was different every time.

When I got into my teenage years, it started to form roots. Which practically means that it had to bear fruit and a unique one at that. After all, I had never seen a tree with two kinds of fruit. So I started to look around. Most of my peers wanted to be an engineer or a doctor. It was a pretty net made by a spider controlled by trend and time. But I wanted to break through. It did not take me much time to realise I was a bit different. I was more interested in ‘why’ than ‘when and where’. I loved to write, draw, make music, think, design, create and the list went on and on. Creativity was a passion. Pictures started to form on the corners of my science textbooks. But I loved science. But I did not want the subject to be taught to me. I wanted to explore science myself. That way it would be an adventure.

I found out that I loved to study English, Philosophy, Psychology and stuff like that. I decided that it would be what I would study when I make it to college. Many of my friends and family still say that I may get a better future if I pursue science. But my answer is still no. Why?

That’s what this post is all about. . . .

Malcolm Gladwell says in one of his books,

“It is better to be a big fish in a small pond than to be a small fish in big pond.”

I’ve known this since I was a kid.

If there is one thing that I value about our world today, it is the fact that it still values uniqueness.

You can only be unique when you accept the uniqueness in you. If you let what the world around you decide what you want to be, then you are not being you, you are being the world around you. If you are doing what you do best, then you always have a better shot at being the big fish in the small pond and as in some cases the only fish in the pond. Your skill will be unparalleled because it will be unique.

I would like to quote from one of my earlier posts:

” The world can only be at it’s best when it’s people are at their best. And the people can only be their best when they do what they do best.”

So what are you waiting for? Make a decision to build your talents and help them shine. It is much more effortless than doing something you have to build up from the bottom. When you are being you and when you build up your talents, you realise you are already half way up the ladder.

The next part of this post is about how you should dream your dreams.

What do you want to be when you get old?

I want to be a guitarist.

Sorry, wrong answer.

Want to know the right answer? Here goes. . .

I want to be the best guitarist I can ever be.

That is when you realise that success is a limitless creation, man sometimes believe to be a limited joy.

Third and most important part of this post.

What do you want to be when you grow old?

I don’t know.

I know that many believe this to be a very dangerous position in life, which is in some cases true. But I believe that it may be a very good indication too.

Why?

Because in some cases it may also mean that that person has not yet let others and the environment around him make decisions for him. He is somewhere in the middle. Confused.

What should you do?

The best answer I can give you as a Christian is :

Pray about it. God made you to be who you are. He gave those talents to you for a reason. God made everyone different for a reason. Ask him to show you what you should do. 

So, take the right decisions. Be a blessing to the world. God made you to be you.

 

 

Blocks Of Ice.

If you were to ask me to give you a pictorial representation for life, this would be my answer to you. . .

‘Life is like a road made of blocks of ice, where the ice block behind you melts away and the one before you is invisible.’

Close your eyes right now and imagine what I just said.

The block of ice you just passed melts away slowly. It is impossible to retrieve and it slowly fades away, like memory of a time passed slowly melts away from the human brain. It is a gradual process.

Fantastic. Right?

The human brain is so amazing.

The block you are standing on is also made of ice. You can’t stand there forever. This picture helped me to define a true hard worker. A person who waits for the ice on which they stand on to melt until they can no longer stand on it. They try to make the most out of it every time. This is not based on time. But the way we feel time passing by us.

I’d like to think of myself as two people.

What???

That’s right. In regard to how I do my work.

There’s a me that can do the work in a few hours and there’s a me that can do it in a few minutes. The question is who I want to be when I am on that block of ice.

I am I just going to stand there looking out into the future that I can’t even see or am I going to use my time to the best I can.

The block of ice before you is invisible.

In the Bible there is a part where the Israeli people had to cross the Jordan river. The priests holding the ark of God had to step into the water to part the waters. They had to step into the water. They had to get their feet wet. In fact I see that as a leap of faith, believing God will be with them in what was about to come.

Life is also like that. You just move on, trying to make the best move you can every time.

We are all people moving on blocks of ice, alone. Are we?

In my case, I’m a Christian and in many ways in my life I’ve seen how I am never alone. We all have to trust God to help us make the right decisions because he has seen the whole picture.

So move on. Realise that life is not race. It’s not a walk either. It’s a step every step of the way.

 

 

 

When you have to ‘stretch’ to love

Today, I would like to put up a Sunday blog post. I would like to share with you, the thoughts that passed through my mind when I was reading my Bible a few days ago. I pray that this will help you. Please feel free to join this discussion. Leave a comment or put up a post on your own blog. God bless you and have a great day.

I was reading Jeremiah and I got to chapter 15. When I got to verse 6, I was intrigued by what I read.

It says:

‘ You have forsaken me, says the LORD, you are gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against you, and destroy you; I am weary of relenting.’

Throughout the Old Testament, we see a God who is judgmental. He had brought out Israel with a mighty hand but they had forgotten him. But what interested me in this verse is the word ‘stretched’.

Why did the LORD have to stretch his hand?

Because the people of Judea had gone backwards and away from Him. Sin had brought about a distance between them. What we should remember is that the LORD stretched out his hand to destroy.

But today I am not here to talk about a God who destroys but a God who saves. . . . 

Come to the New Testament,

Look at the Cross. . .

What do you see there?

Stretched hands, stretched out willingly by God the Son, Jesus Christ. The hands that were stretched out to destroy in the Old Testament, were stretched out to save in the New Testament.

The picture of the cross also shows us the extent to which God the Father had to stretch out his hand to let His only Son die for a mankind that had run away from him.

To realize the importance of that sacrifice you have to think of who God is and about the state we were in.

God could be all that he is and remain in heaven. Why did he have to come down for you?

When I look into my life, I don’t see anything that deserves such a selfless sacrifice.

Do you know what the people of Judah got for their sin?

Verse 3 says:

” I will send four kinds of destroyers against them,” declares the LORD, “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.”

This is what they got. When you go to Genesis, you see how God appoints man above the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. The very things that man should have ruled over was now ruling over him. This was our case. The idols in our life we were meant to conquer was ruling over us. But through Jesus, all these have already been conquered. It is a gift. We don’t have to fight for it. We only have to accept it.

The thing is, you might think how cruel that punishment is. It is human to think so. But what I saw in this chapter is that even when God rebukes them he calls them ‘My people’. He loves them and the punishment saddens him more than it saddens them. But God is just and he has to do it.

But after the Cross that changed. . . .

In Jeremiah, we see how the treasures  that Judea had built up for itself was all taken to a foreign land( Babylon) and how the fire of God would burn against them.

But at the Cross, that fire that should have burned against us was exhausted and for all those who accept Jesus into their lives, their treasures are in heaven.

Oh, what love!!!!

The Cross is a brilliant picture of the love of God, pointing to the east, west, north and south talking of how God himself had to stretch out his hand towards mankind to save them.. . . .

This picture also gave me a challenge.

Am I loving the others around me like God loved me. Am I always ready to ‘stretch’ my hand out to those around me?

We are not perfect. But it also means that there is always room for change.