Are you Curious to know?

Curious about curiosity.
What is curiosity? What defines it? What is it's purpose?
Why are we so curious?
The dictionary explains curiosity as the desire to learn or know about anything; inquisitiveness.
It is something that is rarely discussed, rarely mentioned, but experienced in our lives on a daily basis.
And who would have thought, that it has such a strong affect on us; not many seem to realize how much it drives our lives.
Everyone has been curious at least once in their lifetime. Starting from receiving presents and dying to know what was in them, to wondering about the future; Its such a big, broad, subject.
We tried to define it as an emotion, or a tool, but it still didn't fit into those categories.
We came up with the conclusion that curiosity is a Force. A strong, immeasurable force that affects the actions of people, that drives us, and makes us do unimaginable things.
Curiosity is so grand, it exists in almost every aspect of our lives. Our dreams, our questions, its there as we try to define the future, as we try to understand the present, as we explore the past. Curiosity drives us to new places, helps us grow in knowledge, helps us experience life on a deeper level.
If people weren't curious, life would be dull. We would be driven by nothing.
If we didn't desire to know, life would be made up of merely the present.
The past and future wouldn't affect our lives as greatly as they do.
People dedicate their lives to experiencing the past and the future, gaining knowledge about it.
People dedicate their lives to science; curious to know the outcomes of things; How did this become? How can we define it? What do we do with it?
Others, dedicate themselves to discovering. Driven by curiosity to find moments of the past, untouched places, and foreign lands.
We are always wondering, always seeking for something more than what we know or have.
We are always on the search for something bigger than ourselves.
Curiosity is a pathway to discovering something great.
Greatness could come in the image of light or darkness; greatness could be good, but also bad.
There could be evil so great it takes over a nation and turns it against God
There could also be good so great, that it could save millions of lives.
Curiosity, is something great, but it isn't necessarily always good.
Like many other things in life, curiosity has the ability to exist in both darkness and in light.
 Many times, it has led to trouble.
Remember that old myth about Pandora's box? Or our one and only Eve from the book of Genesis? She was driven by this force; desiring to know what would really happen when she bit into that apple.
But don't get discouraged. Just as often, curiosity has led to amazing results in life.
Scientists who are curious about the anatomy of a body have discovered cures for deadly diseases.
Benjamin Franklin consumed himself with the curiosity of inventing, and illuminated our lives.
Many amazing discoveries were made, all driven by curiously.
It is such a life changing force, and experiencing it, as well as being knowledgeable about it  is so life changing  so meaningful and impacting, but we were still driven by one more untouched question. We talked about what it has the ability to do, but we were still left with the question of why God even placed curiosity in our lives. What is it's purpose?...
 Here's what we were presented with in our concluding conversation....

When God created life, and the earth, and everything in it,
He created it all to be good.
And with that, curiosity was fully drenched in goodness, for a good purpose.
But the devil, has the ability to corrupt what is good, and he took advantage of this force to use it for his own works; it is a powerful thing in the devils hands.
As much as we don't realize it, he enslaved us with the curiosity of experiencing sin. We are always curious to experience what this world has to offer.
Just one puff, one drink, one peek.
Tempted by the force of curiosity, we want to KNOW, experience everything in life,
 no matter how bad it could be.
And with that, any curiosity that doesn't direct us to the discovery of God, directs us to sin.
And once we realized this, It suddenly became so clear that curiosity is there to navigate us to God.
Discovery, History, the Future; should all be directed to God.
Everything in nature points to God.
Any innovation, any result is there for us in order to experience God.
Unfortunately that doesn't mean that this is reality.
If people were to open their eyes to this truth, our curiosity to know God, could lead us to even greater truths, to farther destinations, and brighter futures.
But to our sadness this is a force that is misused so often,buried far from its soul purpose.
And as unfortunate as it sounds, we still know that not all hope is lost. We still have the ability to revive the goodness of this force.
We have to chose to un-bury it, and then let it drive us with the desire to discover God.
To discover God in all creation, In the past, the present, and the future.
Curiosity is Gods navigation that leads us to Himself, we just have to be careful not to misread the directions that it gives us.
Once we discover the strength of this force, we could use it to glorify our Creator in lengths that we couldn't imagine.
All we have to do is consume ourselves with the curiosity of knowing the one who placed it in our lives, and use it to its full potential. And then, when the times comes God will provide us with the answers, to any question. We just have to make the first move and find Him first.

