Malcolm Potts August 16th 2015 ~ Boring Irrelevant

Today [Thursday] I am feeling boring and irrelevant.  As I was riding my bike this  morning with half a dozen other amazing men, I thought, "Pottsy, you have nothing to say and they are all so interesting... you are just boring and irrelevant."Can you see the problem with my thinking?  I must be honest, it took reading a psalm and praying with others for me to see it.  The problem is that I am defining myself by a completely subjective guess that others are better and more interesting than me.  The real problem is, I am starting with ‘me’!  It's all about me.On Tuesday night a healthy group met to begin the 6-week Bible Overview course at church.  It was really good.  We watched a 15-minute video, chose a couple of questions we wanted to explore with one other person and finally shared what interested us with the whole group.  The bloke doing the teaching on the video, Mike Raiter, a world class bible teacher, reminded us of how the bible starts... with God.God before timeGod createsGod speaksGod seesGod namesGod establishesGod blessesGod declares and so on....I start with me, me, me! I start by trying to define myself against others. The bible starts with God who made me and all things. The bible says, ‘Start with God and define everything by what he says about it.’It dawns on me that who I let define me may well be the most important thing about me, my wellbeing and my ultimate destiny.The other very helpful thing Mike Raiter explained in the first session of the Bible Overview was what mankind's first ‘sin’ - his choice to doubt God's goodness and do things his own way - actually produced.  What are the results for us through this ‘fall’?As you can guess, one of the very first results of this ‘fall’ is that we start defining ourselves over and against other people, either better - look at me - or worse - look what they made me do!  Shame mixed with arrogance.My saving psalm, 101, this morning, opens with, "I will sing of your covenant love/loyalty and justice; to you, LORD, I will sing praise."That's where I should start the day.  God has made an unbreakable agreement to call me his own child.  He says everything that he is and has is now mine, because of Jesus.  He doesn't make irrelevant, boring junk.Is that just?  No way!  I don't deserve any of it.  But he declares it to be so.  He has the right to because everything starts with him, not with me.Irrelevant?  Boring?  Says who?  Come on Pottsy.  Get your eyes on yourself and you'll stop dead. Get your eyes on the LORD and you'll move ahead.Blessings,Malcolm