Pondering what it means to ponder . . .

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Steve Simms

Efficiency without meaning accomplishes much meaninglessness. However, for those who like mysteries, life is an ongoing one. The more I ponder it, the more I marvel that I can think and perceive at all.

To analyze is to attempt to figure things out. To ponder is to engage in observation and perception. Analysis establishes definition. Pondering flows with intuition and recognition. I think pondering takes place at a deeper level than the rational mind and often without words. It’s more of an inner stirring.

Whenever you think you have life figured out, you’ve stopped pondering what it’s all about. If you’re trapped in analysis paralysis, turn your heart to ponder wonder, and delight in the amazing realities around you.

Awe will make us pensive and open to the greatness of life. Without awe, it’s easy to “just do it”–to just go thru the motions.

If nothing makes you mindful of wonder and awe, you’re too confident that you have life figured out. (You don’t.) When your mind wanders away from analysis, perhaps it’s searching for the wonder of mindfulness. A ponderful life overflows with wonder, amazement, and delight.

What’s easily written off as a coincidence, when pondered, may be a miracle. Before reacting to a situation, pause and ponder. A little insight might make it right.

Observe your thoughts and emotions, like gazing at a painting in an art show. You’ll learn a lot. Tormenting thoughts don’t wait to be pondered. They harass from the get-go. Tormenting thoughts rattle along always trying to interrupt and unnerve people. Peaceful, pensive thoughts wait to be welcomed.

Negative thoughts and emotions barge in and take over, like weeds. Positive ones have to cultivated and grown like crops. My negative thoughts and feelings are plentiful, but I must be intentionally pensive and attentive to goodness, to find positive ones.

If you’re not happy with your current mood, it isn’t mandatory. You can learn to ponder how to train yourself to make your mood pleasant. Many people lack the boldness to examine their own thoughts and feelings, and instead go thru life being continually bullied by them.

Mental analysis can understand processes; pensive pondering can perceive wonder, awe, and meaning. It can intuitively perceive God’s glory in the astounding designs of nature. When it comes to God, hearing a man’s analysis is inadequate. Let your heart ponder and perceive His mind-boggling presence and power.

I love to go observing and pondering in the woods. I get a special sense of God’s presence when I do. I enjoy being pensive–scanning fields of thoughts within me, searching for hope and wisdom, and then following them into inspiration.

Analyzing God leads to theology; pondering God leads to awe. Prayer is much more than merely making intelligible request to God. It’s to be overawed by glimpses of His majesty and beauty.

If you feel stuck and analytical thinking isn’t helping, perhaps it’s time to be pensive and perceptive to fresh ideas.

To ponder is to think about with wonder and awe, not with just analysis. I love to ponder Jesus.

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Being pensive about racism & a knee used to kill

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Steve Simms

Perhaps it’s time to be pensive about racism–to openly ponder it–instead of either ignoring it, denying it, or reacting to it. If we Americans can’t talk about race without defensiveness or anger, we’ll never be able to have meaningful conversations about it.

The great sin of racism is the belief that people can be sorted by skin color. Color in our world is such a beautiful gift from God. Yet humans have used color as an excuse to demean and abuse people.

The knee Americans need to reject, isn’t the knee used to protest police killing black men, but the knee used to kill by a policeman in Minneapolis. Surely a death knee on a man’s neck calls for much more protests than a health-concern mask on a face during the Corona virus.

It’s time to open churches up to recruit and welcome people of all races into their congregations as equals. When someone disagrees with me, I try to be pensive rather than defensive (but I don’t always succeed).

Whites today aren’t responsible for white racial cruelty in the past, but we are responsible not to defend it and/or deny it. American slavery isn’t and wasn’t ever excusable. It should be openly exposed for the cruel human trafficking that

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Do you have an onion? (Oops, I mean an opinion.)

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Steve Simms

Arrogant opinions are like onions. They “reflavor” the truth and can make people cry. The fact that an opinion is popular, doesn’t make that opinion a fact. Opinions may align with truth, but frequently don’t.

Unverified opinions could be called “jumping to confusions.” When it comes to opinions, consensus is often better than conflict; cooperation better than collision. The person who disagrees with you may be right, but the person who insults you is always wrong!

Clarity of understanding is more important than confidence in your opinions. People full of confident confusion about their own opinions, often create chaos.

The human heart isn’t designed to be on continual lockdown to our own opinions. It’s designed to open up to God and to other people.

Too often we let people’s opinions stop us from getting to know their heart. It takes courage to respect other people’s right to disagree with you and to be kind to them anyway.

