Friendship

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one." 

― C.S. Lewis

Somehow I thought I was gonna write about this topic way later....because I seriously don't even know where to begin when it comes to friendship....But although my thoughts on this are thoroughly incomplete, I want to share what I've learned because, no way around it, friends are so immensely important, somewhat as is oxygen....

Over the past years, actually during my entire life, friends have had great importance to me. I always had the feeling I had a lot friends - that is, people who liked me and that I liked in return. But I never felt understood enough to actually open up. The older I got, the more I really wanted to have a deep relationship to someone but there was no one who I thought was like that. Wandering off alone however, isn't especially attractive or even bearable for long either - and I've been there.... I got to the point that I was convinced, and I had accepted that I didn't have a friend and that I didn't need one either. I mean, yeah, I'm alone, that's cool.

I want to talk to you about two aspects that have become crucial for me in friendship - the first is freedom and the second is depth. :) I believe these are the two traits that mark genuine friendship - friendship that has a chance to survive, and above that, the potential to bless your life.... :)

Freedom

I've observed that we follow a fatal misconception - the belief that whatever we find beautiful, we must OWN. When we see a beautiful flower we want to pick it, when we come across a pretty shell at the seaside we have to take it home with us, when we're watching a magnificent sunset we start rummaging for our camera in order to capture it.... Possessing the beauty we see is so important for us that we forget that by trying to find the camera, we miss the sunset, by taking the shell home we take a part of the beach away and by picking the flower, it dies.......We learn to live this way and we can't turn it off when it comes to people. I should add to the list and when we meet someone we love we need to keep them.

That is the way it works. I remember when I was a kid it was a CRUCIAL and totally serious question to ask Do you want to be my friend? or Are you my friend? and then at some point we got to You are my BEST friend. :) I was watching the primary school kids rush up the stairs some days ago. There was a little girl who stood waiting at the side and when I entered the building she stretched out her arm while another girl pushed past me to grab hold of her outstretched hand. Then, wordlessly, the girls squeezed their way up the stairs, cuddled up in something like an embrace.... Best friends. You can tell from miles away. They wait for each other, they have their codex. They "belong" to each other and man it's SEVERE - you must be true to your best friend.

Children have an authentic way of showing us how we all work. Since relationships are the most precious thing we have, it doesn't take much for us to start wanting to possess each other. And facing the truth, in many cases it's not primarily about wanting someone to share your life with or someone you can always count on....it's about exercising power and feeding myself. The moment you have a friend locked up in your ties, you have something to build your confidence on, you have someone to control.

I'm not judging the world here, I'm merely examining myself. :) I am a person who was always looking for the one friend. I wanted someone to share my secrets and to fight my way through life with. We all want that. But I've come to the point that I no longer see the whole concept of being best friends as such a wonderful construction. Firstly, I think it's unnecessary to categorize your friends into first-, second- and third-best. I am not against intimate relationships, against closeness - at all. But I see a gigantic potential for damage in having that one friend who "belongs to me", who is my trophy, my showpiece, the one I give a title to. If you can't be happy without your friend, you can't be happy with them either.... (same goes for any love relationship) I'm convinced that we were not made for belonging to - as in being possessed by - another human being. In fact, it is extremely harmful. We destroy the root of friendship itself. For friendship to BE friendship it needs freedom - unless you say friendship has nothing to do to with loving...

Freedom in this case is not optional. Allowing freedom to have room in a relationship is a sign of trust, it means honouring the other person. We so often think clinging on even tighter is a sign of affection. But it is merely an evidence of selfishness. Instead of lengthening the leash and thinking I am oh so liberal and trusting, I need to put the leash away completely. And yes, it can be hard. Because we want stability, a guarantee that we won't be abandoned or replaced. But love cannot grow if it's kept on a leash, much more will it break out as soon as there is an opportunity.... I don't mean that we can't love anyone more than others - of COURSE that will happen. :) And it's beautiful to have friends who are closer to your heart than the crowd of other people. The question we should never stop asking is: Is FREEDOM a foundation in my relationships - no matter how close we get? Are we able to live without each other, but stay because we choose to? And do I allow my friends to have other relationships to receive what I can't give..?

