Switching things up...

I thought I'd vary the patterns around here and post some pretty sweet quotes from a wide spectrum of people and ideas. And then you can post favorite quotes in the comment section, and it will be fun. Perhaps I'll do some elaborating on some of these quotes, too, but I think I'll just see what keys my fingers hit and go from there.

We'll start off with quotes from a series of movies...try and name them:

"No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, the ones I love will always be the ones who pay…"

"If promises were crackers, my daughter would be fat."

"Whatever comes our way... whatever battle is raging inside us, we always have a choice. My friend ___ taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. It’s the choices that make us what we are... and we can always choose to do what's right."

What movie series is that from? I inserted quotes from all of the movies in the series. :)

Here are a good few from Ben Franklin:

“If you would not be forgotton as soon as you are dead and rotten, Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

“You may delay, but time will not.”

“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

“Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices”

“What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people, is that they don't want to discourage it completely.”

“Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.”

And then one from J.R.R. Tolkien:

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

A quote post would not be complete without C.S. Lewis:

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Even Robert Louis Stevenson has good things to say:

“The cruelest lies are often told in silence.”

I could go on for a long time with quotes, because God has granted men to think and say some beautiful things. But it's late, and I still have things to do. I think it would be fun if we had a comment sextion on this one and talked about our favorite quotes, so feel free to leave favorite quotes in comments, comment on quotes I put out, and name the movies the first quotes are from. But let's end with this quote:

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control. -Ogden Nash

Created For Worship

C.S. Lewis, in his amazing and incomparable The Screwtape Letters, states something that I believe to be very true. In case you aren't familiar with that work, it is (fiction) a series of letters from a senior demon to a lesser demon instructing him how to tempt a new Christian. With that introduction, here is the quotation:

"Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy's ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made all the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable."

What Lewis says there is that Satan has no power to create sin. The only thing that he can do is pervert the things that God made for us, to dazzle us, to show His love to us, into things that change what God meant for good into things that we seek instead of God. Think about that.

Humans were created for worship; this is why we are always looking for something to make us happy, to follow, to get attention, to capture our interest. We were created to be awestruck by the incredible beauty of a God who made a star billions of times bigger than the earth, and we stare at and are instead transfixed by pictures of naked fellow humans, shots of an addicting drug, nicotine, sex, blood, power, money...Can you see the horribleness of what we all engage in daily?

What God created to show us how much He loves us we have transformed (with Satan's help and guidance) into many things that can instead replace God in our lives. We become addicted to drugs that cannot last. The pleasure will never, ever, last long enough for us. I think we're all addicted to something, whether we realize it or not. We just view some addictions more seriously than others, and rightly so. But we can also be addicted to attention of others, addicted to the feelings we get when others say good things about us, addicted to food, sex, money, power. If we look closely, I think we should all be able to see at least one thing in our lives that we are addicted to and worship, sometimes subconsciously. The horrible thing is that we can tell God we love Him and want to honor Him and serve ourselves and our wants at the same time, being double-minded. This is the result of a sinful nature, but blaming our sin on that isn't the route to freedom. I have to accept the consequences for choices I make, and nobody else makes those choices for me.

The only way to conquer addiction is to be addicted something better. There is only one addiction better than all of the things we worship instead of that one, and you all know what that is. We need to be addicted to God, and the love and life He alone can give. It's not an easy thing, and I am in no way far along that path. I need to learn to love God and hate sin as much as anybody in the world. These are just the musings of an addicted human being who will only break free with supernatural intervention. It's a good thing that God promises to intervene, and has.

Jesus is here! Love has come!

We were created for worship. It is in our nature and being to worship something. What are you worshiping? Who are you worshiping? Jesus is the Author, Perfecter, and Star of the show. He deserves so much more than I can give, and yet I don't even give Him everything I have to give. This post is a challenge more to me than many of you.