Opinions that are angrily spoken by us are often bias. Opinions that morph into accusations become acts of aggression. People who lack confidence in expressing their own opinion, often feel a need to attack other people and their opinions. However, if the way you say something is offensive, people won’t be able to stay focused on what you say.

Opinions kindly stated are underrated. They’re much more convincing than putdowns. However, if your approach is to be offensive, instead of kind, most people will be defensive and automatically resist or reject your words.

If you feel the need to be unkind when expressing your opinion, you’re not very secure in your beliefs. When opinions saddle up with anger and override kindness, logic runs out the door.

There’s a big difference between wanting your opinions to be thought true, and wanting truth to shape your opinions. Opinions based on information that isn’t verified are guesses.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but perhaps it’s best not to become embedded in an opinion. Some people’s view of truth is that if they like an opinion, it is.

An opinion is a poor substitute for insight, curiosity, compassion, and understanding. Opinions can be debated, but facts need to be discovered. We need fact finders, not slander spreaders.

To insult or demean someone for holding a different opinion than you do, is cruelty driven by insecurity. Sometimes people need your kindness and compassion instead of your opinion.

It’s better not to have opinion, than to convince yourself of an opinion that isn’t true. If your opinion is wrong and you don’t know it, you’re deceived. Everybody has some wrong opinions. Dare we find ours? When someone thinks your opinion is inaccurate, there’s a chance (however slight), that they could be correct.

Make your opinion count. Align it with truth as much as possible. If people tried to impress their conscience, as much as they try to impress their friends, the world would be a better place.

Only three opinions about you matter: 1) Your own; 2) The opinion of your conscience; and 3) God’s. When you begin to see into people’s hearts, you realize that, regardless of outward differences, we inwardly are very similar.

Here is one of my personal opinions: I think the happiest people are the honest ones, because they feel no need to hide or disguise their thoughts and feelings.

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As churches “reopen,” perhaps they need to “open up” to some things

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Steve Simms

I think that closed churches and open Bibles are more powerful than open churches and closed Bibles. I find daily Bible reading to be essential! Reopen the Bible!

Many Bibles have been shut for years. Where are the protesters? Again I say, reopen the Bibles!

There is zero danger of catching Covid 19 by reopening your Bible. However, your heart might catch on fire!

Personal salvation testimonies are essential to biblical Christianity. See: Revelation 12:11. Open up church to personal testimonies on Sunday mornings. The Bible says that testimonies “overcome” the devil.

Open up churches to “the priesthood of the believer,” as a Sunday morning reality, not just a dusty old doctrine. Let all Christians preach and demonstrate Jesus!

Open up churches to the gifts of the Spirit. For far to long, church has had them on lockdown. (See 1 Corinthians 12:7-10.) Open up churches to every member being free to speak in a worship meeting, according to 1 Corinthians 14:26.

Worship isn’t hearing information about God. It’s pouring out your heart in adoration of Him. Being taught about Jesus should progress to passionate worship and heart-moving interaction with Him. Reopen Spirit-prompted, heart-awakening worship.

The Bible says Christians should meet together. Why? To worship God and to minister to one another as led by the Spirit. When Christians meet without opening our hearts and interacting with each other, we miss out on the New Testament “one another” commands.

However, when we meet to humbly demonstrate the presence of the living Jesus, to one another, God’s glory fills the room. It’s wonderful when Christians come together to focus on, showcase, experience, and obey the risen Jesus.

What Jesus wants to directly say to you and to do thru you is essential to biblical Christianity. Don’t miss out. A heart, open to the living Jesus, is essential. Reopen your heart!

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Self-e (as in ego) — my thoughts on the subject of “self”

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Steve Simms

Self-focused eyes have limited vision. Perhaps finding love, joy, peace, and hope is more important than “finding yourself.” Everybody needs something to think about and focus on, other than self.

To think outside yourself, it helps to listen to someone who thinks differently than you and to try to see from their perspective. Selfless moments are joyful, not sacrificial. The blindfold of self-concern is set aside and dazzling light dances in the heart.

You can find
Peace of mind
When self interests
Are left behind.

Trying to find yourself is frustrating. Searching for a meaningful way to be of service to others is liberating!

If you improve your circumstances, but don’t change yourself, your situation may be better, but you won’t be. To lose yourself in a worthy cause is to find peace and joy that self-focus can never provide.

The bad things happening inside our heart are an even greater threat to our well being than the bad things going on around us.

Pride is self-deception, making us believe that we are better than we really are. Conscience calls us back to truth and humility. Self-focus causes us to be easily offended.

