I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
I saw this article in Slate. The thing that spoke to me most from this article was that the big superheroes were celibate, realizing that there are things more important than self-gratification, like serving those who cannot serve themselves. I guess the last few months of me listening to not only my pastor, but a few others, has awakened in me the fact that to follow God is to serve all people and that my own pleasure isn’t what is important. Mary and I struggle with this as we try to draw each other closer to God, while we try not to allow the physical pleasures of life to interfere with that quest. The reason is that if you aren’t focused on God, then who do you do His will. His will being from what I have gathered from the Bible is summed up in the verse, “Love God with all your mind, all your soul and all your might, and your neighbor as yourself.”
If you read one of my earlier posts about the NWS – Upcoming threats to how people receive their weather, and my response to someone else’s response to my post you realize that I am becoming more active in social issues. I got the feeling a couple of years ago that I may not be in the NWS after about 5 to 10 years. While I don’t want to hasten my departure, my freedom, in Christ, is beginning to allow me to become more bold about things that I get angry about and keeping my focus on God, allows me, through my anger, bring about healing to those that need it. However, it’s that focus on God that you need to be able to keep and not the focus on your own pleasure.
Now before someone gets on me and tries to say that I’m not for pleasure or sex or what have you, I am for all of those things. However, if they become your overriding pursuit then your focus is wrong. I believe that in focusing on God, He will bring to you the pleasures of this life when the time is right. That is where Mary and I are at. We believe that God has brought us together and as we focus on Him, He will bring to us the desires of our hearts. (Psalm 37:4 my paraphrase).
So focus on God, and become a superhero.
I am reading a most interesting book – “Blue Like Jazz” – although I am just barely into the book, the writer does speak of some of these same things – about how “we” are the problem.
That is, we and our selfish desires are the problem. The writer of the book, speaking in the first person, is writing about his journey to understand God, and his own sinful nature.
Good stuff! (I apologize if you have discussed this book at another time, I’m a new reader of your blog.)
Betty