Biblically Speaking

Though I am paraphrasing, according to the Bible, God told Abraham that 'you would be famous amongst all the nations.' Jesus spoke that the love of money is the root of all evil. Many people get this confused with money simply being the root of all evil. It is okay to want and be famous. To want to be wealthy. It's where it comes from. The passion that derives from your heart. The creative. The ability to share with others. As well as to listen so that we can grow together. As I just checked on Twitter today, there is yet another site for the super famous. In my humble opinion, I find this ridiculous and contradicting. This allows for these certain individuals to have an even larger forum for their platform, as if we have not heard enough or seen enough of them.  Self-promotion should not give you the emotion of self-importance.

I am quite taken aback by the fact (and yes, that rhymed) that certain people have to document their every move. When did this become normalcy and accepted? And we facilitate it. No matter what you do for a living, obviously promotion can be a great thing, whether you are a baker, a lumberjack, a musician, an actor. etc. I frankly am disgusted with the terms rock star and movie star. Have you asked yourself, what does this mean?  Only in these two fields does this exist.  I feel that I need to speak my mind on this because I understand human nature and that many people feel this way. The number of sheer followers on Facebook and Twitter somehow make people feel important,  yet no relationship has been developed between many of the followers and following. There's even a site to put a price tag on what your Twitter page is worth.  And it is based upon how many people follow you and how many you follow, an incentive to not follow others. This is ridiculous.

Every time I turn around I see certain people constantly promoting, not their work, but their daily routines: what they eat, when they workout, etc. What is this saying? What is this doing for the world? We talk about prejudice and racism; have we forgotten already about segregation? I am simply saying that self promotion should not give you self worth. I am not here to offend and I will certainly not bring up names.  When I'm on Twitter, I see a lot of people asking to please Facebook me.

Yet, we all know the reasons why.  I see certain people on Twitter that have never retweeted or favorite one person, when several have multi-millions of followers.  According to Twitter guidelines, you must follow at least one person, though the contradiction lies in this.  If you follow too many people without having enough followers, Twitter halts your ability to follow anyone else.  I have a friend on Twitter that has around 100,000 followers and follows 78,000 and they stopped him from being able to follow anyone else.  I have learned a lot about Twitter as of recent, though I had joined up years ago, I did not become active until a couple months ago. I have built great relationships with people. Friends are friends in cyberspace or not. Twitter keeps asking me questions about their site. Through this I have found out that their initial statement is that it's about Sharing and Caring. That's not true.

We have all seen the blue check mark. That has nothing to do with your followers or following.  There are people that you may not know, may have never heard of that have it.  Initially, I believed this to show an actual person that may have many false accounts taken out in their name.  I was wrong. Twitter bases this through their own process, they determine it by whatever guidelines they deem fit. More segregation.  Along with this blue check mark comes availabilities and opportunities that those who do not have it simply do not have. My question is why? No man is more important than another man. I do not believe in title. Sure, I think it's great to be able to talk to, in today's world, what we call a celebrity, which comes from celebrate.  Shouldn't we be able to celebrate all life?  Frankly, it's gotten out of hand.  I believe Twitter can be a great resource. But it's heading towards a downward spiral.

 The feed you receive is regulated by Twitter.  Many of the people that I follow and follow me, I may not see their tweets for several days.  So I personally go to their site and check it out, because they are my friends and family.  You ask how and why can they be?  Because we will argue and debate, cry and laugh, with and for each other.  We're interested in the well-being of our friends on Twitter. Can there be a better definition of friends and family than this?  I think not. I have blood relatives that I know less about than people that I have befriended on Twitter and Facebook.  Some living halfway across the world. And I know more about them.