Self is an inner prison that keeps you from appreciating the beauty around you and the image of God in other people. Self-focus tends to ignore or resist God’s will. Humility and brokenness no longer trust self, but seek the will of God instead.

Self-pursuit is exhausting. Self-knowledge is discouraging. Moving on from self to pursue and get to know Christ, produces hope.

Promptings from self are usually a mixture of good and evil. Promptings from the living God are always good.

What you say about other people communicates more about yourself than it does about them. Humility faces reality. Pride replaces it with self-deception.

Focusing on our desires, feelings and opinions distracts us from giving our full attention to the internally empowering Jesus. The more I know myself, the more I realize my great need to continually follow the living Jesus Christ. To live my way is a far cry from living Christ’s way.

Christians aren’t called to follow and obey self. We are called to align with the risen Jesus. The inner voices of self, temptation, and God compete for your allegiance. Your lifestyle shows who you’re listening to. God loves you so much that He wants to free you from self-deception, self-torment, and self-destruction.

When I’m focused on the living Jesus, life is amazing! When I’m focused on myself, it’s frustrating. Since God created me, He does a far greater job of leading me than I do of leading myself, yet often, I still want to resist Him.

Few people doubt the existence of self — a conscious, nonmaterial, rational, emotive, choice making, strong willed, inner entity. Most of us have fought many battles with self. I believe in human consciousness because I experience it daily. I believe that Jesus is alive because I experience Him daily.

Perhaps its time to cut any unbiblical cord (that violates Scripture) in your life. When self leads one way and God leads another, our choice shows the true loyalty of our heart.

A nonfriction life is fiction. Something will always rub you the wrong way, but don’t let it ruin your day.

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The internally empowering Jesus needs no middleman

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Steve Simms

When we cut out the middleman and let the living Jesus directly empower us from within, Christianity rises to new levels of glory. What people say and do, shows the world whether or not they are surrendered to the internally empowering Jesus.

People follow invisible things, thoughts and feelings. The internally empowering Jesus is also invisible. I seek to follow Him.

The most effective empowerment is both internal and supernatural. That’s what the risen Jesus wants to do for you. The best reforms are the ones that He wants to make inside of you.

When you’re discouraged let the internally empowering Jesus shift your heart into Spirit-drive. When I feel weak and powerless, I humbly ask God for help and the internally empowering Jesus rises up within me. He causes me to see the image of God in all people and gives me supernatural love for everybody.

The internally empowering Jesus is limited if you make Him your passenger. However, if you let Him in the driver’s seat, you’ll cruise to freedom! Like a hand puppet in a puppet show, let the internally empowering Jesus animate you by living in and thru you. (If you let the living Jesus fully control what you say and do, would you still be saying and doing what you are now?)

The internally empowering Jesus can give you the amazing ability to freely forgive and bless everybody who’s ever done you wrong. He can break the chains of sin-crusted cravings, habits, and addictions.

I discovered that I can’t obey God in my own power. I need the internally empowering Jesus to live in and thru me. Self-empowerment is a myth. Self-focus exhausts power. It doesn’t enhance it. Focus on a purpose beyond yourself is empowering.

To be internally empowered, let the risen Jesus live inside and flow thru you. The internally empowering Jesus is “the hope of glory”! He can set you free from bondage that has buffeted you for years. Surrender to Him and see!

The formalized Jesus can hide the living Jesus from our eyes, but we can look beyond an institution and see Him with our intuition. Formalized Christianity tends to make people passive, but the internally empowering Jesus stirs people into action.

Formalized Christianity seems to encourage spiritual distancing, instead of encouraging open hearts passionately surrendering to the risen Jesus. Pentecost disrupted formalism and thrust the first Christians into ongoing mystical experiences with the internally empowering Jesus.

The “mystery” of Early Christianity is the internally empowering Jesus: “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial & remembering 3 short poems

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Steve Simms

The first week in March, I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall with the names of 58,267 people of my generation who were killed or missing in that war. This morning I woke up remembering 3 short poems that I wrote about 50 years ago.

ROTC Drill at the University of Tennessee Martin

The thunder of 2,000 feet 
Shakes the surface of my mind. 
If we could only find, 
The key to love and brotherhood,
Instead of joining opposing teams,
And as it seems, 
Preparing to annihilate 
Each other.  
The Meeting 

Two soldiers thrust 
Their bloody bayonets, 
Baring their hearts 
And uncovering the mirror. 
Two frowning faces,
Four moist eyes, 
Meet the awaiting dust, 
With a single thud. 
Vietnam Field -- Green Was Made Red

Green was made red, 
In the middle of the summer, 
With the sun so bright in the sky. 
The field was so green; 
I think it was rice, 
Nourishment for the bodies 
That are scattered amongst it,
Red.

