Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Lord and (then) Saviour

Last night I was saying a couple of prayers. Just the usual. Thanks for this, thanks for that. You are God, I am not. Help me with this, help me with that. During this time, I felt like God spoke to me. Not in an audible voice. That's not the common way God speaks to me. It was more of a loud, clear thought, which stands out from all the other thoughts, loitering around my headspace.

I was saying, "can you help me with something? Can you save me from this..." And I felt God say "I'm supposed to be your Lord and Saviour, I can't just be your Saviour. If you want me to be your Saviour, then you need to make me your Lord as well".

Thanks for the wake up call! Yeah, I realised that I can't just "use" God to meet my needs when I want, and then do things my way in between times.

How many times have I said that Jesus is my "personal Lord and Saviour?"

Notice, Lord comes first, and then Saviour. My Personal Lord and (then) Saviour.

If I choose to live my way, I have no right to expect God to save me when I want. Sure, He is full of grace and will often save us when we don't deserve it, but it is a dangerous place to be in, to expect God to bail us out when we continually live in rebellion to Him and His ways.

But if we make Him the Boss, and do as we are told, then he has promised to save us. That's His part. We trust him, the consequences are up to him. But if we trust ourselves, then we need to be prepared to deal with what comes.

So if you are always asking God to save you, but feel like he isn't helping, maybe you should ask yourself, "Is He really the Lord of my life?" Do you do things God's way, or your own way? Is he number one, or are you?

Sure, He doesn't answer every prayer right away... sometimes he says "wait" etc... even to those who truly love God more than anything! All I am saying is that God is God, so we should keep him in that place, not relegate him to our magic genie who is there to save us from our problems...

He's Lord AND Saviour

:D

Sunday, April 3, 2011

understanding gifted

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/GiftedProblems.pdf

When I was young, I was a child. humour there. I was also identified as a "gifted child" I did some IQ tests with psychologists in my primary school years, and earlier too... I had results in the 135-145 region, which indicates a very high result. The median is 100, so that 50% of people should be below and 50% of people will be above 100, and something like 95% of people will be between 80 an 120. I was also placed in a gifted group of about four of us, where we didnt have to do normal schoolwork one day a week, instead we would go on fieldtrips!

I was going through a few things a while ago and wanted to figure out why? I talked to my parents and they reminded me of the gifted child thing. Growing up, I had tried to forget it, coz gifted kids don't fit in. I was bullied, I was bored, everything was too easy, people my own age never got my jokes and attempts at conversation. I would talk to adults coz I was more on their level intellectually. So this babble is all part of me rediscovering who I am, before I denied it as a child.

I tried playing soccer, and ended up trialling for NZ... I tried playing drums without lessons or anything, that was easy too. I never studied at school or uni but passed everything with good grades and always handed in early. The list is endless! But before you think I am going on about how great I am, I struggle with other things that most people find really easy. Most people find someone nice, and just get married... Of course they have to work at it, but generally, people just do all of these socially "normal" things with relative ease. They like something, are good at it, so they have a great career as a teacher, or nurse, or builder etc... But when you are good at almost everything, and get bored of it very quickly, you never know what you want to do. Relationships have always been really hard. I'm not married at an age where my friends are all having numerous kids... I have no idea what i'm doing with my career, at an age when people are earning huge money, running businesses, etc... But I do have an imagination as big as this universe, with more colours and smells than the Chelsea flower show. I know thousands of things that I have never learnt or read about. I always win Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?! But basic life is not my strongpoint!

The Gifted Paradox

If I could give you an insight into what life is like as a "gifted adult" it could be this paradox that I just thought of: Deep, complex, creative, difficult, intellectual things are very easy, but simple, everyday things can be incredibly difficult.

The hard thing is that it is very difficult to find other people like this, so you spend your life hiding who you are so you can fit in. This is a terrible way to live, but if I was myself, I would probably have no friends! I try to meet other people where they are, because I can't expect other people to meet me where I am. But over the last three decades, this has caused much confusion about who I am! So now as a 30yr old, I am only redisovering the self I lost when life got too painful for this sensitive child.

Another thing which may help you understand me is the typically highly charged senses. I have to wear sunnies more than often, coz the light I see is probably brighter than the light you might see. I smell things that aren't there. I still have a child's innocent sense of wonder. I can look at a tree for hours, just watching the leaves dance, like God is moving each one individually, just for me. But No one would ever do that with me, they would be bored in 2mins. So the gifted are always lonely and feel like wierdos. I can spend all afternoon watching the leaves. And I do this every second I can. The hum of a crowd is actually dozens of conversations that are all catching my attention, and drawing my imagination and energy to. If someone asks you a question, you might have an answer, I probably have dozens, and can instantly imagine the next half hour of conversation! And then i'm bored because I have to wait for us to have that conversation when I have been waiting at the finish line for a while. Because so much information and options are instantly there, I often say nothing, because there is too much to decipher. Like logs flowing down a river, I get too many at once and it blocks the river. This is why I like to write, because I am forced to slow down to the speed of my slow typing! It's not only introverts who need time to answer, gifted people often do as well. Simple conversations and socialisations and relationships are actually a lot of hard work, which is why I can appear to be a bit wierd sometimes, although i'm good at managing these situations to not appear so.

I have done lots of research in to this whole thing in the last year or so. There are a few good sources of info... if you are really interested, then google "Gifted Adults".

Gifted doesn't mean better, or smarter or anything else... they just experience life with much more depth, colour, passion, strong feelings etc, and this can be overwhelming when ordinary demands are placed on them coz so there is always so much going on inside.

I just had to get something of my chest :O)