The Best

If you're a long time reader you know I not only share stories from my life and pictures, I also use this blog as a vessel to work through thoughts, ideas, struggles going on in my heart. I do try my human best not to be passive aggressive sending messages out through my talks, but to reconcile towards peace in my own heart. I will say my whole family is all thanking God for my nephew Jamee's safety. Oh and I will get belly pics up soon.

Simple Marriage is one of the most interesting 'non-personal' blogs I read and I've quoted here a few times.

"Let the best in you run your life. If you’re like most people, you have a scared, angry, vindictive, or lazy side that limits the quality of your relationship. You don’t have to let that side of you run your life. Instead, live from the resilient side of you. Remind yourself of what is admirable, competent and good about yourself, and about your partner. Seek to relate to your partner as though they are capable of developing further as a person."

I know I want my best life possible. I also know I have the tendency to procrastinate and to rely on others to initiate. Those expectations on others to fill in for me is where I reveal one of many immature sides that God is molding. Being my best makes me think of self control and only when I exercise more of it do I strive to act in a mature 'best" way. God, like any good father, wants our growth more than just our happiness. He does give us the desires of our heart in His time, but there's more to life than what I want to make me happy.

To me, being the best is showing maturity and exercising self-control. It's being respectful, helpful, kind, generous. It's putting other feeling's before mine. It's being humble enough to admit I'm wrong and apologize. It's understanding there are two sides to every story. We have 4 versions of Jesus' life, they are all true, accurate and different because they come from 4 different men's perspectives. Understanding in real life we don't have complete villains or innocents and the truth lies somewhere in between.

The best is about is having the self control to calm myself down without making others suffer for my own rotten mood. Maturity is not placing my happiness on anyone else's shoulders. My best is shown when I remember I have two ears and one mouth and it's not all about me. It's having the courage to step up and do the right thing when no one else is. It's going to the person who has offended me instead of just talking about them behind their back. It's letting the past remain a teachable lesson I forward move with and not something I feel I need to defend or dwell in. It's keeping my word and not making excuses when I don't come through.

The word mature appears in the bible 7 times..

1. Luke 8:14
   The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.
   
2. 1 Corinthians 2:6
   [ Wisdom From the Spirit ] We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
3. Ephesians 4:13
   until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
   
4. Philippians 3:15
   All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
5. Colossians 4:12
   Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.
6. Hebrews 5:14
   But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil
   
7. James 1:2-8 (my personal favorite) Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" Ephesians 4:29

"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control" Proverbs 29:11

"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self -control" Proverbs 25:28

"Finally brothers, whatever is true, what is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things" Philippians4:8