Pie Charts

Pie Charts illustrate proportion and ratio.

I think I am challenged when it comes to reading graphs, charts, and tables.  They need to be really simple for me to grasp what they illustrate.  Statistics can be tricky for me, too.  Pie charts are pretty simple though.  I guess I can relate to pie better than to bars running along parallel lines at different tick marks.  I can easily see that when I draw pieces of pie representing what part of my money is going for groceries and clothing, one piece is bigger than the other.  

When recently asked, "In this relationship, how much space do you take up?" I thought of pie.  If I cut the pie in only two pieces, what size would my piece be, and what size would the other person get?  

It is a good question to ask ourselves about all our relationships -- with our spouses, our children, our friends, and with God.  Pick a relationship. Draw a pie.  Now draw the lines that represent your piece.  What is left for the other person?   You've probably been taught to share equally and not be greedy, so don't be tempted to draw the lines where you think they should be.  Draw them where they are.  

Having trouble knowing where to cut the pies in your life?  Ask yourself some probing questions. 

As a regular pattern in your relationships with spouse or friends, how much talking do you do compared to the amount of listening you do?  It doesn't really matter what the topic is about -- that changes according to need.  And sometimes it is necessary for you to do lots of talking, but as a pattern, in your relationships do you do more talking or listening?  Then perhaps you're taking more than your share of that pie.  And listening doesn't just mean not talking, it means listening, really listening.

The very same question can be asked about your relationships with your children.  As a pattern, are you wanting to teach, tell, correct, instruct more than you are wanting to hear and listen?  If you are, then once again, you may be hogging the pie.

What about your relationship with God?  Is he merely an ingredient in your pie?  Do you carve out a piece for him in the pie that is your life?  When you pray, do you use lots of words in order to explain to Him every detail of what you want Him to do?  After all, he told us to cast all our cares on him, and to let our requests be made known to Him, right?  Give them to Him, yes!  Instruct him on how to answer, no.  

Are you in conversation with God, or do you merely talk to God?  To be conversant with Him (which he invites us to do) we need to hear from Him, and our words back to Him need to be related to what He's told us.  Do you know what He's talking about?  He started the conversation -- are you listening?

Relationships and pie -- a good combination -- next time you get together with someone, give them a big slice!

  

Be Positive

No, it's not my blood type, its a command that has been so overly used that we yawn and think, "Yea, yea, yea, blah, blah, blah."  It was drilled into my head during my teacher training.  When the students are running in the hall, you NEVER say 'stop running', instead you say 'walk'.  I remembered this so well, it brought me up short once with my own kids.  Trying desperately (and with futility) to come up with a positive way to say 'stop that' in a split second, I realized how successfully I had been trained. And right then and there, I gave up that silly idea of having to put things positively and just yelled, "Stop that right now!"

But I'm thinking it's time to resurrect the idea of being positive (if not always stating things in the positive) for the purpose of being forceful.  Like, "Absolutely, positively STOP!"  (Is that too negative?)  

I'm not advocating that we ignore negatives -- they are a fact of life.  Let me try that again -- Negatives are a fact of life so let's talk about them positively.  ;-)  Yes, I think that really is what I mean.  There is a difference between addressing negative things and negativism.  Negativism is systemic and chronic.  

Good purposes, and righteous goals drive us to address negative things.  That's positive.  

                "Thou shalt not bear false witness" is positive.

Goodness knows, in our time, there are bad things that must be addressed, and addressed strongly.  But we must keep the good purpose, the righteous goal in mind as we "do battle."  We must disagree at times if we are to stand for truth, and not be taken in by "every wind of doctrine."  But we must stand for truth truly, nobly.  With goodness. 

Do we really believe that truth, beauty, and goodness are more powerful, stronger, and better than lies, ugliness, and evil?  Can we really win the day by choosing to arm ourselves with stuff like truth, righteousness and peace?  

Absolutely, positively.

"Stop and think before you act."  Has this ever helped anyone?!  I mean, if it refers to signing a contract that commits you to life, as in marriage, then, by all means halt and think hard!

But in the heat of a moment, it is very difficult to stop and think, instead we react.  Often, we don't like our reactions, and we chide ourselves, "If I could just learn to stop and think before I react.  Uuugggh!"  We also explain a bad reaction with, "I don't know where that came from.  It just came out of nowhere, because that's really not me."  Yeah, right.   That is simply not true.  It is you, Pogo.  Our reactions reflect what's inside.  And I don't think "stop and think" is very useful in these situations.   If we have to stop (stop what?) and think, it is because we are already thinking and feeling the wrong thing.  Are we stopping and thinking (in that heated moment) about how wrong our thoughts are, or just how to react in a more appropriate way so that our hearts are disguised?  

Well, then, how do we change our sinful reactions if it's not by stopping and thinking?

"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."  Luke 6:45

Changing sinful reactions is no less than changing who we are, and that takes a lifetime.  How do we change who we are?  First we must receive a new heart, which the Father gives when we believe on Jesus.  We are born again.  But we are babes, needing food, drink, and exercise.

How do babies learn to speak?  They are created by God with the necessary apparatus for speech, but they still must hear lots of words for quite a while before they utter the first sound.  

Changing our reactions, making them more like Christ, comes with abiding in, living with Him in close communion.  Remember those disciples in Acts who reflected that they had "been with Jesus"?

Do you think they were stopping and thinking before they spoke?  I don't. I think they spent LOTS of time with Him, learning of Him, being sanctified.  And it showed, they smelled like Jesus!

Now in practice, we have all experienced times where we were in that heated moment, someone provoked us, and a thought came to mind (very different from stopping and thinking) and we reacted differently than we would have last year or yesterday.  That's the fruit of abiding!  Like the day when "all of a sudden" a baby speaks a real word!  It's not all of a sudden -- it came after months of abiding with the spoken word.  As we abide with the Living Word, day by day, we, too, will react differently, and it will surprise us! 

Well,  I'm diving in to this blogging thing.  Web log.  Logging my thoughts on the web, I guess.  I'm thinking that the greatest benefit to this is accountability in my thinking.  I've always liked the idea of journaling (I loved reading some of the old lists, diaries, and notes that were found among my grandparents' things when they died).  But my handwriting is so shaky these days, this will be a better and faster way to get my thoughts organized.

Proverbs 25:11 says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver."  My grandmother had a small coffee table volume of quotes and sayings that was bound in a gold metallic binding with gold apples embossed on the cover.  In the 60's in Troy, Alabama, where she lived, there wasn't much to do, so I sat on her couch and read this from cover to cover.  I was hooked.  I have always loved "fitly spoken" words.  I just love words, period.  Maybe one of my blogs will just be about my favorites.

I believe that God's Word is the only Word that is fit for every occasion, circumstance, feeling, joy, or sorrow that I might have.   But God made us with all the paraphernalia for speech, for language and writing.  Language is a gift, and because it is a gift we are stewards of it.  My words should glorify the Lord.

I pray that as I attempt this "stewardship of words" that I can become more descriptive, thought-provoking, comforting, and encouraging to you, the reader.

Proverbs 25:4 says, "Take away the dross from the silver and the smith has material for a vessel; take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness."

I'm not working with silver but with words.  Perhaps this blog is the fire that will be used to refine my thoughts and words, bringing the dross and scum to the surface, leaving something useful behind.