Its indescribable.

God's presence is indescribable. He reveals Himself to us in the most mysterious and astonishing ways.
He revealed Himself to Moses through a burning bush.
To the Israelite's as a pillar of cloud.
To pharaoh through the extremeness of the ten plagues.

Moses followed His order and saved a nation.
The Israelite's became His chosen ones.
and Pharaoh surrendered and let the people go.

Moses had his doubts, he sometimes questioned Gods motives.
The Israelite's saw the works of His mighty hand and still had days where they turned away from Him and chose not to trust Him, but they always kept running back to His lead.
Pharaoh felt the power and authority of God, he didn't deny His existence, but still chose to turn his back on Him and live by his own selfish desires.

God revealed Himself to the ones who obeyed Him
as much as to those who denied Him.
He WILL make sure that everyone experiences His existence
and then He leaves us with the choice to accept or deny it.

The story of Exodus is merely one example of Gods presence being revealed to the people.
In the old  testament, God revealed Himself through physical objects, visions, prophecies..
Today, He adds to that list as He reveals Himself through His Son,
and His word; His sword, "piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

Aside from that, He reveals Himself to every single living individual on a more personal level.
Every person Has experienced God differently.
And only when we accept the Son, that is when our vision is no longer blurred, and becomes clear to the amazing way God works in our lives.
When you truly come across the mighty hand of God, when you clearly see his affect on your life; His love, mercy, grace, you also notice that the presence of God is something no one could really explain, and no one could really understand, unless they have experienced it. A phenomenon.
God is limitless to the ways we could experience the greatness of knowing Him
Simple experiences as much as extreme ones all come with the purpose of us becoming close to Him.
Knowing God isn't always easy, in fact knowing Him has more difficulty than the lives of those denying Him. But it is rewarding, and it is great to know that our lives are in His hands.

 God opened our eyes to many things as we discussed our topic for the week. As we talked about our encounters with God, we talked about all the answered prayers, about how God changes us on a daily basis, how He changes the people around us. We discussed some of the ways we feel most intimate with Him; the ways that He personally changes us. God reveals Himself to Andrey through the mighty mountains, the towering trees, the astonishing sunsets, powerful waters, creatures, plants, flowers: creation. Whenever it's Andrey and nature, it then becomes Andrey and God. When he is alone in the midst of nature he sees the hand of God and He experiences Him on a deep level. Nature has the ability to make us humans feel so small, and make God seem so great. Nature has the ability to heal; to quiet a soul, bring peace, serenity. It helps us see the artistic side of God. It can change the way a person experiences life, and God. Its amazing how creative God is; the world consists of a variety of climates, species, and geographical features. Even the deep deep depths of the sea are filled with astonishing creation. Its beautiful to see, that something as serene as nature can touch the heart of man, and connect him with His creator. I hope God puts many opportunities in our life together ,where we could encounter nature, so Andrey could help me experience God the way he experiences Him.

I feel most intimate with God in the early morning. The opportunity to live another day, to once again breathe, speak, think, and experience, is such a gift. When the world is still asleep, when all I hear is quietness and peace, that is when I hear and feel God the most. I invite Him for a morning cup of coffee, and feed my hungry heart with His word, filling myself for the day. Morning is when your mind is still clear and at ease, it hasn't encountered the busyness of the day yet, it hasn't had time come across sin yet. The cold morning chill on my face awakens me and clears my mind. As I drive to school, I drive in silence, but in constant conversation with my father. I could see Him through the morning colors, and the fog. Through the awakening of the day, and through peoples tired faces. Life is such a beautiful thing, and when my morning starts perfectly, my whole day then, is filled with the beauty of God. If my morning is rushed, then my whole day becomes a blur, chaos. God has given me the gift of mornings, the gift of His presence as I start my day.

