Currently Listening The Seeds of Love By Tears for Fears see related

Is it important to like every person?

People are obviously going to have their differences, but as Christians is it an important aspect of our walk with Christ to like every individual we come into contact with? I can see several people spouting out a hearty "No", and with good reasons behind those answers, but can you love someone without liking them? Again, I can see a lot of people saying "Yes", but can you really? Can you really love the sinner, hate the sin, and not like the person at all?

I've been struggling with this a lot recently.

I have no idea how the concept of loving, while not necessarily liking, is practically accomplished.

It's easy to love those we like, but the real test is loving those that are easy to hate?

Insight?

Currently Listening Can You Hear Us? By David Crowder Band see related

I can't wait till school is out and I can really start ignoring people as a full-time activity. Seriously, though, I have soo many books I need to have read in such a short time. Hopefully my cell phone will stay broken, or dysfunctional, or whatever the crap is wrong with it (because I am too much of a weak-dog to simply leave it at home) so that I can spend some long hours at the park soaking up the sun, playing disc golf, and reading my oh-so-precious books.

I keep tidbits of wisdom in text files on my computer that I randomly find from time to time and thought this was fitting:

"Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position."
Bertrand Russell - English author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

To Summer '06 - A season of reflection and warm embraces

Currently Listening No Need to Argue By Cranberries see related

I have been swept away; You have been pushed aside. I've been so consumed with me You haven't crossed my mind, but even if I ran away and even if I cross the street, one thing will remain: You will always follow me.

I am doing poorly spiritually at this juncture in my life. Despite having direct access to the most "spiritual-powerhouses" in twenty-one years of life, I find myself in the midst of the most tempting situations ever encountered in twenty-one years of life.

My brother's baby's momma is, once again, giving birth. Tomorrow I should be the uncle of one Ryan Bryan Roach. Actually that's not true; I sort of forgot his middle name ( ! ).

I'm a bit of a wallflower.

Currently Listening A Rush of Blood to the Head By Coldplay see related

Sacred cows make the best hamburger, but the meat can be hard to swallow.

How can I know the will of God?

Does God have an individual plan for my life?

Most Christians cherish a belief that, along with their theology, shapes and directs their lives. No belief more strongly influences us than our understanding of how to know the will of God. We want to make right decisions, because we realize that the decisions we make turn around and make us. As we choose one end of the road we choose the other. When we select a career, a spouse, or a college, we desire God's direction in those choices.

If we ask, "How can I know the will of God?" we may be asking the wrong question. The Bible does not command us to find God's will for most of life's choices nor do we have any passage instructing us on how it can be determined, yet we persist in seaching for God's will because decisions require thought and drain energy. We seek relief from the responsibility of decision making and we feel less threatened by being passive rather than active when making important choices.

Instead of wondering, "How do I find the will of God?" perhaps we ought to be asking, "How do I make good decisions?"

What is the power of prayer?