Depth

I think the quotation that I put at the top of my entry already says a lot about depth. :) A friend is someone who understands us. Someone who shares interests isn't immediately a friend, someone I spend a lot of time with - like my teachers for example, or my siblings - isn't immediately a friend. A friend is someone who - in some way - can relate to me, and that bonds us. We have to be careful though: even the closest friend will never completely understand. That's a totally unrealistic expectation or assumption... The good news is, no friend has to fill everything inside us. :) Projecting all our hopes, all our needs and longings onto one person is the predictable end of it all. No one can carry or fulfill that - at least no human. :) So kiss that illusion goodbye... Friends are as much and as little as a foretaste of heaven.

Depth. I used to think the world is parted into superficial people and deep people. But I've learned better - everyone is so, so incredibly deep. Some however, cannot express it, others don't have access to their depths, and many are afraid of showing it.... I think relationships have become so shallow in general because everyone is afraid of getting hurt. But without depth, there is no friendship. Choosing to go deep with someone means making yourself vulnerable. And I've learned that there's no way around it. Getting hurt is not only an unavoidable part of life, it actually means putting a BREAK to the endless cycle, the chain-reaction of humanity hurting itself. The root of all our painful clashes is - as ironic as it sounds - our desperate attempt to protect ourselves. People don't hurt each other because they WANT to - at least not when they love each other. We hurt each other because we are scared to get hurt ourselves....

The well-known sentence that Jesus said about not slapping back, but turning the other cheek has a deep, yet paradox-sounding wisdom to it. The aim is not to get beat up. x) The aim is to ultimately destroy pain. Jesus knew the truth - that doing wrong cannot be diminished by doing wrong. Evil, pain, wrongness can only be wiped out from earth when it is not spat back out. When someone hits me in the face I have three options - hitting back, running away and hiding, or standing firm and letting them hit me again if they choose to. By slapping back I contribute to the ugliness of the world. Although it seems like justice at that moment, what it is, is revenge. And taking revenge means nothing other than letting the ugliness that I'm met with gain power over ME as well. Running away is hardly better. I build up a wall that will - before I know it - hurt the next person who tries to get close to me because I will meet them with bitterness and suspicion. Only by standing there and enduring the assault, I open a door for reconciliation. If I'm not willing to get hurt, I choose the only other option - to hurt others myself. None of the two seems attractive, this is a fallen world. The question is whether you're willing to choose the harder, but beautiful road. Beautiful because you will gain beauty :) - every time you refuse to let ugliness win you. The willingness to suffer for the sake of love is absolutely radiating and we perceive it as immensely beautiful.
I have to say I've been blessed so much by opening up to people - which sometimes means standing there and letting someone (unintentionally) trample over your soul. Sometimes it feels like a gigantic sacrifice....Of course you need to be wise in deciding with whom you share what. But only depth eventually becomes love. And I would never trade my friendships for superficial, scared-to-get-hurt relationships. Even though yes, I get hurt and it can hurt badly...

Friends are here to walk life's path with us for a certain amount of the way. They are here to keep reminding us that there IS love and fulfillment - but deeper and so much greater than we can ever see in each other... :) It's vital to remember that our friends don't belong to us. That they are a GIFT that none of us could have deserved.. And it is wisdom to be willing to get hurt...it means replacing my part of the darkness in the world with LIGHT. (:

C.S. Lewis once more: Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. :)

Obsession

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7,14

I want to talk to you about relationship to God. :) Relationship is only possible when two sides are involved. An active me and an active other person. Maybe there's a general opinion that there is no active God - at most an active me trying to please a passive Watcher - thus relationship with God is not possible. So the question is HOW can a relationship to God work?

If you're viewing the relationship to God thing with a raised brow of skepticism or maybe a frustrated heart, you've found a companion in me. :) I mean, we're supposed to expect more from God than from ANYTHING else, at the same time HE seems so invisible, so far off, quieter and more subtle than anything. Bottom line: it can drive you mad.

I think it's essential to say the picture you have of who God is determines your relationship to him. If you think he's irrelevant, to a great extent he will be irrelevant in your life. It's your choice to give him room or to lock him out. That doesn't mean he depends on what you make of him. But he respects a shut door. Respects, but not ultimately accepts....he is permanently trying to win our hearts - and that doesn't stop once we've opened ourselves to him. I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here I am, here I am.' All day long I have held out my hands to a stubborn nation, who walk in ways not good, following their own imaginations. (Isaiah 65,1-3) God stretches out to us even when we couldn't care less. But the picture you carry in your heart, the conviction you hold to WILL have an impact on how open your eyes are to SEE his attempts to win your attention.