These are just a few, of the many ways, one could experience God. But when I chose to let God into my heart, that was when I truly got the privilege to experience Him, now I can't imagine my life without Him. And the fact that so many people out there don't even want to imagine a life with God, don't want to know him, makes me sad, because they don't get to experience the fulfillment of knowing Him, and what He has to offer. I hope that everyone gets to experience God at least once in their lives. His love, comfort, saving grace, His power, strength, His mighty hand; I hope people will be so touched that they would have no words to describe it.

We aren't trying to convert anyone, or convict anyone.

All we are trying to say is God will reveal Himself to you someday, hopefully you could cherish this experience and not turn your back on it.
And although we are undeserving of it, we still experience Him everyday, and wouldn't want to lose this privilege for anything in the world. All we want, is to share this opportunity with others.

God says draw closer to Me and I will draw closer to you (James 4:8)
He isn't far away and He wants to reveal Himself to you, and all he asks of you is for the desire to know Him. If you desire fulfillment, and if you lack the presence of Love or something greater in life,
Remember that God is always waiting for you
All it takes is a simple gesture, all you need to do is accept what He has to offer.
Because once you take on that chance, your life will be amazingly changed forever.
Just like mine and Andreys were.

A FRIENDLY reminder

Friendship is like opening a present on Christmas morning and getting exactly what you wanted; it's a gift from God. You see, without friendship, a person cannot truly live a satisfying and enjoyable life on this earth.
 Everybody longs to connect with someone, everybody desires to be loved and cared for by someone, everybody wants someone they could talk to, turn to for help, or share interests with. And a friend, is that perfect source that can provide for those needs.

Every relationship thrives if friendship is involved. And just like there are a few forms of love..we believe there are more than one forms of friendships. For instance, a marriage will strive better if the couple is friends as well as lovers. Parents connect closer with their children, if they gain a friendship with them. And two strangers can learn the beauty of sharing interests with each other after just one connecting moment. To me, friendship is self sacrifice, having similarities, and giving effort. Andrey completed our definition by adding : no judgement(someone you could be your total self with, aka "nerd out with,") and someone who you can depend on. Friendship could mean something different to every individual. Perhaps you have more than one friend: each one with their own attribute, all beneficial, and when together, they make the perfect combination. Each friend fulfills your need in their own way, and you theirs. And although some are blessed with many close friends, other individuals have the privilege of meeting one person who is complied of every needed attribute; and just that one friend could meet all your needs.

 In a way, having friends to our own benefit seems selfish, but we tend to forget that a relationship works both ways. And if we don't give back, or put effort into the friendship as well, it just wont last. That's how it is with us and Christ. He longs for a relationship or "friendship" with us, and in order to gain the benefits of His love, we must give back and put effort into the relationship as well. Christ is the PERFECT example of a PERFECT friend. He is almost like a checklist for us when we are unsure of how good of a friend we are. When we experience the friendship Christ offers us, we should take example, and offer the same friendship to others. First of all, He sacrificed Himself in the greatest way possible. He  gave up His own life so that we would be forgiven and be given the chance to have a relationship with Him. So why is it so hard to give up some of our time, and to give a moment of ourselves to our friends. Also, Christ enjoyed the presence of His close ones. When He first gathered his disciples he invited them over to His house, they spent every moment they could together, sharing their interests, learning from each other, and growing in their relationship with each other. We as friends should also strive to grow in closeness with each other, we don't have to spend every waking moment with them; but just praying for them, staying in touch with them, listening to them, and being there for them is the least we could do. Christ wants us to treat Him the same way as well; He also wishes for us to enjoy his presence, to spend time with Him, and share with Him; something we have the ability to do through His word and prayer.

