Even in Pain

⁴²"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." ⁴³An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. ⁴⁴And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

⁴⁵When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. ~luke 22

I think it's interesting how after being strengthened by the angel of God, the next verse says "being in anguish". And so it shows how having strength does not mean you won't feel anguish.

And I looked up sweating blood. I couldn't find many case reports of it, except a few. They say it's really rare, and that it happens most often when people are experiencing extreme levels of stress. "multiple blood vessels which are present in a net-like form around the sweat gland constrict under pressure of stress. As the anxiety increases, the blood vessels dilate to the point of rupture. The blood goes into the sweat glands, which push it along with sweat to the surface, presenting as droplets of blood mixed with sweat."

O what pain that Jesus went through. and not just physical pain.

Pain that combines with compassion (and not bitterness). For even in pain, Jesus, on the cross said: "Father, forgive them". And in pain empathizing: "for they do not know what they are doing".

None of us know what we're doing, really. That's why we mess up a lot; we come to the wrong conclusions; we judge people; we harbor sinful feelings and say hurtful things. all because we're messed up ourselves. and now we are called to be perfect as He is perfect. and we are righteous by faith. and there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. and love covers over a multitude of sins.

Thus, let us be united as one in Christ; let us be gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

NIV is so different

An example of how different NIV is from ESV or NKJV

This also happens to be an interesting verse that caught my eye, which is why I looked at the different versions.

Proverbs 18:1

NIV:

An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment

ESV:

Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment

NKJV:

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment

Darby (just for fun):

He that separateth himself seeketh [his] pleasure, he is vehement against all sound wisdom

Well, that was interesting.

And it's interesting how some commentaries say that it can be a good thing because you can interpret the original as isolating yourself from things that hinder, for the sake of pursuing wisdom. biblebrowser.com/proverbs/18-1.htm

Our Father is pleased when...

My mom told me she is happiest when she sees my brother and I playing together, loving each other. And that she is the most upset when we don't get along.

And I was like oh, that's funny, because God is like that too! haha.

Like when brothers and sisters love each other and are united. We're His children. yay.

April

It's April and the sun is shining. And I'm starting to lose motivation for working. This happened around the same time last year too. But I think it's less severe this year. At least I'm going to make it less severe. I've already decided.

sigh. Man, and I thought I had developed a good understanding of what it meant to work as if I were working for God.

I realized that on days that I lose motivation to do work, I also lose sight of God. When I say losing sight of God, I actually mean losing sight of direction, of focused and specific thoughts about God and what He is doing in the community and people around me. I don't mean losing faith, or not loving God.

Maybe it's because we are meant to be more connected in each other's growth in God than we actually are. On those days, even having a normal-to-slightly-serious conversation can immediately bring back motivation to do work, although usually only temporarily.

O Lord, You have searched me

and You know me.

Well, I can analyze myself all I want, but really, I don't really know myself. But God knows me.

Pleasing God

Some things that happened this past week really made me think and also grow. It made think about whether or not I truly desired to please God. Do I truly fear God? Do I value Him more than all these?

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Making "sacrifices", AKA surrendering certain tangible things to God, really helped me to grow this week. And part of me still feels like that surrendering/sacrifice really hurts, and I know I'll definitely feel the result of it more and more throughout this semester. yet I also feel that my fear of the Lord has really grown through this and that I can't and am not willing to turn back to my old ways. I need to keep reminding myself that there is nothing I can possibly lose when I have God. Like the man who found the treasure in the field and sold everything he had to buy the field. Like math, if God is infinity, then infinity minus 1 is still infinity. Therefore I have lost nothing.

In practice this is harder, because we tend to look to our left and to our right and to this world, instead of looking above toward God.