God
- Do you suppose that there was a distinct smell of expensive perfume during the
Passion?
- Lord, help me not to be as Esau to give up my birthright for a bowl of soup. Our birthright is our priesthood. For most of us, the bowl of soup (need) is security. God wants to give us more. He wants to give victory.
- 'Getting closer to God' does not mean experiencing God more, it means thirsting for God more. p108 Real Church
- God creates a need. Then an expectation by providing a promise. If we submit to that promise, then He provides faith. Faith creates the arena that allows God to show His love and Glory to others.
- Is it disrespectful to see God craving our love. To be insatiable for it? I contend that He enjoys our praise (especially toward one another) even more than we do. As a small child that rushes over and gives us a hug and a kiss and says 'I love you Daddy', then runs off to play, leaving us all tore up. His heart is more sensitive than ours and so more easily touched.
- At times, it feels as God has boxed us in with all doors shut but count on it, the Devil has camouflaged the one open door.
- God has reality, the rest of us have perspectives.
- When Jesus sweat blood in Gethsemane it was not like the other martyrs who died full of the Spirit. He was cut off from God. But as a result of being cut off from God, He was cut off from us and the whole human race. His Spirit was blinded. This was the cause for His death - not the crucifixion.
- Everyone I know sees God differently. This can only mean that He dulls down His glory to fit our misperceptions of Him in order to not intimidate or offend us. Help us Lord to let go of our neediness and accept, even crave, You to be as You are. And when that happens, we can be who we are. I desire You more than the comfort of my misperceptions.
- The concept of a 'personal savior' was started by D. L. Moody in the revival movement of the 50's. For a lost person, God is personal only because they are not part of the body of christ. The instant a person is saved, God becomes corporate. Ironically, this type of relationship is deeper and more intimate because love flows in all directions throughout the kingdom and it is all about God.
- God is not asking to be at the top of our priorities, but in the center of all. 'Do all to the glory of God.' p207 The Shack
- How can God have expectations when He sees our entire life before it started? God loves us - present tense, period. Expectations are about controlling the future, but with God, there is no future and no past, only the present and He loves you in it. p207 The Shack
- It seems neglectful that the good shepherd left 99 sheep to search out the one lost sheep, but He was loving the 99 as He did it because they knew that if that happened to them that He would be just a concerned. If He did not, it would have sent an equally negative message.
- How can we be generous to others if we are fearful that God will not provide for us?
- God is about love. The Devil is about fear. Which one is our motivation determines if we are serving God or the Devil. IF we are serving the Devil, we are hurting someone, usually not just ourselves. Every time I protect myself out of fear, I hurt someone else. Love can protect me.
- Man builds things to last. God builds things to change. Nature is all about change. That is real strength.
- Temptation to Jesus was more intense because He was capable of so much more than me. I can't turn stones into bread. But He said that we would do more than He did. That means to take on more spiritual responsibility and ability is to take on more temptation.
- Can the God who said, 'Peace be still' to the storm say the same to my troubled heart? Can He fill my empty nets? Will He speak the 'words of life' to my empty soul?
- I have another area in my life that I do not trust God for. I do not trust Him to keep my mess-ups from preventing me from getting to the goal without excessive work. He continues to use my mistakes to show me a better way. This hangup heads to self-loathing and self-criticism.
- The change that has happened to me is that when hard situations arise, I no longer blame God and feel hurt and alienated by Him. Instead, it feels like the situation happened to both of us. The hard time seems an inevitable part of getting to our goal. Insted of complaining where He is taking me, I agree with where we are going and so the hard time is necessary to get there. This feels great because I can be at peace when difficult stuations arise knowing it is part of the process. It is also nice to be in fellowship with God during hard times rather than to suffer alone because I have alienated Him.
- It appears that God has been healing me in my sleep. There goes my limit on God that says that there is no healing emotionally or spiritually without doing the hard work.
- God comforts me not by being my idea of a substitute wife and giving me hugs and telling me everything is going to be alright (closer to a mother). Instead He comforts me by affirming my manhood in strengthening me as I face life as a man. For example, miraculous growth in my weightlifting. "The principles He reveals are given to guide us in our commitment to reflect His character, not to comfortably organize our lives. We are intended to trust the goodness of God, not the reliability of principles.' p63 Who You Are
- The strategy of looking to God for guidance and to a wife for love is flawed because if I cannot get love and comfort from God, then I cannot get it from anyone else either because it is due to my inability to give it.
- Trials are God's merciful shortcut to Himself. The cruel way is to give us plenty of resources ( longer rope) as he did by giving Soloman wives galore, money and wisdom more than any other man. It took him a lifetime of frustration to find out 'all is vanity' and what we realy need is God. Trials get us to the end of the rope faster.
- When we can clearly see God's wailing for our pain, we too will not question His lateness to our Lazurus tomb but instead our trust in Him is magnified as we wait with anticipation of the manifestation of that love that is capable of reaching beyond hopelessness.
- Jesus was very controntive to different people including the religion of the day and even to His own apostles and disciples, but His confrontation was always on the subject of love.