 There are many qualities of Christ that we must posses in order to be a good friend, and the bible is the best source to find out what they are. But above all, there is only one major factor that true friends cannot strive without, and that is love. If love isn't the foundation of a friendship, then it will not last. From love come all the other important attributes of a good friend. From love we come to know patience, kindness, humbleness, care, and so on...
So when there comes a time when being a good friend just becomes difficult, refill and recharge yourself with some love. The only source is Christ, who himself IS love, and the perfect example of a great friend. And if making friendships is difficult for you, remember, there is always someone reaching out His hand to you, waiting for you to grab His. He will fill your every need, and He will always find a way to fill that empty gap of friendship by either directing you to the right person and placing them in your life, or by being that friend Himself. Friends are the such an amazing privilege that we have on this earth, let us cherish them, hold on to them, but most importantly remember that having friends is important, but being the best possible friend you could be, is essential.

"I hate mosquitoes they're stupid."

As the time comes when you have to part with this life on earth...if you had a moment to think about what you will miss the least about life on earth, what would those things be? What are the things that you will be happy to never go through again, or feel again. This was the random topic for our late night conversation and we couldn't have came up with a better conclusion. We first made lists of the first things that came into our head when answering the question. I gotta say...it was a very difficult task, and took a while. We went into depth for each answer and explained why we picked the things we said. Here is a little overview of what we came up with....

Andrey
1 mosquitoes:there is nothing good about mosquitoes
2 getting into a cold car or waking up in a cold room
3 when burritos fall apart and you have to eat them with a knife and fork
4 long road trips through nothing... like Wyoming, the boredom factors are extreme.
5 job interviews, or talking to your boss (talk about tension.)
6 slow, or no internet connection
7 funerals and the fact that they have the worst atmosphere imaginable; tears, sadness, and loss.
8 bad morning breath; enough said.
9 being blinded while driving towards the sun
10 modern day rap music or country music (especially)
11 movies with talking animals
12 when clothes become small after the dryer
13 calling customer service lines or anything to do with customer service
14 itchy ears anticipation, how its so hard
15 moving or helping someone move
16 filling up my car (just draining money) how gas has become so expensive
17 bad movie sequels or bad movie experiences
18 holding in gas or when your stomach growls in a quiet place and everyone hears it
19  when babies cry
20  waiting for your food to be made or brought to you
21 the fact that the best things in life fly by (good moments) but the boring ones take forever.
22 anticipation; waiting for something is so hard.
23 fake people/ people who try to be someone they aren't /try too hard for someone
24 the fact that this world is cruel and that all the wrong people succeed and get what they want. (The good guys don't have the best life) And the good guy is often left out. The rich prosper by cheating, the powerful, abuse their power, the regular folks have almost no chance to prosper.
25 that our lives have a time limit for everything, and that our lives are on a countdown every single day.

