sponges

Hey there everyone!! I hope this blog post finds you doing well. Before I go any further, I recently got some advice from a friend suggesting that I share some info about safe blogging.

Here is a website that can give you some information about safe blogging:
http://www.blogsafety.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1200000051

Before I get into the meaning of tonight's blog, let me add just a few tips of my own about blogging:
1. If you have a myspace or facebook or whatever, and you put pics on it. THINK through about the types of pictures that you put on there. Particularly stay away from putting provacative pictures on there.
2. don't put all of your personal info on there. for example don't put what city you live in, or cell phone or home phone numbers, addresses, or even your whole name.
3. If you create an online blog, and make posts...whatever you do, please remember that people can actually read it. That means ANYBODY can read it...your friends, your parents, your teachers, your pastors, anyone. Use good judgement with what you say.

OK, so sponges. The other day we had a small leak in the drain under our kitchen sink. The p trap became disconnected and we had a little mini flood result. One of the casualties in the mini flood was a box of sponges that we had stored under the cabinet. Because there was a bucket under the sink that held the box of sponges, when the bucket filled with water, it caused the box to get soaked and then all of these brand new sponges spent quite a good bit of timein the nasty stinking water.

Did you know that sponges can sour? These sponges absorbed all they could. Because we didn't pay attention to the sponges when we discovered the flood, these sponges were never squeezed to empty the water from them. Instead they stayed very wet. Well, today we found the wet sponges...and man did they stink!! They stunk really bad. I think that part of the reason that they stunk was because the sponges soaked up both the water and all the nastiness in that water. Also, the water, once soaked up didn't go anywhere...it just remained in the sponge. Water came in, but none went out.

The concept of the sponge, reminds me of a lesson I learned tonight in this class I was taking. I'm in a class about how to manage money, and the guy teaching the lesson was discussing the giving attitude that people should have. He basically said that most people are very selfish and don't like to give of themselves or their money. He compared most people to ponds. You know ponds...little bodies of water out in the cow pasture or whatever. The pond...somehow water gets in, but it doesn't get out. He pointed out that because no water leaves a pond, eventually the water spoils (kind of like my sponges) and becomes covered with scum. His point being that selfish people horde the goodness of God's blessings in their life and don't share them with others and so eventually become scum. My point, people that are like sponges, or ponds, can eventually become scum.

We all have relationships in life with people that remind us of sponges. The people that take and take and take from us, but never give back. We all have relationships with people where we know that the only thing they care about is themselves, and if you disagree with them, you will probably end up a casualty of that relationship.

But what if we are the sponge? Is it actually possible that there are times when we are the sponge? If we are sponge-like would we even recognize ourselves as being that way? I constantly have to remind myself that I have the potential to become sponge-like. I'm sure that I am not the only one that treats my relationship with God from a very sponge-like perspective. There are plenty of times where I act like God exists to give me stuff or to fix my problems, and all my prayers are focused on me, me, me (how insane is that!!) There are even times when I treat the church like that. I act like the programs at the church, or the worship services, or even the other staff and people at the church are there to serve me and make sure that I'm comfortable. When I behave like that, I become very sponge-like. I really do pray that God can help to teach me to think about Jesus and others first. I really pray that God will give me a great attitude to be giving so that the good stuff that he puts in me doesn't spoil. I really don't want to be equated with scum.

John 3:30 He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.

I hope that some of the things I struggle with will help some of you as you pursue a deeper relationship with Christ.