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| What are the last 3? |
I remember the very first time that I ever laughed hard at
an internal audit joke. Once I finished, I realized that it had finally
happened. Internal audit and the business world had finally taken over me
completely… it had become the core of my very humor. I was horrified. I was no
longer seeing the world from the perspective of a college student but from the
perspective of a budding young adult professional with a bent towards the bore
of accounting. I remember thinking, “ Mallory, if you think that accounting
jokes are funny when even boring people are bored with accounting, there is no
hope!” Dramatic? Maybe. But we tend to see the world through the eyes of our
profession and as a young woman who left business for the mission field, I have
a bad (or good depending on the audience) habit of relating almost everything
back to Christianity. Yes, I have the super ability to tell you how your
mosquito bite should remind
you of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Allow
me to demonstrate.
My job requires me to spend much time in the bible and on
social media. I have spent countless hours complaining about the problems
that the Internet has caused in our society (just tell a middle schooler to ask
a girl out in person and you will
see what I mean). But it wasn’t until yesterday when I was knee deep in Psalm
101 that I was able to see so clearly the meaning of our obsession with Facebook,
Pinterest, Twitter and everything else for that matter. Intrigued? Well I sure
hope so… allow me to explain.
Psalm 101 says, “ I will sing of your love and justice; to
you, O Lord, I will sing praise. I will be careful to lead a BLAMELESS LIFE, when will you come to
me? I will walk in my house with a BLAMELESS
HEART!”
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| OMG My life is so interesting! |
What would it actually look like if my life and heart were
BLAMELESS? It is something I strive for but will not achieve completely until Heaven; so I compromise. Striving for a life and heart that is pure and blameless
is difficult, but creating the illusion of a picture perfect life and heart… well
there is Pinterest for that!
When I am pinning, I am actually dreaming about my
future; I dream out of a desire for perfection. My Pinterest life is perfectly
organized. It is complete with a loving husband and adorable kids who run around
in the DIY clothing that I had time to make in between, praying for my
imaginary marriage 20 different ways, cooking the perfect paleo meal, baking
the most unique cupcakes, sweating out the most intense workout, de cluttering
the house completely, traveling to the most exotic places and all the while I
am a skinny, well dressed, hospitable achievement woman who lives her life
fearlessly according the inspirational quotes littered over the website (and of
course my walls). But don’t worry; I am still sarcastic, witty, independent and
strong. On my Pinterest boards, I have it all.
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| WE ARE SOOOO FUNNY! |
The collage of my pins however is nothing more than a dream.
As opposed to the pictures of a life full of energy, smiles, smiles beneath
tears, and intrigue, I often don’t even get out of bed in a good mood. I barely
cook. I rarely enter the world of DIY. My trust in God changes drastically
accordingly the time passed since my last meal. I do not love others well and in the end… I’m sort
of all about me. There is loneliness, a desperation, and a messiness about my
life that I don’t want you to see and social media can help me fool you.
Pinterest is more my website of poison but Facebook, Twitter
or Instagram serve the same purpose. We doctor our pictures and witty comments
so that others think that our lives are more interesting than they are. It is
in the effort that we put into to portraying a perfect life that reveals the truth;
we genuinely desire that our lives be more than they are! We simply don’t know
how to get there. Deeply we know that status, prestige, money, cool trips or
witty sayings will only may us LOOK good. These things won’t MAKE us good.
So what’s the fix? Illnesses cannot be healed by merely
treating the symptoms and asbestos filled houses cannot be lived in simply
because their walls were painted. The sickness itself must be treated and the
asbestos must be cleared. We can give off an image of perfection but we unless
we deal with our deeper issues, true happiness may as will be a fantasy board
on our Pinterest accounts.
To start, we have to be honest with ourselves. Ours lives
will NEVER be picture perfect, but our deep desire for that kind of perfection should
lead us to believe that there exists a perfection to fill that desire.
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| COFFEE SNOBS!!! |
C.S. Lewis wrote, “Creatures are not born with desires unless
satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such
a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as
water. Men feel sexual desire: well there is such a thing as sex. If I find in
myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my
earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.
Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse
it, to suggest the real thing.”
If that perfection exists, it is higher than we. We owe
it to ourselves, and all the time that we spend pretending to search for it, to
ACTUALLY find it and to ask it to extend it’s own perfection into our lives.
This is exactly who God is and what He does. He is the only perfection.
The only way to fulfill our deep desire for this perfection is to allow Him to
bestow his very self upon us. And to accept this perfection is to begin to trade
out the characteristics of our heart for the characteristics of His. You know
these characteristics. They are the ones that we sort of throw around at church
but never take seriously. The one’s about honesty, integrity, purity,
forgiveness and true love. What if we were to show the world truth that actually lies in our hearts and then allow God to take away the
ugliness and make it beautiful? Then we wouldn’t have to dream
about the perfection because it has become the goal, to be more like Christ. We wouldn’t
have to paint the exterior of our lives to be pretty because the beauty of a
heart given to the Lord would simply shine through.
Easier said than done? Sure! But according to my “Ummm can
we go there” board, I am up for an adventure so why not try to let God clean
out my heart and see where it takes me.
