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Thursday, November 21, 2013

Trying to Keep My Nose Out of People's Business



For some reason I have been so nosy into other people's business lately.  I've kept my opinions to myself (good for me) instead of blasting them across social media platforms, but I really wish I would worry more about myself and less about everyone else.

Why do I feel the need to compare myself to other people?  The bible specifically says "Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.  Don't be impressed with yourself.  Don't compare yourself with others.  Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life." Galatians 6:4-5


No where does it say to make a careful exploration of others and the work they have been given, and then to sink yourself into that.  My life is my life, other people's lives are theirs.  I should not concern myself with their sins.  Their accomplishments.  Or their views on me.  


I really need to quit trying to do things my way.  The Bible says if I do, I will end up with a life that is full of "repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community." Galatians 5:19-21 


Oh my goodness, I cannot stress enough how much my life has already been the spitting image of what was mentioned above a million times over!  Ok, ok, maybe not a million times, but for years Galatians 5:19-21 was the exact description of my life. 


I do not want that life.  I want better!  I want to "Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit.  Then [I] won't feed the compulsions of selfishness.  For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.  These two ways of life are antithetical, so that [I] cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how [I] feel on any given day." Galatians 5:16-18


Lord that is my prayer!!!  Keep my nose out of other people's business, and direct my life in a way that I can live freely, completely motivated by your Spirit.