What can I do with my obsession -
With the things I cannot see?
It's a madness in my being...

I was listening to the song Obsession some days ago and it caught my attention. What can I do with my obsession? It is true, we all carry this obsession. The subtle thought that rules everything we do: Who or what can I give myself to? Although we think that what we do is decide, lead, rule - what we're doing in reality, everyday is bowing down and worshiping. There is nothing else we can do. We give ourselves away to people, to our convictions, to what we enjoy or to what we hate. We couldn't stand existence without a subject to adore....Power doesn't satisfy us. Wealth doesn't. Not even the affection we get....

Only giving ourselves away does.

There's nothing wrong with giving yourself away. It is our inmost being. It is US. But there is something fundamentally wrong with giving yourself away to emptiness. To nothingness. To things that don't fill you in return. Because the result is disastrous: the more you give yourself away to what DOESN'T fill you, the less will you be ABLE to give yourself for what gives you life - the less will you even be able to see what is truth and what isn't. And suddenly meaning and pointlessness all becomes the same colour.....

Living in a relationship with God may seem like an abstract term although we know what relationship is. :) We live it, experience it, fight over it every day. The one difference here is of course that God isn't exactly a human being. But many aspects of relationship between humans can be applied to the relationship with God, because we are similar to him, in many ways. God wants intimacy with us. God wants to talk to us, he wants us to negotiate with him.. Worshiping God is a way that you choose to live. A life that you choose instead of worshiping sports or worshiping knowledge - anything else you could possibly choose is worshiping yourself. Walking for God is walking the narrow path. The path is hard. You might think that's an excuse cuz Christians never experience God, suffering under the silence, the doubts whether he even exists - and then saying ohh man, it's so hard! No, I'd say what's hard is that you inevitably DO experience God and you'll end up seeing him turn everything inside-out and there'll be moments you won't know how to handle it anymore.

God speaks.
Once you let him in, he'll walk with you through every room of your heart, every room of your life. He'll start healing what's shattered and restoring what's broken. He'll start working with you on your weaknesses, your addictions. He'll ask you to hand them to him and to let go, because he wants to set you free from what this world wants to chain you with. So if the Son sets you free, you will truly be free. (John 8,36) One aspect of the relationship is trusting God, unconditionally. Another is hearing his voice and following it. He'll lead you to people who need him desperately and once God has set you free, you'll want those you see in chains to be set free too....In many cases they won't want to come, clinging to their scars, screaming and kicking when you try to drag them...because people are TERRIFIED of meeting their creator. Lies about him have unconsciously taken hold of us. And the picture that many have of GOD looks remarkably similar to Satan's hideous face.

Sometimes the things God says are vague and you'll only have an impression, a strong inner urge to do something. That can be God's voice. God can also speak through other people. I was at a prayer weekend in Frankfurt about 2 years ago. I joined a "listening to God speak" workshop where the others (who I didn't know) prayed for me and then listened for a few minutes to hear if God had something to say to me through them. After that they shared their impressions, one girl had received a rather strange picture and said she really didn't know if it was from God so she was reluctant to tell it. Eventually she told me that she had seen two people jumping at a beach....everyone kind of giggled but it struck me because I knew exactly what it meant. I knew that it was a word from God right into my situation - amazingly through someone who knew nothing about me but my name.

Sometimes God speaks through songs, through movies, through books...God speaks very strongly through the Bible. Once I was reading the Psalms and just about to start a reeeally long one that stretches over about 3 pages and I didn't at all feel like reading it, so I just didn't read anything that day.. x) nor the next....A few days later I found myself in some pretty big relationship problems and when I couldn't take it any longer I grabbed my Bible because I NEEDED to hear God's voice...I started reading that endless Psalm, thinking man, this is gonna be fail.....what happened was what I read STRUCK me in a way no Bible passage ever had. Basically I dissolved reading it. I devoured it in just a few minutes and burst into tears.. I think I sat there crying for like an hour - not cuz I was emotionally unstable at that point, but because GOD had met me. It was so intense that I couldn't keep my senses together anymore... That moment he put my entire attention off my heart and my world and my pain, onto his heart. I couldn't even feel my pain anymore because he was letting me experience a moment of HIS gigantic pain towards humanity....a weight overcame me that was greater than any weight I had felt before. Since then it hasn't let go of me - the shattering reality of GOD's immense suffering....

