“Put good in, get good out.”
I really hate cliches like this…
However, over the past 2 weeks or so I’ve found out just how true it is.
The last couple months I’ve been reading mainly books about politics. I’ve really enjoyed them and I feel like I learned a lot about what I believe and how to articulate it. But I found myself, and by extension my writing, stagnating.
I could’ve probably written multiple articles about politics, economics, foreign policy, etc., but this page and website are about more than that. They’re about changing people’s mind, heart, and perception. They’re about how we treat each other. They’re about the things that, from the most basic level, form our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs on everything. They’re about stories.
So, I decided something needed to change.
Over the past week or 2 I’ve been watching the talks from this year’s Passion Conference, and the change has been amazing! If you don’t know what Passion is, it’s a gathering of young adults held every year in Atlanta to worship and grow in relationship with Christ. I was lucky enough to go 3 times with my church’s college group and it’s honestly one of the best events I’ve ever been to!
Some of the speakers this year were Tim Tebow, Sadie Robertson, John Piper, Christine Cain, Louie Giglio, and others. All of their talks that I’ve watched have been amazing, and it’s so cool to see the entire Mercedes Benz Stadium filled with people praising Jesus. But, in a way, for me it’s been less about what they’re saying specifically and more about the overarching commonality of the message and what I’m “putting in.”
You see, for a while I had been filling my time and myself with news, politics, tv shows, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and all that stuff-while not inherently bad-had started to become cluttered. I had also really started feel that SMA was getting the better of me and I couldn’t see a way out of it. Fear and frustration had replaced hope and determination. To quote Christine Cain, the arteries of my heart and soul had become “clogged,” and I could feel. I needed to clear them out and start putting in something that would fill me eternally.
I needed God.
When I started watching these talks from Passion, I started praying more diligently and purposefully. And as I did that, my thoughts became more clear and my writing began to flow. I began to get out of myself, stop thinking about what I wanted to say, and started letting God speak through me. It was almost instantaneous.
I was reminded that God can use me from where I am now, and that the only way out of where I am now is to put everything in His hands and allow Him to lead me there.
You see, this article hadn’t been the first article of 2020 that I intended. In fact, it was supposed to be a fairly short post to go on Facebook and Instagram to keep you engaged until I finished the other article I had planned. But I think this is the first article of 2020 that God intended me to write.
As we enter a new year and a new decade, what are you “putting in?” What is filling up your time, and in turn, yourself? We can say we want this new year and decade to be a change for us. We want it to be better. But if you continue putting the same things in, your going to continue getting the same things out. If you continue to allow the arteries of your mind, heart, and soul to be cluttered and clogged up with fear, frustration, and a bunch of stuff, as Christine Cain said, you’re going to stay stuck and stagnant.
So start putting good in… or maybe I should say, start putting God in.
I don’t know what your relationship with God looks like. Maybe it’s even better than mine and you read your Bible everyday, and pray often, and your growing in your relationship. That’s awesome! I’m glad. But maybe you, like I had, have gotten stagnant and you need a jumpstart. Let this be that jumpstart, that push to start allowing God to work in your life again. Or maybe you don’t understand a thing I’ve been talking about, and this whole Jesus thing is new to you. That’s ok too. We all start somewhere, the key is that you start. Pick up a Bible and start reading. Talk with a friend. Search “Passion 2020” on You Tube and watch a talk or two.
So if you really want this new year and new decade to be better, to be different, start putting God in, and I can guarantee that you’ll start getting good out. I did.
Well, those are my remARCs. I hope they in some way, big or small, might have resonated with you. Whether it made you laugh, cry (I hope not too much), smile, or maybe think about life from a different perspective, I hope you take something away from this article that makes your day even the slightest bit better. I’d love to hear your remARCs as well. Feel free to send me an email at myremarcs@comcast.net, or leave a comment on the My RemARCs Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages… unless you hated it. In which case, why are you even still reading this? Hope to see you back here soon. Until then, be well and live remARCably.
My RemARCs 