“What Are You Thinking About?”

What are you thinking about… what’s bouncing around in that head of yours? Is there a vacuum inside your head…is it completely empty? My teacher used to wonder this about me. 

To be honest, my mind can drift around at times. Sometimes I find myself counting the ceiling tiles at church….” let’s see, there are 12 tiles that way and 4 rows, so there’s 48 total tiles….hmmmm.” 

Other times, I like to look at the clouds…”Boy, look at those clouds, that one looks like a dog with a bone”…… Judy, look at that cloud, what do you see…. She ponders a moment and says, “well, it looks like Elijah in his fiery chariot going up to heaven with Elisha looking on, and there are angels in the distance with trumpets, and  I see the heavenly kingdom with God on his throne…..”  Never mind…I’ll stick with the dog and his bone.

Here’s some other questions that I occasionally bounce around in my mind…get ready, these are not easy….ready?

• If you met Adolf Hitler on a good day and Pope John Paul II on a bad day, would you get their life stories confused ? “Oh that Adolf can be so generous he just gave me money for  ice cream …he’s such a nice man …. on the other hand, “I said hello to Karol Wojtyla and he ignored me and seemed very crabby… if he’s going to be a priest, he’s going to need to do better than that.”  
• Is a humble man always humble, or is a proud man always proud ? Did Hitler ever do an act of kindness? I’ve read that he could be kind to certain people close to him. Of course, he was a “monster” for much of his life, capable of hatred and murder on a gigantic scale. 
• What about the more mainstream groups of people like you and me. Can a person be humble most of the time, working hard at it, and be considered a humble man by most observers. If so, does that mean he has no pride? (Dave, this is really deep…)
• To complicate matters, good manners can sometimes be looked upon as humility …. someone says “please & thank you, willingly takes out the trash, and is not outwardly rude or boastful and  doesn’t talk about himself incessantly….is that person a humble man. On the other hand Igor has bad manners and boasts quite a lot, is Igor a proud man? Hmmmmm.

What is the point of this BLOG? Is there a point here? Well, I think we can draw a few things from these interesting questions…… including, don’t be too quick to judge ….. don’t judge a book by its cover…… people can change ….. you may catch people on the wrong day and rashly judge them…..don’t be too quick to assign someone to heaven or to hell. 

The book of Ezekial sheds some light on this question….” If a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die ….. but when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, ….none of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.” (Ez.18:21-24)

Perhaps I’ve raised more questions than I’ve answered. Yet, it does seem that God is always ready to forgive the repentant sinner, but he doesn’t like the self-righteous who tend to rest on their laurels.

Okay, that’s enough for today. My head is starting to hurt. I think I’ll go back to counting the ceiling tiles in church.