God speaks in many ways. A reason why we think nothing gets to us is that we talk most of the time, that we don't ever really listen. Or that we expect us to feel him, as an emotion - and turn away disappointed when we don't burst into tears or faint to the ground. God doesn't let us manipulate him - there's nothing we can do to earn an encounter with him. :) But he wants to meet us, he wants to be close to us. Emotions are often a result of feeling God's touch - but his presence itself is not an emotion. It's a dimension that goes way beyond the physics of our body or the intelligence of our brains - and yet we can perceive it because we were MADE for unity with God. And we haven't lost that ability.

At times, God speaks to me almost audibly... I can hold dialogues with him because I can "hear" him answer immediately. I can't really describe what his voice is like. It just....OVERWHELMS me every time.....The words he says are so utterly different from what I'd expect "the God I know" to say. Sometimes he asks me questions...once he asked me Do you see me? It made me smile and I answered x) No....Then he told me he was sitting at the end of my bed, and he asked me if I knew what he was doing....I said no again. And he said I am crying....

God is the craziest CRAZIEST person ever... There is NOTHING better in life than experiencing him. :) ...But sometimes, I have to add, I don't hear a thing. Even in the moments that I feel I'll DIE if I don't hear him now....and I don't understand that. God reveals himself when HIS time is right. And God's time and God's WAY of appearing is often different from what we expect. So be on the lookout. :)

Sometimes we can SEE God... When I was a child I was tortured by severe nightmares, even when my parents prayed for me, sleeping was dreadful. But at some point, night by night in the worst parts of my dreams, an angel would appear and tell me that I was just dreaming.... Once - recently - I saw God's face, well not really his entire face... I was talking to him, wanting desperately to explain my situation to him cuz I was driven by the feeling that he didn't understand - and suddenly there was a BREAK. It was like something in the atmosphere drastically changed, like someone pouring a bucket of ice cold water over me for a SPLIT second - and I saw his eyes, just his eyes... and it wasn't even about seeing his EYES, I can't even say I know how they looked, but I saw the LOOK in his eyes, his expression... :)) I saw the WAY he was looking at me...and I HAVE NEVER seen ANYONE look at me that way.......I broke off in the middle of my sentence, unable to do ANYTHING, I just froze, it totally took me away... I had never seen a look that ************ before.... God is not describable. And the way he meets us is not describable. I wish I could make words for it though... He has the most understanding, the most BEAUTIFUL eyes you can imagine.......
And I am desperate. The more I hear his voice or see of him, see how he ACTS towards me.. the more I NEED him....He is the most severe ADDICTION.....and the only addiction that has set me free.
We all carry the desire to worship God, worshiping God means meeting him...and I want to encourage you to EXPECT him, to be open to hear him, to see him, so he can step in when his time is right. Ask him to meet you.... :) And don't believe the lie that he doesn't want to meet you. Don't believe the lie that you need to change first to meet God. Meeting God will change you. And the reason you're still here is that he's not through with you yet.... :)

Gold and Dust

A few posts back, I wrote You matter more than you deserve or more than you SHOULD and I'll get back to that - so I'm getting back to that. :)

What am I worth?

I doubt that ethics can answer that. Nor can science. Science tells me what substances I'm made of, how my body works, how I'm put together and how I came to be, biologically. That is amazing! :) - the insight science gives us is incredible....but it doesn't sufficiently answer the question that penetrates us maybe all our lives: Who am I?

Some people - especially believers - tend to go for the quick, easy (and thus highly aggravating) answers. Empty words that don't really make an identity, more like already provide a whole check-list of things you're obliged to do now that you know who you are. It isn't an easy question. But I think it's important to look at in in depth. Because the question itself comes from our depths. We don't need it answered to physically survive, but we thirst for an answer to somehow make our life inside. And everyone answers this question - even when saying I don't really know. You've got a concept in your head of who you are.

I am a coincidence.