- As I have said, I see God as a guide and I trust His guidance very much. But I do not trust Him as a comforter. Also, I have said that our perspective of God is a reflection of ourselves. Therefore, I must be more business than comfort. If I was to be more comforting to others I would feel God's comforting both through me and through them. Life would be more comforting and less harsh and serious. Also, I would be misundersood and falsely accused much less. Also, I could confront more vigourously and often since everyone would trust me to have their best as my intentions. Lord, open my heart to see opportunities to comfort.
- I keep begging God to fill the gap created by the pain of a life with not enough porpose and too much loneliness. But is this a matter of God revealing Himself or my heart opening up to seeing that He is already here? An openess that allow me to focus on forgiveness and to experience peace as I trust His plan in my life.
- I prayed that God would make Himself more real to me so that I could move more courageously and purposefully to Him such as when He wants me to wake up earlier for a prayer walk. This morning, He tapped me on the shoulder three times very gently but enough to wake me up instantly. I was tickled at His miraculous answer to prayer, but I soon forgot about it as my apprehension set in wondering if He would make Himself known to me on the walk.
- John 4:24 "...they that worship (come to) Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' I felt that God was telling me that He could not come to me because of my negative attitude toward Him. My response was that I have a negative attitude because He doesn't come to me. It was too much like my relationship with my Dad. I wanted so much to be close to him, to be like him. I liked his passion and knowledge. But he never was approachable. He was very demanding. It was like God was telling me, 'You get it right, then you can come'. The truth was right, but the way that I took it was wrong. I need to stop putting Dad's character on God. I need to trust Him when He is silent that it is for my own good. When I stop attributing that demanding, critical attitude to Him, then I can hear His instructions without hurt or offense and accept the dry times as times when He is working behind the scenes or trying to change my perspective.
- When the Greek asked through Philip to see Jesus, he says 'unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit'.
- In order to relate to God, I need to relate as a man. No whining. He wants to relate to me as a man.
- God wants to be craved, not needed.
- Can a God who is so great have His feelings hurt?
- Jesus came to Jericho. It was anticipated all week. The town counsel declared a holiday. Everyone lined the streets to point Jesus to the city hall where the mayor, the councel and all of the important people were waiting with food and decorations carefully prepared. But Jesus had other plans. There was one person there that was there just to see the face of God. Everyone else wanted a blessing or healing. He was short and so considered useless in an agrarian/warlike society. He had found a way to make a living and get back at the people that looked down on him. He was a tax collector and had become rich doing it. But he was the one Jesus had come to see. 'Hurry, I want to meet with you.' What a slap in the face of a city that had prepared so much. The one they rejected is the one that was placed in honor. His whole household got what they would never get from the city - love. It is all he ever asked for.
- Oh Lord, show me the simplicity of Your passionate perspective.
- For those that the Lord calls to greatness (that's all of us), He requires us to pass through the purifying fire. He promises us that we will not be burned but it is very scary and heartbreaking to see things catch fire that we thought were a part of us. Resistance to letting go of these things is what determnes how hard the trial will be.
- How could we have gotten a feminine view of Jesus? For example, men tear a whole in a roof to interupt a service for a paralyzed friend. Obviously not your typical christians. Jesus holds His hand over the man and glares at the Pharisees. 'You've got a problem with this?' I like that!
- God brings hardships on us (usually in the form of people) and then shows us the loving response needed for the situation only to show us that we are not christian enough to give that kind of love that much. The result is to be drawn back to Him who loves us that much, that way.
- Trials purge our confidence in the flesh. But it is not my flesh that I am tempted to lean on but another's. I leaned on (name) for wisdom, but he had none. I leaned on (name) for love and nurturing but she had none of that either. I leaned on (name) for love and spiritual guidance but she had neither. Help me Lord, to see that You are my guide and You are my support for no onle else can understand and no one else wants to. Help me to understand where the role of a spouse and friend stop and only You can fill. What an overwhelming predicament to be overwhelmed with love for a sovereign being that is so elusive. As Peter said, 'Where can I go? You have all the answers'. I am not writing for just answers, but for love that can fill my overwheming need that, up to now, has only been answered by apathy from all those that I have offered my love to. Love that none of them could understand. All I have ever desired is a consistent truthful warm embrace. But, it is the very unpredictableness that I admire. Do I want to domesticate God?
- The Lord seems to prefer to teach me through pain. Probably, because I don't usually make an idol out of pain.
- Oh Lord, to see You in Your Glory (love) fully would destroy us, but to see it in manageable doses destroys everything that is not us.
- I want to be loved for me and not for what I can offer. I thank You, Lord, that You do.
- Sometimes the Lord allows our pain to intensify in order for us to see it clearly.
- Pain is not something to just be endured or something to test our faith. It is a road map to God just as is our desires. Many times, the pain and desire are the same thing.
- If we are having problems finding God, look in the one place we do not want to find Him.