What I am getting down at... What my point is.  Is we all need to be loved. We want to be liked. We need to be heard and we need to listen. It's the only way to grow.  This comes through discernment of the Spirit. Whether you believe in God or not, whether you are angry with Him or not, what I have just spoken applies to everyone. My life story is one of torment and torture. There is no reason I should be alive today, let alone speaking this.  And in actuality my wife is typing it because I am incapable. I have seen a lot of ugliness in this world and I'm tired of it. I know that I have not shared my story yet.  It would take a very long time.  And we all know, while living in suffering, it is hard to speak of it. I have had the fame and money early in my life.  All my gifts and hard work have been stripped of me from horrific illness.  Yes, I want to play my music, I want to have a wonderful life with my caring and loving wife. I have dedicated my life, as ill as I am, to helping others in the way that I can. We all need to relate.  We all need a voice.  Don't be afraid to use yours.  And don't let someone or something take it away.

What I am doing here is a very long process. But it will come to fruition. Whether I survive the surgeries that I have been waiting to have. Or I am healed by the hand of God, or I simply die. I know that I have lived my life with dignity and with Truth. Why have we forgotten the greatest message of all?  Which is to love each other?  That we are our brother's keeper. We are all just people. And we all want the same thing. But more than that, we all need the same thing.  If we just understood that about each other, by understanding ourselves, knowing who we are in Christ, things would change. People accusing and judging with their impatience, with their Me Me attitude. This helps no one and it especially does not help yourself. If we are all selfless than there is no reason to be selfish, for we are all getting what we need.  And be sure of this my friends, there is a difference between need and want.  Through my illness, I doubt there is anything, not one thing that I could not relate to with any person on this planet.  Except for childbirth. (That's supposed to be funny.)  I have so many stories pouring in.  I want them all to be heard. It is a difficult process.  Yet, nothing happens overnight. And how I, and everyone else, wishes it did. But if wishes were fishes, we'd have a bunch. Are you a fisher of man? Because in my opinion, we are all one Big Fish.

 I have stated many times that to lead we must follow and to follow we must lead and Christ is the best example of this. Eventually, the ones who follow you, if you choose not to listen to them, they will choose to stop listening to you. What message is there in that? And what message do you want to send? I have seen people who love so much and help with all their heart and yet, only a handful of people may know what they do.  Is it really necessary to tell everyone how great you are?  I've always subscribed to this. Let them find out for themselves. Because we all have the ability and opportunity, when listening and acting through our heart to be great. It's not who we are that is great.  Or what defines us.  It's what we do. Do not be prideful, but take pride in who you are. Your life is a gift. All of you are a gift. From the man who works 20 hours a day and has a family and his greatest joy is to provide and love. To the woman who will never receive the recognition for the hard work that she does based upon her gender. Or even to the celebrity that is so famous, yet very few know how much they do and how much they give, because they are doing it without a camera. I am almost 40 years old. I have went through in my lifetime what most people would not experience in a thousand. The old saying, to each their own, may be true. I believe that we all feel that no one can understand or relate and sometimes that is true. But how do we know unless we open our hearts. I don't believe in the word trying.  It does not exist in my vocabulary.  I either do or I don't. There are many days that go by that I am incapable of eating, times when I can't even drink a sip of water.  Nights where I will hallucinate, or not sleep for weeks at a time.  My body is riddled with disease from no fault of my own. I want to share one last personal note.  I am not confused with this world.  I am confused with God.  I know the bible inside and out.  I know that perfect word does not always apply to this imperfect world.  People are crying out and sometimes it seems as if God Himself is not even caring let alone listening.  Many days I have no idea what's going on, but I know that I am not special, I am not greater, I know that I was given this gift by the grace of God as we all have been given it. Strength and grace. Love.  Discernment. Sometimes, it becomes beyond difficult and yes, may be more than we can handle. I do not presume to know why. You can drive yourself crazy by trying to figure this out. But that is why, what I am saying is pure Truth.  It is absolute.  So please, keep sending your stories.  There is nothing wrong with the fact that one of the reasons that you may be doing it is because it will be heard by the world.  That is part of the point of why I am doing this.  We are all everyday people.  We are all ordinary. But we all are capable of doing extraordinary things.  With all my love, I hope that you receive all the blessings that are meant for you.  God Bless.

~Joshua Jet Vaughan~