I am precious.

I am a miracle.

I am a mistake.

I am here because nature put me together.

I am here for a reason....

Some answers may seem more attractive, some more putting off than others. But there is an answer that everyone finds for themselves. Even when it's not really satisfying.... 

Let us love him, because he has loved us first. 1st John 4,19

I am convinced (and science even supports this) to have a stable identity or an identity at all, a human being needs to know that they're loved. The problem is that there is no actual love on earth. Friends, family, wherever you turn - love breaks. All the time.. among people of all beliefs, of the most exemplary behaviour.... Somehow love, the way we wish it was, doesn't get to us. And what's worse, as a natural result, so many feel unloved. They don't see any real love coming their way. At least not the way or the AMOUNT they feel they need... I know that feeling to be honest....relationships can be SO unsatisfying. Judging only by what we see and experience in life, I guess it's true that we all are very unloved. Not objectively. Sure, we have friends and yeah, people care about us. But it's not enough. And it's not selfish or demanding to say I don't get enough love...actually....of course you don't. Only a tiny part of what you are able to receive is ever touched

- and we all feel that.

To be confident, to know who you are, you need to be SURE that you are loved with a love BIGGER than the emptiness inside you.

The question who am I? has many answers, but it can also be answered in few words with the greatest impact.

You are God's creation.

You are not an accident, nor a coincidence. Whether your parents wanted you or not, whether you have a handicap or not, whether you wanted yourself or not.... That doesn't change who you are. Because YOU my friend do not define who you are. :) And neither does any other person in your life. We LET others define us. And then we degrade ourselves down to mere nature.... I am nothing but nature.

That is actually where our acquaintance Satan comes in. God invents and shapes the heavens and the earth, the universe and every living and non-living thing in it....including us humans. We are the most precious part of creation - that's what God himself says. According to GOD, you aren't replaceable. But before you even hear that truth that makes up your identity and the foundation for everything you're gonna do and feel in life, you soak up the disgusting, permeating lies. Since Satan finds many ways and happens to be pretty smart, he makes us believe that it's actually our PRIDE that made us come up with the theory that we have WORTH, that we have DIGNITY, that we are here for a reason and have a HOPE for restoration. Yes, these statements DO fit our ego well :) but what doesn't fit is the core of this - which is often left out. That we are not precious because of who we are. You are not precious because of yourself. In yourself. You are a pile of dirt, breathing in a few years and out a few, and then going back to being dirt. The Bible doesn't deny it - As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. (Psalm 103, 15-16)
Amazing identity.
At the same time - and that is the striking counterpart - you are precious for the one who made you. AND what might sort of burst our thinking is that what gives us worth in God's eyes, what makes us loveable in God's eyes is not found in US. (yeah, highly confusing but that is important!) Your worth is only ever in HIM......The result is: without him, I cannot see my worth. But with him, my inside begins to heal, begins to understand that I am as much as HE tells me I am... The thing is, it has NOTHING to do with YOU, you can neither be proud of it, nor could you - by anything you do - change it...

I think that is AWESOME.. :))

Who I am is locked up and defined in someone else....in someone who never changes. In someone who is eternally perfect. It's as if the truth was that your  weight has nothing to do with how much you weigh, it is forever solely defined by the weight of Mount Everest, which weighs 162 trillion kilos. ...It is the mystery of the bond between God and the humans he created in his image - we not only depend on him to give us meaning and LIFE, we depend on him to even BE something.... Another point: about being precious, it does NOT only apply to you once you are in contact with God. No, that is something God gave to you the moment he thought of you. You have a treasure :) that no one can ever conquer or bring down, because it's safe. Your worth is everlasting and safe. God is the only true source of confidence. We have been loved, even before we drew our first breath...... You haven't existed ONE moment in which you were not loved beyond comprehension. That makes you precious. The LOVE poured out on you. Whether you open your arms to receive it, or not......it is poured out.

