I can't believe it has been May since I last posted. I will apologize to all of my two followers for leaving you hanging, 😂. Not much has been going on in the lives of the Andrews clan, except everyday life stuff and like many other families this time of year, we are getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus. But, I confess, "getting ready" for Christmas and "getting in the Christmas Spirit" has been tough this year. It has been tough because of the time and energy I have been putting in trying to be successful and comparing myself to others. Matthew 6 is a chapter that I recall as I am writing. I have spent more time looking at everything that is wrong in my life and not near enough time being thankful for what I do have in my life. This pattern of turning my focus to myself, didn't happen overnight, but has been cycling over and over for years. Here is what I mean, I would start with great intentions to hype myself up to believe that I could do anything I wanted and that I was an absolute awesome human. This attitude of excitement and self affirmation would continue for sometime weeks or months. I would go around encouraging others and lifting people up and as I write this, that sounds good, but internally, it was less about them and more about me. It is shallow. Encouraging others or lifting them up, is not the problem, the problem was my attitude and the fact that I was attempting to promote myself. It is during the excited, self motivated periods where I would lose my focus. As well intentioned as I may have been, I took my eyes off of Jesus and was not lifting Him up. For some of you, you will no doubt not see anything wrong with promoting yourself, because you reason, if you don't then who will? I would counter that if all your effort and energy is devoted in focusing on Christ, then you will not give a rip about promoting yourself, but you will truly want to make Christ the center of your life. If you are a follower of Jesus, then you also know that Satan is good at what he does; steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). You also know, as a follower and disciple of Jesus, that Satan is always attempting to make followers of Jesus ineffective witnesses to others. At the peak of my excited, motivated, encouragement stupor, someone at work, church, or family would say or do something that would make me realize that I am not the most awesome human and that I probably can't do anything I want. I would essentially overnight, believe that I am a loser of a human being and that I can't be used by God and I am not useful to anyone else. I guess this could be described as a manic episode and while you may be tempted to feel pity for me or send me words of encouragement, I really just need you to pray to God, Yahweh, on my behalf and ask Him to continue to give me grace and strength in my weakness. I appreciate the words of encouragement, but absolutely do not need pity. I want to be content with where God has placed me. I want to be successful at being a mirror that reflects the love and wisdom of Christ. I want to be a rock of principles and standards that people will never question where and what I stand for. My point in all of this is that as a Christian, as a believer in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, I am called to give everything I have to Jesus. To do everything I do to the best of my ability for Jesus. Jesus came to give life and give it abundantly and the only way that any of us can experience that abundant life is to throw ourselves down at the feet of Jesus with wild abandon! When you do this, the freedom and slavery that you experience in the Glory of Christ will be unlike anything this world can offer. I'll wrap it up here, but as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus and start gearing up for a new year, I want to encourage you to focus on Jesus and let Him dictate your goings and comings. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!
Anthony.
