Smiling Dog

"Religion...is a smile on a dog."
                 -Edie Brickell

I "liked" a tweet the other day that read something like this: "I believe in destiny, God, and hard work."  It just jived with me right away, one of those moments when I just intuitively click to "like" something without giving it much thought.  Just felt right.
Then I started thinking about it more later, and getting all theological about it, so I thought I'd better mash up these thoughts and spit them out on paper, er, digital paper, anyway, so here I am.  Just writing this for myself, really, to figure out what I really believe.

Do I believe in destiny?  Not sure.  I tend to be a bit pessimistic, was brought up to just expect "good enough", to work hard and forget about silly fairy tales.  So it's harder for me as an adult to jump into the belief about destiny; besides, it sounds a bit racy in light of my theological beliefs.  Meaning, I revert by default to believing in God's perfect will and His permissive will.  I can explain.

God's perfect will, I believe, is that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives.  He wants the best for us.  We're His children and He loves us.  However, when sin entered the world, things got complicated.  Sin bred all kinds of problems that were passed down through generations, creating lots of cycles of bad behavior, as well as the curses on nature itself and how this affects us all.  So we are a bit twisted now, and our choices are not always in line with what God's perfect will would be for us.  We're screwed up in a lot of ways, and make decisions that put us in the wrong places and situations.  And then of course we have that free will that God gave us, since He loves us so much, He wanted us to love Him back on our own accord, not as puppets on a string.  So we can't just blame our great great grandparents for passing on their twisted genes.  We're pretty nasty in our hearts and minds to begin with!

Fortunately, God is also a gracious God.  He forgives our sins, sometimes rescues us from our circumstances, even if they were self-induced, and gives us second  chances.  So there it is: God's perfect will, which some may translate as our "destiny", if everything goes perfectly, that is.   Then God's permissive will, which allows us to make our own choices, whether good or bad.

Next is the hard work. Some people misquote the Bible as saying "God helps those who help themselves". (where is that, anyway, in the book of Jedediah?)  But the idea is good.. God does help us when we pray in faith, and we have good motives.  Not saying He always answers our prayers the way we want Him to, but..He loves us. He gives us strength.  And when we set our minds to something, I believe He blesses our efforts to be successful.

I'm in that Hard Work stage right now.  I took hold of a dream, and even though I am clearly, painfully aware of my sin and my shortcomings, I still have hope that I can make a way to make some dreams come true.  If I take it slowly and patiently.  Loving others to the best of my ability throughout the process.  Not selfishly focusing on myself so much that I neglect others.

My hard work is this blogging thing.  I've been learning how much more there is to it than just spilling my thoughts like I am right now. Well, this is one type of blog, I guess.  A personal, private blog that's solely for my own enjoyment and therapy, really.  That's still really important to me.  However, my dream is about starting my own website, a "brand", you may say, and monetizing it.  I've been soaking up new teachings about blogs and affiliate marketing and how to design a website to attract lots of views..so much new stuff that sometimes my head feels like exploding.  So many new technical things, and business things, stuff I never studied in school but am now finding oddly fascinating!  While my household chores still take up the majority of my time as a mom, I cherish my few free hours of "off" time to work on website stuff; it's my new hobby!

In conclusion, I do believe in a form of destiny, of God, of course, and definitely of hard work.  Praying that my hard work will pay off, and that I will be able to do some exciting things with the rest of my years on this Earth.  Things that I don't have to wait around to find someone who's equally as passionate about them as I am; I learned the hard way that  it's better to be alone and work a bit harder to go after your dreams, than try to hook up with someone and hope they'll serve them to you on a silver platter.  Doesn't work that way.  I'm learning that I AM ENOUGH!  And that a middle-age mom can reinvent her life, pursue a brand new career, and find satisfaction in the work of her own hands, assisted, of course, by a loving God who watches, smiling, from above.

Goodnight!