Vika
1 writers block
2 getting fat from food; that fact that I could eat an apple and feel like i gained five pounds
3 snakes, my biggest fear ever, you should see me run.
4 tests in school; the stress, the disappointment, the nights of no sleep.
5 people with bad hygiene
6 terrible drivers; talk about road rage.
7 paying off bills and speeding tickets; just run your money down the drain why don't you.
8 washing off my makeup before i sleep; to tired to do it, and if i don't; its experiencing the agonizing presence of acne
9 job interviews (yes, its on here twice.) how many times have I gotten denied?
10 the painful feeling of tiredness; "must stay awake, must stay awake."
11 the fact that the best tasting food is the least healthy: chips, cookies, cake, ice cream, burgers, you name it.
12 seeing people in pain (I personally pass out.) But not only physical pain, emotional too.
13 making decisions; i'm a woman, decisions are the worst, there's always too much to choose from, you never want to make the wrong decision, they are just very difficult.
14 competition to get by in life/appearance is everything: the hot guy gets the girl, the man in the suit gets the job, the skinny pretty girl is treated nicer..do i need to go on?
15 how much lack of sleep affects your day, (we become easily annoyed, easily bored, easily hungry, easily off task, easily falling asleep on the job. We pretty much become human sloths.
16  and then, we waste so much time by sleeping. We only have 24hrs in a full day; 8 of which we spend sleeping=doing nothing.
17 disagreements/conflicts: there's just nothing good about them.
18 we are our own biggest rival/ the inner battle= self denial, self corruption. Our thoughts turn into actions, what we think, we become.
19 Seeing someone you love being so lost;: no acceptance of Christ, emptiness, addiction, it almost seems helpless.
20 the fact that self image is such a big issue/ due to media; The issues that girls have with self image is unimaginable; the outcomes of these issues are even worse.The standards of this world corrupt us and our vision.
21 power used for evil; satan, hitler, rape, slavery...etc.
22 taking things for granted, how we only learn to cherish the hard way; we only learn how much something means to us after we have lost it.
23 goodbyes; when someone parts from earth, when we lose a friend, living in two different parts of the state.
24 history decides our fate , the world is run on selfishness and pride (for instance; poverty in Africa, prosperity in America..we have enough resources to help those in need but for some reason we don't, history determines the wealth of a country, so does war.
25 regret: when our past haunts us in our thoughts.




We all have pet peeves, or those dreadful situations that we face everyday, unanswered questions, or struggles that just drive us crazy. But we keep on living, and we deal with them, and in the end, we often realize that no matter how many issues we have, life isn't all that bad.  You see, when God made our lives, He wanted us to enjoy them. He didn't create us so that we would suffer or be dissatisfied all the time, He created us to serve Him, to know Him, Love Him, and to share that love with others. The trials and difficulties that we face aren't in our lives so that we would suffer, they are there for us to realize that God is the only one we could rely on, that God is our only hope for a better life and a better future. The trials and difficulties that we face could never surpass how much He blesses us; He gives us so much to be thankful for. No matter how difficult life could be, and it gets difficult I tell ya, His good intentions for us always conquer. But, this is only when we give up all the negatives in our lives into His hands and let Him deal with them.  There is always a reason, and a positive outcome to everything, when God is involved. We realized this when we finished writing our lists. It was a difficult task and we took a while coming up with answers. And even though we came up with a list of reasonable matters; we came to the realization that each one, could have a bigger, better purpose or positive perspective to it. We noted that, instead of complaining about traffic, we could be thankful that we even have a car, and places to go to. Every goodbye, starts with a hello, a sinful person always has a chance to change, job interviews could end with us getting a new job, morning breath could easily be fixed with toothpaste and a toothbrush. So when we take a step back and look at everything negative from a positive perspective, the positive always defeats the negative. Its almost overwhelming how much God blesses us, and thinks everything through for us ahead of time. He came up with a solution to every problem, and He always does, even though we don't always notice. God always looks ahead with His plans, and His wish is for us to do the same. As we live here on earth our main purpose is to look forward, towards heaven; and most importantly, help others see the love of Christ so that they could get to heaven as well. We must look past all our troubles and look forward to what God has planned for us in the future. The only way to do that is to look to Christ, and direct those who don't know Christ yet to the right direction. Only then, Christ will direct us to heaven; A better place, where we will leave behind all our struggles and never have to worry about them again. To help you understand this from a different perspective, my friend stated a great observation. God teaches us to pray, "On earth as it is in heaven." God wants us to bring a little bit of heaven onto earth;  that is His love. His love is the only clear thing that we know about when it comes to heaven. It is the navigation that will take us there. When we accept Christ, His son, and help others accept him as well, we are experiencing a mere part of heaven on earth. And heaven, is our hope to leaving the unpleasant things on this earth behind. It is a place where there is no traffic, no crime, no trouble, and no mosquitoes.
 In Philippians there's an amazing verse that says, "For our citizenship is in heaven; from which also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus." When we look to Christ, heaven becomes real, and our struggles here on earth become temporary. So whenever you are having a bad day or something terrible happens, remember; this isn't forever. And soon, we will be in a place where we will never have a bad day ever again.

