I have no eloquence...

Where is the balance found between trying to hard and not trying hard enough? Where is the balance found in self-reliance and fatalism? Where is the balance found between relying on God knowing only He can provide and working as if you're the only one who cares?

Martha said, "don't you care...Lord"
The disciples said, "don't you care...Lord"

The quick and easy answer is, "Yeah I do, duh, haven't you heard anything I've said, haven't you seen all that I have done?"

The other - they way Jesus did answer - was harder because it takes more contemplation of how one sounds and the message they want to give...it was harder because it combined love and truth. He removed the focus on the obvious and brought the discussion to the real problems - and BECAUSE HE HAD NONE - the focus went to their problems and how they needed to change (for their own benefit mind you, he was blessing them in this).

How do we find the balance in our lives with understanding Jesus's intense love for us and the Father's desire to provide and the Spirit's desire to fellowship, and the other end of the spectrum which commands us to work and "provide" for our loved ones because no one else will. We're called to be hard-working and diligent, not lazy and overwhelmingly idealist. We need to see from God's perspective, viewing all things through both the lense of truth (not everything is perfect and nice and comfortable) and the lense of love (God will provide, there is a solution in Him, all things work for His glory...).

It's easy to fall back and ignore problems and say it's all going to workout for God's glory when tough situations come around, it's hard to combine that with a diligence to overcome and fightback by overlooking wrongs against you or confronting issues. Remember Jesus in the temple, when he saw the money-changers? Did he just say, "ohh look, these guys are sinning, well, the Father will fix this soon enough and so let them just slave to sin for now?" Of course not, he overturned their tables, effectively ruining their desire to sin. He decided He would fix the problem (as God and man). Stand up for what's right-eous, and be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Also, know your stuff.....I mentioned this earlier when I wrote briefly about being "people of the Book." I'm in a couple Christian theology courses, and students are often asked difficult questions about their faith, and what's right, and so forth. In my class on The Theology of the English Poets, I'm getting tired of the professor (who is amazingly brilliant and a top-notch debater) dominating these Christian brothers and sisters of mine. He won't even call on me unless I've had my hand up for 10 min. We get along really well and everytime a question is asked my friends will stumble over their reason and attempted explanations that are full of words and no substance. No one is pulling our their Bibles and slaying his questions with some simple passages of Scripture. Today he was asking about what makes being a Catholic better than a Protestant, and finally it got to the question of "Is being Christian enough?" People were pausing and thinking and stuttering and inconclusive...He asked me what I thought and I started commenting on Revelation and how every church has problems and many churches have good solutions, but the disjointedness of the Body is the cause and that's why Christ calls for unity, because we wouldn't have near as many problems if we sought out the Truth like the Bereans did when Paul was preaching to them (Acts of the Apostles/Holy Spirit). Another comment I made was on being followers of Christ and not Apollos, Peter, etc... Basically, being a Christian is enough, but if you don't have a firm understanding of what being a Christian is, then it will never be enough. It's being one in the Body, it's being saved by faith in God's grace given through Jesus's death on the cross and resurrection to life after defeating death and acting as the Lamb which atoned for our sins and allowed God's wrath to Pass Over us, it's being continually producing good fruit and increasing in measure of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and Christian love, it's about seeking Christ always and yielding yourself to the Lord's will constantly, it's about reliance on the Father's provision, it's about girding yourself in the Truth of Jesus Christ (around the loins which, being most vunerable, are most suseptible to attack), it's about delighting in the Lord and resting in His rest...

and so much more...

I'll write more later...let me know if there are topics you want me to address or things I've left out...correct me, admonish me brothers and sisters

God bless,
DMS