Skip to main content

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

Do not wait. Deal with the issues buried deep in your soul. Until you do there will never be freedom or peace in your life. Surrender ALL to God. 

You cannot do it alone.

I encourage you to go deep with God in scripture and prayer. Develop an authentic relationship with the one who created you. Find persons in your life to pray for you, hold you in your pain and especially hold you accountable. Find persons to love you right where you are, but challenge you to grow. Find persons who will allow you to be their person. 

Please note I never said to develop a religious fervor or addiction. Yes absolutely find a church. Yes absolutely listen to spiritual music and attend concerts where the Holy Spirit moves your soul. Yes have friends to hang out and be social with. Find good learning groups and small groups. Yes become in tune with fellowship and service to the church, community and the world. These are all good things.

BUT I caution do not make any of these things a replacement for your deep love and relationship for God. God. Religion can become a replacement for other addictions. Deep friends are vital. Church and action in the church are important. Reading and praying are foundational, but accepting the forgiveness offered, moving away from the stories in your head and heart from the past and loving yourself as God loves you is foundational. Relationship with God is far more important than religion and then the religious experience becomes critical in your growth. 

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”  - Matthew 11:28-30 NLT


I am understanding this scripture more each day.


Peace,

PB

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

If you proclaim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I must ask you a question. Are you seeking the deepest possible intimate relationship with God that you can ever experience on this earth? Because I know what I am about to say to be absolutely true. If you are not and if you are pursuing anything other than God you will not ever be satisfied and ultimately any other relationship will fail. It does not matter how deeply connected with another person you are without God it will fail. Failure may not mean completely walk away, failure can mean that a relationship will not be what it is intended to be and you settle for it because at least it is there, it's the best I can do, it could be worse and for many other reasons.  We are created to be in relationship with one another. We have many relationships and many depths within those relationships. We have social relationships. We have relationship with many forms of addiction and substitution. We have friends and we have FRIENDS...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Morning View Near the Patio

I believe Christians are called to live a different life in the world than those who are not Christian. I believe that no matter the circumstance of the world, the government and all the just and injustice we are called to be different. Jesus handled the Easter journey much differently than I believe the modern Christian in the USA would have handled it. The Apostle Paul lived as best he humanly could to model the path and life of Jesus Christ during the difficult times of persecution and injustice of his journey. A lot of thoughts are swirling in my head during our difficult time we are currently experiencing and all of those thoughts come back to my life as a Christian, believer and follower of Jesus Christ, and do my thoughts, actions and words model Jesus on the Easter journey to the cross? In Matthew 16:24-26 Jesus told his disciples to "take up their cross and follow me!" I am believing that Jesus is telling us to live like, act like, be like and love like Jesus did....
Post a Comment
Read more

A Morning View Near the Patio

Sabbath - to rest from labor, set aside as holy. Because we have less to do in our current situation, perhaps as Christians we can redefine what Sabbath looks like for us. I wonder how many of us traditionally go to church in our weekend routine, have lunch then get right back at it? After all, we have so much to do and so little time. It has been nice to sit and be. On the nicer days, when the weather cooperates, it has been so nice to sit on the patio and just be. I have sat and contemplated there more this year than I did all last summer. Perhaps a new normal of Sabbath can take place in our lives. As a child I remember going to church on Sunday morning and on the way home being dropped off at Grandma and Granddad's place. We would have lunch and quite often go for a ride. Usually the ride would end somewhere with ice cream! The routes must have been develops around the ice cream establishments in Northeast Ohio! We did very little, but for me as a kid we did a lot. I remember...
Post a Comment
Read more