The Final Countdown

As all great things must come to an end, so does my time here at Watermark end. I cannot begin to explain the impact and life change experience I have been exposed to. Never before have I been in surrounded by more people who love me and want the best for me. I can truly say that the God of the Heavens resides in your hearts.

Thank you for all. For your friendship, your time, your counsel, your love, your belief in me, your support, and most of all, your lives. I will miss you all so very much. I will keep blogging and will keep reading up on all that is going on here in your lives.

Roach, sadly, out.

New Blogger

Hey everyone, nothing to deep here. My wife has started her own blog. So read it.

www.mrsroach.blogspot.com

Do it!

Roach out.

Me – 1; God – 0

I sit in the car and look at the asphalt up ahead. I think to myself “what an idiot.” Of course I’m talking to myself about myself.
*flashback* Just a few minutes earlier, I had put my lunch on the top of the truck while I put my bag in the car. I reach for the container holding my precious lunch and it rolls off the trunk and hits the ground, opens it’s lid and out rolls two hamburger patties and a piece of cheese. I am royally ticked. I mean I am just beside myself. I let out my favorite expletive “FRIG” and then in an attempt to blame someone, I place my hearts eye towards heaven and shout “could you cut me just a little slack?”
*flash forward* So I’m in my car thinking about how stupid that was and how it's not like God was just waiting for me to give him a chance to knock my lunch over.
So now I’m in the office thinking to myself: is that the way I see God. As all powerful, all knowing, all loving, ever present, but every once and a while needing help from little ol’ me to guide him in his decision making.
Sometimes I think that we think that we could do a better job. We may not say it openly and explicitly, but we communicate it subtly every time we complain. Like when it rains and we’re disappointed and say “man this weather bites”, or when we say “it’s a beautiful day, don’t know how many more we’ll have.” What we’re really saying is “God! What were you thinking making it rain today, you know how much I like sunny days!” I can imagine God saying “My bad, I guess I thought you might like some water to drink in five years and some food to eat from the crops I’m watering and some meat form the animals I’m allowing to drink. My bad!”
Every time we complain, we’re telling God we could have done better, that we have a better idea. Our disappointment means just that. Think about it. Think about when you’ve trusted someone to do a task or take care of something and it wasn’t done like you thought would be the best way, disappointment ensued. Because it doesn't meet your standard and you could have done better.
This thought, I have to admit doesn’t find its source in me. One of my great friends Adam Durkee brought this to my attention while we were walking to the store. I belted “man this weather sucks” and he turned to say “don’t you think that when we complain about the weather that we’re telling God we could do a better job?” It floored me then and still makes me think now.
Isaiah was told the same thing. In his book, Chapter 55, verse 8-9 he writes:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the
LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

So instead of telling God you’re on up on him, that you have advice for him and pulling a 'Bruce Almighty'; lay the arrogance aside and live life in light of this passage knowing that God is God, and you (and I) are not.

Roach out.

“Bear one another's burdens…”

What an odd statement. I, an already burdened person must go to others and bear theirs. I, a sufferer of overwhelming life situations must help others go through life by taking on a piece of their overwhelming life situation.
WHAT THE!?%&@$! Does that make ANY sense.
Sure.
As a community, not solely of believers, but as humans I think, we are to bear one another’s burdens’, and Paul agrees with me (or I with him.) We are to support each other, always giving and getting support so that the person is no longer bearing anything, but the community as a whole is the crutch under the proverbial bum leg. Let me illustrate.
Sequoia trees (the big monstrous trees down south) are massive and tall. But interestingly enough, these mammoth trees have a very shallow root system, and if left to stand bearing their own weight they would topple over. That’s why you will never find a sequoia all by itself in the middle of a field. It’s always in amongst its fellow sequoias. Why? Because without each other, without the community, they would not survive. You see each sequoia’s root system is the same as the next: shallow and unable to support itself. So the trees grow close enough to each other so that each tree’s roots get intertwined with the trees that surround it. And those trees with the trees that surround them and so on so forth. Eventually you get a community of sequoia’s all connected to each other supporting their collective weight. In order to tip over one tree you’d have to tip over the whole forest of trees. Such is the way we are to be.
We are to surround ourselves with others, connect with them, be in community so that each person is connected to a plethora of others, and each bearing one another’s burden. But in order for this to happen we need to be willing not only to bear, but to be bore. If we want others to rely on us, we must also make ourselves vulnerable to rely on others. It’s a flip side lifestyle, where each is supporting the other; each is bearing the other’s burden. To not live this way is not to be independent, but to be egocentric. (egocentric: to think of yourself as: the center; self-sufficient; all you need)
Burdens, overwhelming life situations are inevitable. They are a part of life. Would life not be easier if we lived that life sharing one another’s load, making it lighter for everyone in the end. Wouldn’t it be better? The sequoia’s think so.

Roach out.