The One I Which I Learn The Beatitudes

Again I'm amazed by how the Bible is a one-stop shop for everything we need. I used to be an ardent reader of self help books, and I spent tons of money or rather my mom spent tons of money for me, buying stuff along the lines of, "Releasing The Power Of Your Subconscious" or "10 Steps to Success". I didn't think the Bible would have any tips for surviving in the "real" world. Although is having my head stuck in 1000 books one after the other and never applying any of them living in the real world anyway?

Well today I've found "9 Attitudes To Change Your Life" and it's been right here under my nose, Matthew 5:

1. Acknowledging spiritual poverty: knowing that I don't have it all together and the moment I think I'm strong and that I've made it, is the precise moment I'll fall on my face...and that's the exact moment the rapture happens and I miss out on heaven lol j/kidding. I'm just trying to tie the verse together :-D
2. Be real: not putting up a facade to make everyone think that I'm perfect and fine, there's a time to be happy and there's a time to mourn. If I show God my weak side He'll be sure to comfort and sometimes His comfort may come through a friend who can only be there for me if they don't think I've got it all together.
3. Humility: this might be the hardest because where do I draw the line between self-confidence or self-assurance and humility. I mean, most people, myself included think Christians are all about being a door mat but that's not the sort of person I want to be and the people I admire aren't like that but personally for me, it'll be hard to know where to draw that line. Although, if I think about it, I guess humility is recognizing that all the stuff you have, all the 'awesomeness' you possess isn't a right, it's a privilege from God and He can take them away. This fact should ground you because essentially, you're no better than the beggar who lives under a bridge.
4. My favorite attitude is Matthew 5:6  "Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully! I hope that one day it'll be like what we learnt in church, I'll be so connected with God that my greatest desires are His greatest desires.
5. Showing mercy to others: To me this is both forgiving others and not keeping a grudge. I am horrible at that, my biggest talent in life is keeping a grudge. I never recognized it as keeping a grudge, I just cut people out of my life completely, erase their numbers, un-friend them on Facebook, avoid them completely, like I did with my neighbor who made a tiny mistake and I blew it out of proportion and I haven't talked to him for 3 months. Oh, no! Does that mean now that I'm doing this Bible thingy I have to call him up and ask him to forgive me??? Ai, I can't!!! O.k I have to, but ai, that'll be torture....o.k now I'm seeing I actually do have pride issues :-/ o.k compromise, I'll do it within the next two weeks, latest! Mercy also means, 'kuonea mtu huruma', that is, having a giving and compassionate heart, to me that's just helping someone in need of help, like not shutting off my phone when I sleep because my friend may need to talk, and I know from experience being the maker of 3 a.m phone calls many times in the past to my mom or my BFF, when I was drunk or depressed or drunk and depressed that most of the time someone wouldn't be calling if it wasn't an emergency.
6. Purity of heart: also a hard one because sometimes my mind just takes me places, but I'll try. Also, not having ulterior motives for my actions. Being straight up and real.
7. Spreading peace: not causing strife or animosity between people. Now, I may not be in the position to start petitions for Sudan or formulate a strategy to bring about world peace, but I can try and make sure my friends and people around me get along, like not spreading gossip or those times someone says, "you know how xyz is such a liar, aki I hate her, she bores me!!!" I won't agree without thought or trying to change that person's attitude.
8. Not fearing persecution: my views now may be different from other people's and I shouldn't act like I'm better than them or cave in when they try to convince me or talk trash.
9. Matthew 5:23-24  So if you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, first go at once and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God. I guess this means I have to up my deadline for asking my neighbor to forgive me :-/
10. Lastly, this isn't a beatitude but I liked it because, I mess up a lot and I beat myself up over it and feel like giving up 70% of the time, but I love David because he's so real and he gives me hope that even sinners like me can make it he tells God how as much as people sin, he's different because of his love for God; Psalm 5:7  But because of your great love I can come into your house; I can worship in your holy Temple and bow down to you in reverence.

Genesis was an introduction to Abram and how he pretended Sarai was his sister and she had to sleep with the Egyptian king guy so that he wouldn't kill Abram, now that deserves a post of its own.

O.k so I think those are enough lessons learnt for today. Lets see how many I manage to actually apply.




Picture from Mavuno Website