What IS the truth?

The bible teaches us how to live. It teaches us what God wants from us and what he has done for us. So many people read it and so many people live by it. So how does it happen that we all read the same book of truth but still all have so many different views, and lifestyles, and beliefs. How come the people of the church have so many disagreements and differences when it comes to Gods truth. Aside from the bible, In the new testament we were given the gift of the holy spirit, to guide us and to show us what is right and wrong. So why is it that every individual has their own idea of right and wrong. Is it because we try to bend the rules in our own favor and try to convince ourselves that we aren't? Or is it because we each have our very own depiction of the truth?  Why is it that certain things are considered to be sin to some people, but to others it wouldn't even cross their minds as sin.
In this life we truly might never find out why it is like that, but God, does show us how to deal with these questions in a christian manner. Me and Andrey were discussing a disagreement we came across in our lives. We had extremely opposite views and stood strong in what we believed to be right. But how could both of us, with such opposing views be right? We were both raised in different homes with different lifestyles. We both believe in one God, and we both love Christ. But how could we so strongly disagree on some matters.
The thing is we both look at life differently, and we both interpret the bible differently. But we came up with a few conclusions. We realized sin becomes evident in  our lives when we have knowledge about it. I brought up the analogy of a child. As they grow there might come times when they lie, or steal, get angry, or disobedient. As grown ups we know these things to be sinful, and we know how God feels about them, and we know that we shouldn't do them. But a little child has no awareness that in those few moments he is considered to be sinning, and since he has no knowledge about it, he is therefore blameless. So we are sinning when we have knowledge about it being sin. If one has no knowledge that what he is doing is sin, then he cant be judged for it. We could say the same about those who turn to Christ without having any past knowledge about his teachings. He is almost as a new born, what God desires is all new to him and requires learning. This is not an excuse though, we cant run from Gods word just to say that we have no idea that the things we do in our life are sinful. In fact, if we are true Christians we should have the desire to instead, run to his word, we should have the desire to no longer sin, and to learn about what God wants from us. We talked about Paul, where he touched on the subject in Corinthians, Paul said that if me eating meat causes my brother to stumble, "then I will never eat meat again so that i will not cause them to fall." Even Paul realized how different everyone's walk with God is and he teaches us to respect that. So me and Andrey had to learn to respect each other.
 We ended the discussion with the agreement that God will be the judge. Its not up to us to decide who is more sinful than us, its not up to us to decide how others should live. As long as we are dedicated to living like with Christ, with a clear conscience we will no longer be lost.
Christ leads us to the truth, he whispers into our hearts and shows us how to live, all it takes is to listen. When we read the bible, it will only make sense if we read it with Christ in our hearts. It doesn't matter what lifestyle you have, what matters is the relationship you have with Christ. If it is strong, then He will show us how to be strong. I don't believe in religion, God will justify all of us. I believe in Christ, my relationship with him. Christ is the answer to all questions, he is the conclusion to all life. He is our future, and he is the saving grace that gives us hope and forgiveness no matter how sinful we are.

Let us begin.

Prepare yourselves for a series of deep, heated discussions

between a wild and adventurous couple 

who decided to take a variety of topics

and lead them to our own conclusions

we wont always agree

we might go our own ways

but don't worry our love will hold us together

and in the end we will just offer you a variety of perceptions and thoughts on matters in life

we hope you enjoy reading what we have to say.

we wont always be right, or reasonable

we are merely humans

so please don't criticize us too harshly 

but feel free to give us your feedback and honest opinion

and subjects to discuss will always be appreciated as well

we hope to provoke and influence some deep discussions and your life

and help you form your own opinion on the things we come across everyday in our lives.

ENJOY.