HOW this love is possible, I never understood... no, I don't know why God loves me so much. In our world things need a corresponding countervalue to actually HAVE worth....but YOU don't have that countervalue. It is in God and God alone, he stands above our financial rules and ways of thinking. :) You don't NEED a countervalue... If God speaks just one word, it is spoken, unchangeable TRUTH - because of who the speaker is. If he declares
I have loved you with an everlasting love Jeremiah 31, 3
no force in heaven or earth can shake it.
I always wanted to know what God loved about me.. I couldn't ACCEPT his love because I couldn't grasp his motives. That was because I was looking for the reasons inside me.... And I couldn't find it. But I've realized :) that everything loveable about me is HIM....That's the part of the Bible people have big trouble handling. The entire Bible. The single message of God screaming I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!.....but our hearts don't want to hear it cuz we look at ourselves and see dirt......and it does.not.make.sense.

The ONE (:

I know. I've kind of not yet written specifically much about who all this is about. :) By "all this" I don't mean my blog, I mean everything. Life. That is a...painful but absolutely liberating truth I've begun to face; that my life is not about me. It's not about my prestige, my success or even my happiness. Life itself is only about GOD. Our entire existence is only for him. I have no right to exist without it being for him. (But he gives us time to realize that...) I admit, this whole thought strangles my ego a lot  (emm...daily) and actually, I never really wanted to hear that - and often still don't. But it's the truth. I ONLY found happiness in meeting him. It's the same thing every moment of my life: I'm only filled down to my deepest cracks when HE is first on my priority list. When I make him any less (and.....I do that) my life turns into the biggest crap in the world.

It's not about simply believing in God or calling yourself a Christian or a Jesusfreak or who knows what....x)) I dare to say half-hearted Christians are the most unhappy of all. Because they feel the force of having to give time, strength into something they don't really LOVE.... and ultimately don't know. God is at most on 3rd or 4th place. The crux of the matter is HE IS GOD. What does that mean? It means he won't TAKE 2nd place. :) He doesn't want a part of you.... Keep it. If you are going to give, he wants all of you. As demanding as it sounds, this has changed me inside-out. The longer I think about it, the more I realize..... that and that alone gives me dignity. .......who else wants you, completely? - with every scar.

If I was able to live without God up til here, I can live without him til the end of my life, too.

If God hasn't shown himself to me until today, HOW could he be the answer to everything? -wouldn't I have NOTICED that?!

If life without God is possible, how can I really need him?

Know this? I do. :) These questions are darn hard to answer. Yes, I think it's important to use our MINDS, also when it comes to God. But Christians who get confronted with these statements or questions are....pretty stuck. It's not possible to prove the existence of God. I can't prove it to you. Only HE can - if you're willing to let him. But if you're already convinced that he's not gonna step into action, you've basically closed your eyes, waiting to discover the light...... We all know that what moves us most, what makes a difference in our lives is the non-material. What can't be bought, can't be seen or touched, or proved. If you tell yourself I have trouble BELIEVING, let me tell you, you don't. :) You believe in so many things, all the time. In the existence of love. Honesty. Friendship, or loyalty. While it's night, you can't prove to me that the sun will rise again. But you know it. You KNOW it. 

Why close your heart to God? 

Because you're afraid of LOSING something..?

Would you be willing to trade an old pair of socks that you've had for 17 years for the ability to grow wings and fly...?

You would be giving something away, maybe something you love.

 But is it even a question whether or not you'd do that?

It is. One look at the world..there's millions of people, sitting on the ground, frantically clinging to their socks.....

I want to tell you about this God that I've only vaguely described to you so far... :) I'm not gonna prove him to you, cuz I can't. But those who have fought their way through to a relationship with him know this: it's not giving your soul away and HOPING to gain something for it. It's not some cheap, pitiful hope.... It is KNOWING. I know that God exists. You may call me incorrect...but I'm not guessing or deducting, I am convinced, to the deepest core of my existence, that God DOES exist. He is realer to me than you are. He is realer than my own existence....

"Yes, Aaron, it's true. Pharaoh has the power. He can take away your food, your home, your freedom. He can take away your sons and daughters. With one word, Pharaoh can take away your very lives. But there is one thing he cannot take away from you: your faith." - that's a quote from The Prince of Egypt that I watched tons of times as a kid... Faith outlives death, outlives torture, outlives persecution of the most inhuman kind... - http://www.opendoors-de.org/verfolgung/ ...why? Apparently God offers something that people are not willing to let go of again. Something that MUST be more than a few good moral guidelines....That would not be worth my life. And definitely not my soul. I don't cling to God cuz I'm scared of hell. I cling to God cuz life without him is hell....