After posting this, I looked at my blog stats for today and saw that I have one reader from Vietnam. As far as I remember, that’s the first time I’ve seen a reader from Vietnam on my blog. The timing on that seems pretty amazing.

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Insults & accusations give birth to fake news

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Steve Simms

To pride, all insults matter, but humility hardly notices them. When people call you a name on social media, don’t answer to it.

Insults are seldom honest. Their goal isn’t truth, but pain. When people insult you, it reveals weakness in them. It shows that they are afraid of you or of your ideas.

Making unproven accusations is reckless and unkind. Shooting insults and disrespect back and forth like a tennis match, seems to me like a way to cause a lot of pointless pain.

Insulting someone is like spitting into the wind. Insults and accusations give birth to fake news To avoid getting caught up in false accusations and fake news, listen to your conscience, to God’s “still, small voice,” and read the Bible with a humble, open heart.

If an accusation is true, show mercy. If it’s false, renounce it and vindicate the accused. If it’s questionable, keep silent.

It’s often hard to see beyond people’s words and behaviors (and your desire to insult them) and to recognize the image of God in them, but life is better when you do.

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The interactive Jesus

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Steve Simms

When Christ is living in you, faith becomes a close and ongoing relationship between you and the interactive Jesus. The interactive Jesus speaks your language. You don’t need a religious interpreter between you and Him. Jesus can be alive and powerful in your life, but to get beyond passive religion, you need to begin to daily interact with Him.

When you connect with the interactive Jesus, your heart begins to flow with His presence and you find yourself loving everybody. Church follows the same pattern every week, but the interactive Jesus continually surprises people with life-changing power.

People want and need personal connection with others. The ultimate fulfillment of that is full surrender to the interactive Jesus. Friendship with the living Jesus is far more than religious sentiment. It is heart-to-heart connection and continual interaction with Him. Staying daily engaged with the interactive Jesus is radically different than hearing a weekly lecture about His attributes.

Following the interactive Jesus involves “call and response.” He prompts and you listen and respond in obedience. He always looks for your response to His voice and His actions. Ignoring His presence quenches His Spirit. Religious tradition has trained people to be unresponsive to the presence and voice of the interactive Jesus.

To isolate from the interactive Jesus is to insulate yourself His presence and power. The interactive Jesus can untangle your heart & heal your hurts. He wants you to cooperate with His total takeover of your life from the inside out and let Him be your Lord! All Christians are called to be inhabited and directed by the interactive Jesus.

The interactive Jesus is speaking. “My sheep hear My voice.” Are you listening? I find a relationship with the interactive Jesus to be the most absorbing, addicting, and amazing thing on earth!

Early Christianity gradually began to replace the interactive Jesus with the formalized Jesus. Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

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Christians are called to be peacemakers, not accusers . . .

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Steve Simms

The living Jesus calls us to reach people with His love, not to defeat them with our political views. He said: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Bless those who curse you,” and “Love your enemies.” I think He meant it.

Christians are called to proclaim, worship, and obey the risen Jesus, not to accuse and insult people. We are called to introduce people to the living Jesus, not to win arguments with them.

Religion tries to define God and contain Him in an organizational hierarchy. We might as well claim that we control the wind. By formalizing faith into a religious format, it’s easy to forgo the fire of the Holy Spirit.

People can see nature’s beauty and be in awe (without needing a lecture). A sermon isn’t necessary to experience the risen Jesus. Saul of Tarsus met the living Jesus without going to church or hearing a sermon. You can, too.

In the Bible, Jesus’ supporters weren’t the official religious people (Sadducees and Pharisees). They didn’t want a living Jesus. Saul of Tarsus gave up his official religious affiliation (Pharisee) to follow and obey the risen Jesus (as “Paul”).

What good is a “do over” if you keep doing the same things over and over? Let the interactive Jesus interrupt your patterns.

Religion is usually prepared, prepackaged, and served up for us. However, Jesus said that we must “seek” the kingdom of God. Christianity is much more than a one-time “salvation” experience or good church attendance. It’s continual interaction with Jesus.

Faith seeks to align with and trust the living God. Religion tries to align God with its belief and trust an organizational structure. Both an atheist who believes in God and a Christian who rejects biblical Christianity, have their terms confused.

Past joys remain somewhere in your heart. Locate and remember them. Then they will make you smile today.

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