Skip to main content

A Morning View From the Patio

I love all the Christian t-shirts with positive quotes. I love all the positive Christian quotes we read on Facebook, paintings and other novelty items at a Christian book store or online purchasing. As a matter of fact I wear the t-shirts and have many items either given to me or purchased by me in various locations of my home or office. But often I struggle with wearing the t-shirt and the balance of what is going on inside of me. 

I have a t-shirt that says "Faith over Fear." I often wear it wishing I would allow my faith to be bigger than my fear. Often I wear it not realizing that I have it on while internally am a mess of fear. I can have strong faith in certain situations where there is no doubt God is in the midst and doing what God does in healing, helping, nurturing others and is in the midst of miracles. But I also so often fear of failure, fear of letting others down and especially a fear of deeply hurting others. I care about people and I spiral when I believe I have or actually have hurt them. It is often such a struggle to practice what I preach and I am ashamed when I fail. 

“My child, never forget the things I have taught you.

    Store my commands in your heart.

If you do this, you will live many years,

    and your life will be satisfying.

Never let loyalty and kindness leave you!

    Tie them around your neck as a reminder.

    Write them deep within your heart.

Then you will find favor with both God and people,

    and you will earn a good reputation.


Trust in the Lord with all your heart;

    do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek his will in all you do,

    and he will show you which path to take.


Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.

    Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

Then you will have healing for your body

    and strength for your bones.” - Proverbs 3:1-8 NLT


Peace,

PB

Comments

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...

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....

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...