"Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other."
2 Corinthians 5:17ish, The Message


Hello everyone ... I'm back.  I had very busy weekend playing with my church's worship team, so I decided to take yesterday off from writing.  I re-posted an older blog; hope that sufficed.  For those of you who read my post from this past Sunday, this is the Part II to that.  On Sunday I spent considerable time talking about my past, and all of the wrong I've done.  That particular blog post was perpetuated by the smallest of things that happened to me on Saturday night.  I mean the smallest ... but just like how the smallest of stones in your shoe can really irritate you, that 'thing' irritated me.  From there I recounted all sorts of things done to me over the past several years.  My solution: write a blog about it, and at the end, apologize to the world for all I've done.  Did it work?  Did I wake up Monday feeling any better?  No ... no, I didn't.  So now what?  I don't know entirely ... here's what I do know.

On the morning of August 20, 1990, just before noon, I "united with Messiah" and was given "a fresh start."  I was a new person ... everything I had done before that moment was erased with a God sized eraser.  Let me repeat the key word in that statement again ... everything ... as in every thing ... EVERYTHING.  God forgave me of everything I ever did that constituted sin.  Did I really believe it though?  Have I gone on for the last 21 years living as if I understood and believed that God had forgiven me of EVERYTHING?  I don't know how to answer that for myself.  I can say that I've lived like that at times, but I've also lived under condemnation.  I have spent countless hours during countless days not forgiving myself ... and not liking myself.  The scripture above says that God settled the relationship between He and I that day.  Then He called me to settle relationships with others.  The original Greek meaning of "others" includes ourselves.  I guess I never got around to that did I?  I think I've settled a lot with others, but I've never settled with myself.  Over the years I've drifted further and further away from who I really am.  But not just who I am as Joe, but who I am as one who has been united with Messiah.  I feel like I'm in love with God more now than I have ever been, but for many years I've kicked him in the gut by not settling things with myself, or forgiving myself.  If God can send his son Jesus as my redemption plan, and forgive me off all I've done wrong, then who am I to not forgive myself?  In a way, hating myself was a selfish way of exalting myself above God.  Who am I to do that?

So what do I know?  I know that I'm a new person since meeting Christ, and that He has forgiven me of all the wrong things I've done or will do.  I know that I've blown it concerning forgiving myself.  I know that I've let the past control my future.  If recognizing a problem is half the battle, then I'm about 51% on my way to victory.  The 1% comes from something I thought of while writing this.  I'm going to start replacing "I'm sorry" with "Oh well".  If I do something that someone else doesn't approve of ... oh well.  If someone doesn't like me for who I am ... oh well.  If someone attacks me because they don't know how to deal with their own issues ... oh well.  I am who I am, and if you don't like it ... oh well.

There's a country song that has a great hook at the end of the chorus.  There are many country songs I relate to, but tonight, this is the one that came to mind to sum it all up ...

God is great
Beer is good
And people are crazy

I realize that I've spent the past two blogs focusing a lot on me, and some very personal issues.  I do hope that in some way, my stories and God's word do what they're supposed to do ... make a difference in your life.  If they don't ...