Agenda

So recently I have been thinking about how so many decisions in this life are based around people's agendas. Even when people have the best intentions in the world they always have some kind of agenda deep down whether they mean to or not. I noticed about a year ago how much of my agenda has ruled my life, and how much it still does. It is very difficult to make a decision completely void of one. So whenever I am faced with making a decision now I always think for a long time, "is my agenda getting in the way?" or "do I have an agenda behind this decision and not even know it?" and even "is this a worthy agenda if I am going to move forward with an agenda based decision?"

I think you can have a good agenda to help you make decisions but so often it seems that agendas are people's selfish reaction to decisions.

As a Christian I see this in the Christian community so much. One of the things that always makes me cringe is when I hear somebody say "I think God is telling me this or God wants me to do this". As a sceptic the first thing I want to say is "no thats what you want and you are putting God's name in the middle of your agenda". Perhaps this is to harsh but I honestly believe this gets abused all of the time. One of my favorite singer/songwriters David Bazan even sings about this and makes a point in the line that describes how people steer conversations for the Lord when the whole time the Holy Spirit is begging you to shut up. He actually uses slightly different words that may offend some but the meaning is the same and every time I hear that song I think "amen".

There are two times in my life when I said I think God wants this for me. And I have been very careful when I say that because I think that gets thrown around way too much. And how can you argue with someone once they say that. I just want to say "ok well if God says so" and move on in life.

We see this stuff in politics, in the church, in the media, and it is really time for us to be careful not to throw that kind of language around.

So here is my challenge to humanity. Before making any kind of decision in life think for a while and ask yourself, "is this my personal agenda?", and if your a Christian please use this caution tenfold before you start declaring what God has revealed to your master plan.

-cheers