I'll try to find some words...

GOD.....is a Father. He is your soul's and your body's protector.... :) He comes to you when you need cover. When you need a strong arm to hold you, someone to EMBRACE you...longer and tighter than anyone ever has... He is the perfect father. No matter what your earthly dad is like, how many fatal mistakes he has made....God is the father you would have wished for all your life. Who is irrationally crazy about you, that he can't even be objective anymore.. :) He's the one who will ALWAYS be happy to see you..... who sits by your bed at night watching you and longing for morning when he can see you open your eyes again...

and GOD is a mother.... He can't forget you. He SEES you, when you're not alright and everything is just sh*t.. The mother who knows how you feel even before you've said it...who sees how you're struggling, trying to get through life, or why you don't try hard anymore, cuz you've given up... God sees when you're the biggest fool in the world and you need someone to feel sorry for... he feel compassion for you, because your pain breaks his heart....

and GOD is a friend :)) The friend who will call you up when you're down and take you out... The friend who is incredibly fun to be around, who makes you LAUGH.. x)) He knows what you like doing cuz.. he knows you, how you work... :) He respects you, won't force you into anything.. He's the friend who gives you the most affection and the biggest freedom......You laugh at the same jokes.... :) you're on a journey together, side by side... He's the friend who LOOKS for you in the crowd.. Where are you? You are the one he desperately wants to be with....

God is a councilor... When you're confused, when you're messed up..when you really think MAN I do NOT know how to get out of this....when you're unconfident or you don't see a point in all this anymore... He GETS you.. :) down to your core, he understands you the way you wish you could make yourself understood to the people around you... he knows your personality, you don't need to explain yourself to him.... :) And he's there to ADVISE you... He might say tough things to you when you need to hear them, because he doesn't want you to go that one step when you're standing at the abyss with your eyes closed... 

and GOD is a consuming FIRE.... YOU, when you meet God, you will go insane, your body, and your soul, and your spirit........ you will fall apart........ His POWER is greater than we can ever begin to understand... He BURNS.. he is alive...he's not a little flame...a little fire.. a little passion... HE IS A GIANT, roaring BLAZE... Sometimes his power is so intimidating because you'll realize how small you actually are....when you meet God, you won't be encountering something you can ever forget again... He will CONSUME you....

God is the KING, he's the lion... the caring mother and the mighty fire... he is the HEALER, the provider, the doctor..... He is EVERYTHING, all at once. And words don't at all do him justice...

Believe me when I say this, He is the only good thing that will ever happen to you... :)

Where God enters, everything is changed, he is the opposite to this world. He is perfectness :)))))..... and I really cannot deny that I have irreversibly and immortally fallen for him.......

Absolutely pointless.

Beauty. We all LOVE beauty. It is the "thing" that makes life worth living. For our eyes, for our noses, our mouths, our ears.... We love the sight of the sunset over the sea, the fragile, tiny little snowflakes on our jackets, the smell of freshly baked cake, or hot coffee, or spring flowers :)... The sound of birds singing out in the dark after a long winter, or the voice of our favourite human beings... :) the feeling of warm water on our skin after freezing outside, or the soft fur of an animal touching us....how deep we can get lost, gazing into someone's eyes.... the feeling of water running down our throat when we're thirsty........ BEAUTY. We can perceive it with all our senses. And it attracts us so strongly. It almost seems as though we are an isolated, unsatisfied piece of a puzzle to which beauty is the missing part.... Everyone defines beauty differently. Tastes, smells, faces, seasons, songs.... everyone reaches for a different direction. But we all have this in common: we cannot live without beauty. Every movie proves it - we WANT to see beautiful faces, it makes us happy. :)) If we frame and hang up a picture or a calendar it will show an image we feel is beautiful, something that fills up a tiny part of our big big hunger for beauty when we look at it. This hunger seems unsatisfiable. We'll never reach the point when we've seen enough beautiful faces - we want to see more, a new one, another one - or heard enough beautiful songs....or had enough warm, foamy baths for the rest of our lives. :) We can go for a moment without beauty; a disgusting taste, illness, fights, fear - we can stand that for a limited amount of time, but the whole time through we don't stop longing for peace, for harmony, for restoration......

