To be a child...

Sometimes when things get tough, you don't want to face it. You don't want to get up after you fall, you don't want to wake up in the morning and you certainly don't want to go through it again. But not kids. Little kids fall down all the time, but they keep getting up. Eventually they learn how to walk. How am I supposed to learn how to walk if I don't get up?
You are not alone. God is always there, holding out his hands. Take hold of them and pull yourself closer to him. Still having trouble? If you have some good friends, they should give you a nudge to help you along. Good friends don't say "yeah, that sucks, just have a beer and it will be okay." No, good friends get behind you and push. Good friends cheer you along, and help you get closer to God. Friends you don't need will be biting your ankles, trying to keep you down, stopping you from learning to walk. Hint: they are not your friends.

In this way I realize one of the ways we have to become like children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. If we think we can get up by ourselves all of the time, we will never reach up and grab for God's hands, and we certainly will not lean on our friends for a push. We are not meant to be fully independent, we are meant for COMMUNITY.

This also means that we have to play fair. It is not cool to have your friend push you on the swings if you don't push your friend the next time. You cannot just take, you have to give back. The word for this "giving back" is service. CCC had a great service on service this weekend. Check out the message here when they finally upload it... click on contribute. Also, check out "Serving Back" on YouTube, an excellent parody of Justin Timberlake's hot song.

Yeah, I know I didn't really sum this up well, but you will get stuck playing on YouTube anyway.