eventful.

today was eventful in a lot of ways.

church this morning was interesting. I went to a women's bible study group beforehand because I didn't really have anywhere else to be (senior high and young adults [read: college] was taking a break, and so I went to jess's mom's group with jess and Mrs. Sanchez and Lisa. So that was really interesting for me; we talked a lot about children and basic problems that women have in dealing with kids, from being too disciplinarian to not enough, and allowing the father to take over for all the "hard" stuff, to being too "smothering" or wanting to fix their lives for them, and it was really interesting, mostly, from the perspective that every single one of these women loved their husbands, but definately found fault with them in a variety of ways. Each of them had a different thing that really wasn't working, but all of them wanted it to and tried really hard to work around it. Which I thought was awesome. It made me kind of sad to listen to some of the people (like mrs sanchez, "if Javier tried to grow a backbone, I'd break it! -laughs-) when they made their husbands out to be weak, because I don't think they are, or that that's what they're called to be.

One of the things I loved was when the woman leading it made this connection between Eve and Adam and how men and women are called to be in relationships, and that when God created us as male and female, our natural inclination (as women) is to be conniving and get our husbands to do what we want by wheedling them into it, and as men, our natural inclination is to sit back and take it and be pushed into different things because we don't really want to be bothered to do that on our own. But, the neat part, is that God's command to the fallen Adam and Eve was a role reversal of our comfort zones on both parts--women, to be subordinate to the will of the man as the final call, and men to be the prayerful leaders of the house, to have to make these kinds of choices as an equal partner with the wife but ALSO with God, and recognizing that if God hadn't commanded this to us, relationships as we know them wouldn't work and wouldn't be as full.

Neat, huh? I liked it.

So, Al (not my favourite preacher, but still good nevertheless) talked today about the anticipation and arrival of jesus (which have already happened) leading to adoration, which naturally leads into an attitude change. This also ties in well to what the leader of the women's group was saying to a woman who was talking about her husband (a new christian) and how he doesn't treat her son (his stepson) like an equal part, but more as a shadow of her ex-husband. And the woman leading the class turned to her and said, "honey, you know what? he's got jesus now, and following that lead is going to make things a whole lot better. You just have to give him time to grow in it!"

That reminds me of this idea of adoration leading to a change in attitude. Because it will, if we let it. Hebrews 2:14-17 (mostly 14, that's my favourite verse) talks about jesus's destruction of the fear that binds us; the fear of death. I know it seems silly, because I don't really think I'm very afraid of death, but then I look at all of the anti-aging products out there, the ways to keep your mind sharp, the treatments to bring you back from the edge of death into a shadow of what your life once was, and I realize that everyone's afraid of death.

The other big focus of al's talk was on the attitude switch being about selfishness, and changing our selfish attitudes (which are very me-first, egocentric) and taking time to be overcome by adoration. Being filled with a profound reverence for God, and being overcome by the emotions towards him. How freaking sweet is that? Our invitation, from God to his creation, is to be radically and emotionally changed, to be overcome, and to have such a shift in attitude that we're all out here for each other. Philippians 2:4-11 is a huge focus on this, that Christ came to model an others-centric attitude (he came to serve, not to be served. why don't we do that?).

We owe him our best. The shepards and the wise men gave it to him. They just didn't understand yet that he wasn't talking, por lo mayor, about material things. He's talking about our lives, our control, our decisions, the very essence of what makes us, us. And it's a really neat thing to let go of.