I am very confused when it comes to God, I want to know everything about Him, but at the end of each day of searching to find out more I just realize there is much more about Him that I will never know, which makes the next day make me want to understand and know that mystery which I’ve learned the day before. The cycle goes on and I certainly get caught up instead of realizing I need to look at God as a mystery, I need to think about Him and wonder, instead of trying to think about Him and go, “yea…I know everything about that”. He is a mystery but one that I can be personal with.

One of the many reasons I broke off from writing blogs on MySpace is because I don’t care to have many half-hearted readers, because I want to be able to ask a lot of questions, show my flaws and doubts and not cause any to stumble [that's the goal that I hopefully accomplish, but probably fall short of]. I want my readers to be able to tell me my flaws, challenge my challenges, etc. If I make mistakes and I risk causing any to stumble in their faith because of my challenges or questions, It certainly isn’t my objective, I pray that it isn’t the result of some reading my blogs either. But at the same time, me being vulnerable with my flaws and doubts I’d hope to encourage not discourage, to show a fellow doubter that they are not alone and there is hope. I would almost dare to say that pretending I’ve got everything figured out and that I don’t struggle with loving people as myself would discourage and cause some to stumble thinking they are worthless in comparison, almost giving the illusion that there are people on this earth that have got it together and make them feel worse about their flaws and doubts.

In the past I have written my views and opinions on different beliefs and topics in the church and world. They are my mere opinions and some have certainly changed. I think at this point the one thing that I am not unsure about, I think Jesus makes very clear for a good reason, is that we should Love God with everything we’ve got and Love our neighbor as ourselves.

Then we can make this more complicated by asking, “what is love, who is my neighbor, etc”. But I think it’s supposed to be simple, we aren’t supposed to go to college for a degree in Love and only love people four years later when we have an illusion of understanding it. Love now, sure you will mess up, this is how we learn love, and get to know God.

I really enjoy hanging out with people and making them laugh, whether it is jokes, stories, insults [in good fun], or facial expressions, I really enjoy doing that. [Ironically my name means laughter]. People that have met my father have said, “so that is where you get your humor from”, which I think is half-true, I think my dad sparked my humor and my mom encouraged it, because she loves to laugh. My dad tells jokes and my mom laughs at jokes, so it made me try and eventually got a bit better. On the other hand, my very funny brother Chadd, signed up for comedy school, buys books on humor and reads online articles about humor and how to be funny. When really he would learn more if he just kept making people laugh and studying their response to the jokes. Also I say things that I think our funny, and soon after telling them I find out if they were or not.

What I am getting at is this, we can sit around debating and arguing on what love is, what it isn’t and how to apply it etc. Basically, you know how you want to be treated, you know you like to eat each day, if you walk past someone that isn’t going to eat, do what you can to change that as if it were your own body. Study the reactions of people. I used to think that everyone was like me, I love talking to strangers and random people, so on the subway I would assume loving people as myself was talking to them, by trying this I realized that though that is true, sometimes loving people is giving them their time to think to themselves, which when I need it, I need it. Basically look at everyone better than yourself and fulfill whatever needs you think they may have and care about them enough to see if that is what they needed at that moment.

I have heard that love is: Your needs are my needs, your burdens are my burdens.
When someone is crying, sometimes they don’t need cheering up but someone to cry with.

your friend,

-Isaac