"why all this hysteria?"

Sometimes there's days when there's not much to say -- and then there's days that, if you were to write down everything you had to say, you'd be scrolling down the page for hours. I wrote these words last night after we watched The Hunger Games movie.

The first time I watched The Hunger Games, maybe my eyes were closed, because I didn't see. Maybe my heart was sleeping, because I barely felt.

I cried many many times tonight. When Katniss volunteered. When Gale watched, when Peeta thought that what was real was not real. 

I saw the terror in it all, I saw their need to be honest and
To be, not to become who the Capitol made them be. 

When Katniss marked Rue's memory with flowers and she got mad and then she cried with all of her. When everything is controlled by evil, they didn't become robots, had no want to please them, they just lived.  

There is trouble for fighting against it, there is no genuine reward or gratitude, only disguised hatred for the time being dressed as congratulations. Because they defied the capitols reign they will suffer, but that was what they were, to have done anything else would have been wrong, cowardly, would have been become who they told them they had to be. 

The boy from district 11, running back to the forest, leaving Katniss with breathing air because of what she did for Rue. On the train at the end when Katniss says i guess we try to forget and Peeta says i don't want to forget. 

And then I wrote this poem.

God

why is there war? 

why do we fight and hate

and be so mean

to even those we love?

why is there darkness

inside and around us?

why isn't it happy?

can't i care instead of stare

help instead of hide?

God

why am i so afraid.

Acts is a book about a man's journey, adventure, around the world; a man whose home was waiting for him as he travelled around this place as a stranger. And when he knew that he had to visit one certain city, and that it wasn't going to be swell and smooth-sailing, he looked around at the people, his friends, who were telling him to give it up, to not go to that place. And this is what he said, this man, this is what he said:

"Why all this hysteria? Why do you insist on making a scene and making it even harder for me? You're looking at this backward. The issue in Jerusalem is not what they do to me, whether arrest or murder, but what the Master Jesus does through my obedience. Can't you see that?"

It was so clear to Paul. He wasn't there to live a good and "success"ful life. 

"The issue is... what... Jesus does through my obedience."

His friends were only looking out for him -- they didn't want anything bad to happen to their friend! But Paul understood this thing that I find it so, so hard to grasp; we're not here to live this great life that makes people think, I want to be like that. We're not here to please people and earn fabulous reputations. 

Paul knew why we were here. He understood life. He understood God's plan, he knew Jesus. 

I don't. I don't understand. I'm rambling, scrambling for the answer in these computer keys. But I've got nothing. I've got no answer. What did Paul know that we don't know, that he wasn't afraid to go to Jerusalem? That he was stoned and left for dead and shipwrecked and sent to prison for years for doing absolutely nothing -- what made him so sure that everything was okay?

"I've been crucified by Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

What's that mean? Paul walked from country to country, to Rome and to Greece. He told everyone he met about Jesus and what He'd done for him. Paul believed it with more than all his heart; it was everything he was. There was nothing about whether people would like him better if he wore a suit or a flour sac -- he didn't give a stuff what they thought of him, Paul just wanted everyone to see what he saw -- that Jesus was real and alive and he wanted them to know Him like he did and live like he did, loving Jesus! 

God why am I so afraid?

My sister just posted these words, giving another glimpse into Paul's soul:

“For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” 

He knew what life was, Paul did. He believed in his heart that Christ is Lord and Heaven is real, and that was where he looked; where his treasure was. 

Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.