The Beauty of The City

I'm really very strange.

See, most photographers I know love taking pictures of nature, taking pictures of animals, or trees or other things.
Things that were made by God, and have been here from the beginning of time.

That's what makes catches their eye, and makes them want to in turn capture it for others.

My photographer's eye is caught by those things sometimes, but not all the time.

The only place I can go and feel my heart burst with passion to capture it's beauty is Atlanta.

I've been to Atlanta many times in my life, and it never ceases to make me stop and gawk at the buildings that tower above me. To us down on the road, those buildings are blended together, looming above. But inside, there's a lamp positioned in a corner, a cup of coffee sitting perched on a desk, a person on a cell phone.

Each of these things make up a piece of the puzzle of the buildings above us, but we only see the facade. We only see the big picture, and not the little pieces that make it up.

I love seeing what we've done with the world God gave us, what we've made of it. What better way to see that than in a city filled with the people he made? To see the things we created with the brains he gifted us with is pretty cool.

That's part of the beauty of it. Another thing that makes my fingers itch for my camera is the fact that so many people don't appreciate it as they drive through.

When you drive through a field filled with cows, or an orchard, you can't help but stop and marvel at the majesticness.

How many times do we gape at the beauty of Atlanta? The beauty of spaghetti junction, the beauty of the incredibly and vibrantly red tree just past the Holiday Inn, the beauty of the lamp posts lit up along Imagine It at night?

Never, because we don't stop to see the little details that make up the big picture of the busy city.

It's beautiful to me, because no one appreciates it. Everyone goes along their merry way, complaining about traffic, and checking their watches, and listening to the weather on the radio. They don't ever look up, they don't ever see the beauty in the city.

The beauty is in knowing I'm looking upon something in a way few others have ever done before.

The beauty is in the oblivion.

Called to Be Outcasts- Together

Human nature says to fit in. If you're thrown into a very awkward uncomfortable situation, you're going to try to make the best of things- right? You're going to try to fit in, to blend into the woodwork on the wall, and pretend you aren't there.

Well, that's the problem, isn't it? It's human nature for us to try to fit into this world, because we'e human, But, it's like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.

We don't fit at all.

That's because we aren't of this world, we're supernatural. We're trying to fit into a place that isn't our home, a place that's a middleman. We were never created to fit in down here.

This world is full of sin, sin roams the streets, the devil steals souls, and temptation floods through the cracks of houses. We live in a world controlled by sin- so why do we try to fit in here?

In Romans 12:2 it says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Eventually if you pretend, and you act like something's real- if you act like someone you're not, to quote High School Musical (sorry), that's who you become.

God says to not conform ourselves to the pattern of this sinful world we live in.

Then in, Jeremiah 30:17, He says, "But I will restore you to health, And heal your wounds, declares the Lord. Because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares."

We aren't just called to not fit in here- we're called to be outcasts.

Pause.
Hang on.

We're supposed to be outcasts? We're supposed to be totally different from everyone else on this earth?
Yes, we are. Because we're not of this earth.

People will see you as an outcast. They will see that, and they will think to themselves, "What is UP with them?" But in doing this, you'll intrigue them.

This person who stands before them, who wants nothing to do with the world, who wants nothing to do with sinful nature, and who doesn't want to fit in at all, will interest people. They'll be perplexed.

And curiosity is the beginning of wisdom.

The coolest part I found about this, was when I was reading Acts the other day. Paul is speaking about the fellowship of the believers in chapter 2, and is explaining how they all congregated together, to eat, and pray.
It says, "All the believers were together, and had all things in common."

And then my mind went into overdrive, and I went back and read the  verses directly before that, where Paul stands up to talk to the crowd. At this point he was explaining to everyone there how they could all speak to each other even though they all spoke different languages. It was sort of like the reversal of The Tower Of Babel.

Now, here's the kicker,and what just blew my mind. It says, "Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews of every nation."

Okay.

So.

We have people of every nation, from different families, different backgrounds, different jobs, speaking different languages, looking nothing like each other all congregated, okay?

These people are the most random bunch of people you ever met in your life. It's like if you walked into Target, and just stood there and watched people.
Those people are all different right?
It was a crowd just like that.

Totally different people.

So how, on earth, in the next chapter can it say that they had everything in common?
When we know for certain that their jobs, their nationalities, their languages, all of that, were different?

How can they be the same?

Because they're outcasts together.

The one thing every single person gathered around listening to Paul had in common was that they were God-fearing. 
They had the breath of God living inside them, his Holy Spirit residing in their soul.

God covers everything else. His love and grace covers our job, it covers what kind of house we have, what kind of car we own, how many kids we have, where we live, who we talk to, what we do.

It covers it all, because none of it matters.

All those things, are things of this earth. Things we're not defined by.

What mattered to them, and what should matter to us, is that God called us to be outcasts together.

He called us to find the people who have seemingly nothing in common with us, but God. He calls us to rally with those people to bring others to Him. He calls us to love the people of this world-just not the sin of this world. He calls us to laugh in the world's face as we accept that we're different. We were born different, we will die different.

And we will spend forever in eternity.

Different. 

Outcast.

Cast out of this world, and into Heaven.

Time Heals All Wounds- Or Not

Whoever said "Time heals all wounds" obviously never actually got wounded.

For the sake of my analogy, let's pretend this "wound" is a stab wound, k? So, someone stabbed you in

the leg. Maybe it was you, maybe it was someone else. It doesn't really matter. When will that wound

scab over? Maybe a few days? Maybe less? When will it be totally gone? Maybe a month or so?

Okay, here's the next part:

A few days after maybe your mother's funeral, or parents' divorce, has the pain scabbed over?

Maybe so. Probably not. It's probably going to take a while for that to happen, for the pain to not be

fresh every single time you think about it.

When you press a finger to the stab wound on your leg, that's long since healed, will it still hurt? No.

Even if there's a scar there, it will not hurt.

So, in a year or two, when someone mentions the person who died, or that divorce, or that person who

left, will it hurt?

Heck yeah, it will.

It's not going to be like the scar on your leg that doesn't hurt at all. It's going to be an ache deep down in

your chest, one that screams and writhes and wants to be free of your body.

It's something you'll carry around with you forever.

It's a stab wound that will never get past the scabbing stage. It will always be a scab.

You'll know it's there, and therefore do your best to ignore it. You won't mention or think about the hurt

or death in your life. You'll tread lightly, walking gently, and trying not to run into any sharp corners.

But sometimes we can't help it. Sometimes others bring things up, that resurface our pain, and the scab

is ripped back open and blood and hurt and agony begins to pour back out.

Sometimes we accidentally hit the table when we're walking by and the wound hurts so bad we are left

gasping on the floor.

Time does not heal all wounds.

Time only scabs wounds, leaving them dangerously open, dangerously waiting.

The good thing?

They change us. They become a part of our story. “Let me tell you where I got this scab…” They begin to shape us and mold us, until we’re a stronger person than we were to begin with.

When we come out of it, we have a much higher tolerance for pain than when we went in.

The other good thing?

We know how to treat other's stab wounds now. We know what helps with the pain, what will make it

scab faster. We know how to be empathetic, and how to be there for them.

 We know how to be a doctor.