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“The pressure” or “I always welcome a new audience”

Well, judging from the 5-fold increase of visitors to my blog lately, it seems many followed the Westwinds community e-mail path here to check out some random blog Amy highlighted. It belonged to some Joel guy most of you had never heard of…but she claimed he had his hand in some things at the church.

I guess that’s good in a lot of ways. For one, it proves some people actually read to the very bottom of Amy’s messages since that’s where my plug was inserted. Two: I got some free exposure for my photographs and possibly increased my blog readership another person or two. Three: it will allow some of you to get to know a fellow member of the Body. Four: it places increased pressure on me to come up with something snappy to say on here.

Actually, that’s not really a good thing. Here I am, typing for the sake of typing, spinning my wheels trying to say something useful mostly because I haven’t updated in three days and don’t want people to get bored following my blog.

So, I guess I’ll go back to what I usually write about: what God’s doing in my life. And three things come to mind:

  1. I realized–Tuesday I think–that my moods are almost entirely under my control. For a person like myself to realize this is quite freeing. I used to be confused about why I would respond to situations and have the moody days I would have year after year. It seems to be that I’ve simply LET myself.
  2. God can often be a Hallmark god for people–including myself. He’s turned to for the special occasions. But you know what’s exciting: he cares about everything, because everything is of eternal significance.
  3. And third: I’m rereading Waking the Dead, which we’re working through as a small group. Eldridge often talks about how we’re all special and have a unique role to play in the Great Story God has written. Stuff like that. The revelation came to me that I usually judge how "special" my life is and how significant my role is based on the roles of the people around me. If I don’t perceive my life to be of more significance than person x… well, I must not be that special.

    But I now understand that the role of each person is significant and important because God specifically wrote that character into the script. I’m no playwright, but I doubt many bother to develop characters that are expendable. If the play could be as effective without them–why spend the energy developing them?

    It’s mostly a perspective thing. I’m continually being taught what it means to shift it from man to God. And it’s very freeing.

So, if you’re a new or seasoned visitor, thanks for stopping by for the first time or the fiftieth. I will now spell check to help avoid embarrassing myself.

By Joel Maust

Joel Maust is a marketer, blogger and photographer living in the beautiful Flathead Valley of northwest Montana.

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