Life, most of time, is "pretty good" because the world around us is full of beauty - even though we tend to see the ugliness, let's be honest: ALL the beauty we know, all that we've ever seen or can imagine comes from somewhere on this earth. And the reason we actually notice beauty, the reason we long for it is not because we are the opposite to beautiful. Some are convinced that we need this "compensation" because we are dark and beauty is light. But darkness doesn't long for light. Darkness is afraid of the light. No, it is because we are a jar yearning to be filled with beauty, flooded with what it wonderful to our senses. And we stretch out for this so strongly because we on the other hand are the missing part to beauty itself. We are the perfect mold. :) Without our eyes seeing the world and marveling at its glory, who would define it as beautiful? Isn't beauty truly beautiful when someone's soul is delighted by it? Isn't love really love when it is passed on?...
Take a glance at the world of science; things on earth have an URGE to fall into "perfection" - atoms, electrons, all substances....The whole world - down to the microscopic level - is constantly pushing to reach the ideal constitution. When we scrape our knee, our skin heals. When we cut down a tree, it will fight to grow back... And we feel this, the fact that WE are meant to be in the perfect state as well. And that we are NOT.

It already begins when we are kids.....We want to play. Because it makes us happy. :) We don't want to sit down and do homework, and we ask ourselves WHY? Why can't I go out and play, and have fun, and be happy? Why is doing this better or more important than being happy? I think in a way we stay like that all our lives. We want to know why we can't just be happy. We wish we could just feed on beauty all our lives - every moment, doing nothing else....that is our deepest desire (which of course isn't acceptable cuz LIFE IS TOUGH. So tough luck if you don't like life.) Why can't we eat our favourite food every day, sleep all day long, travel for years to see the beautiful places of this world? Why can't we spend every moment with the people we love instead of going to work for a so much smaller income?....This voice inside us comes out occasionally, when we fail to control it. Moments when terrible things happen and we ask Why? Why can't I just be happy? We usually tell the voice to be still. Cuz we need to COOPERATE in life. Shut up. Accept. Adapt. And follow. Every religion, every society, every culture and institution has this one aim of teaching us: Get a HOLD of your desires. And most of our wishes get told: DIE. That is the only way we have found to make life here livable.

Let me tell you that the only one who's gonna tell you a different story is God.

Instead of kill your desires, Jesus says FACE your desires. Don't hide them, don't be afraid of them. You feel hungry?... You feel unsatisfied? You feel emptiness?... You long for money, or for friends, for just being accepted? You long for a girlfriend? Or for a different body?... Then face it. Which means, first of all, admit it. God says: You don't have to be ashamed. :) If you run away from the truth, from what you wish for deep down inside, you are running away from the answer itself....

We long for beauty. Perfection. Everything you want every day is an extension of your desire for perfection. Deep down inside we wish the world was still paradise...... We ourselves want to be perfect - we wash and "decorate" and work on ourselves, constantly fighting against the invisible hand of chaos that keeps reversing what we have done. A force battling the drive inside us that wants to restore everything. Our daily effort is trying desperately to turn things back to how we feel they are meant to be. Our lungs are meant to be filled with air, our stomachs are meant to be satisfied, come on, our hair is meant to be silky and shine.... :) But our hair looks crappy again the next day, we smell bad, and eventually we turn old, our skin wrinkles....we fall apart. And so does the entire world. It seems to be an impossible battle, and we get exhausted trying to get enough beauty into that hole inside us everyday to make the day worth it - to make our life worth it.

And then we fail to see the answer. That our longing indicates so strongly where we come from and who we ARE. It tells us that there must be an ultimate, all answering Beauty that we haven't found yet. Perfection. We try to reach perfection til our last breath simply because we USED to be perfect. And it hurts us so deeply to see that everything on earth seems more sacred, more innocent, more beautiful than us humans. We can feel the gigantic, unmeasurable BREAK that took place between us in perfection and us in our mess now... We know that this is NOT how things are meant to be. And it tears us apart inside when we realize that the way it is now can - at most - be described with the word pointless. 

Life without beauty is pointless.

And now replace "beauty" with God, because what we truly thirst for is not the beauty of a song, or a taste or a snowflake..... 

It is the infinite beauty of a PERSON.

Life without God is nothing. Absolutely pointless.