- When the Lord allows trials into our lives, it can appear that He is being cruel. when I think this way, I am not only seeing God in the wrong light, but I am seeing myself in the wrong light, also. As strange as it may sound, when God allows an intense trial, He is giving me a compliment. He promises that He will not only 'not give me more than I can bear' but that the 'yoke would be easy'. If, by faith, 'I can do all things through Christ', no trial will seem too grievous. When God directs, I can 'move mountains' and even do greater things than He did as Jesus when He was here. To see myself as anything less is to hinder His work. It terrifies me to see how far He will push me and others, but I need to not only see my abilities, but others' also. As a counselor, I do not need to do the pushing, let God be the heavy. I just need to explain, guide and comfort as God directs. I am capable of doing anything God directs me and I am totally incompetent in everything else.
- We can know what God has planned for our future by listening to our desires. The desires always come before the opportunities.
- It is easy for me to be cynical toward God with plenty of evidence to show His lack of participation in meeting my needs and getting my life fixed. But maybe I would see more action from Him if I would participate in what He is doing rather than trying to get Him to participate in what I am doing. It is easy to see my pain more than others and so assume mine is worse. This causes me to be selfish and isolated from God and others. When I pray for others sins, I see my own more clearly.
- It wasn't Dad's beatings that hurt so much as his lack of love between them. Help me Lord not to attribute that coldness to You.
- When hard times hit, it does not occur to me to run to God. I rather see Him as the instigator. I plead to God, 'why?'. I am at that point again where I can see nothing in the future (never mind the past or present) that I can find hope with. I am bitter with God for giving me all my dreams (marriage, sandrail, promise to build houses) but putting a 'fly in the ointment' for each one, till I no longer desire them. How far does the brokeness go? I am fearful to hear whatever else God has to say. (name) already said that it will get much worse. Seeing God clearly is my only hope. I must be careful to weigh, even that, against my pain. It may not makeup for all my disappointments. That isn't the point.
- Forgive me Lord for seeking Your purpose more than seeking You.
- Lord, help me to find comfort in You. Everyone else is absorbed in their own situation except (name) who is afraid of me. You understand, and even enjoy my eccentricies because You made them.
- Help me, Lord, to enjoy Your perspective.
- The Lord's kindness has shown me that my perception of Him was slightly harsh. I know that in His perception, physical comfort, health, and even life are not as important as His purpose to reach a lost world. However, to think that He takes pain or joy lightly is a misperception. I cannot have a negative view of life without having a negative view of God. The negative view destroys faith as it destroys hope. It is the root of my depression and stress. I begin to believe, not that God is incapable of meeting my needs and stopping my pain, but that He is unwilling an uncaring. Therefore, the burden falls on me. The intimacy is lost. It is true that He withholds from us to draw us to Him, but only so that our perspective can be focused on Him over the needs and desires so that He can give us more. To be bitter at unmet needs and desires is to resist the process.
- God is not in the future or in the past. He is in the moment. The Awakened Heart - Gerald May
- Thank You for reminding me from Awakened Heart that it is not that You are not here, it is that I am not here. Help me to be in the moment with You.
- God's glory is shown not in His people being able to put Him above their needs, but rather by our submission to Him so that He can give us strength beyond our needs.
- A lot of my craving for God's presence is a craving for approval. 'Am I doing it right'. The answer, of course, is always 'No, but don't worry about it'. Love is not a craving for 'atta boys'. Hearing God's voice has nothing to do with how well I'm doing. That only leaves one reason to crave God's presence - God. As long as I use God's presence (sense of presence - He's always present) to give myself koodos, I limit Him from showing Himself. I already have His approval. Live with it. Forgive me Lord for trying to use You to find self-worth. I am not dong good or doing bad. I'm not doing. You are.
- (name) got something that went with the previous 2nd object lesson. God tests us at our weakness (ex. Abraham with his son Isaac). There is no need to test elsewhere. The test to submit to God because we want Him more than our needs.
- Object lessons from my walk today:
- The tree cannot be straightened all at once by digging it up and moving it after a rain without it being crooked. The cable needs to be tightened, little by little, so the branches can grow to adjust. God will change us little by little.
- The bushes have thorns only on the ends of the branches where they are tender. God causes trials and pain only where necessary to protect our growth.
- Forgive me Lord for measuring Your presence based solely on how much it is benefiting me at the moment.
- Help me Lord to 'draw near' to You in order to not be self-centered.
- Help me Lord with the battle in my heart between the desire that man has put in my heart (neediness due to neglect and abuse) and the desire that You have put in my heart (longing for Your fellowship and to be like You).
- Why is it that, many times, the youth assume that justice prevails in the world now rather than later and that the consequences of transgressions will be proportional to the transgression. But, in reality, the little boy/girl plays hooky. A pedophile spots him/her on the street and he/she is molested and killed. Other times, evil goes unchecked. God promises to be with us but He does not promise to protect us. We must not tempt fate and we must take proper precautions. It is irresponsible to assume that God will take all the responsibility for our actions.
- It appears that my spirit is taking over the rest of me or I am just more aware of it. When my spirit shuts down, the only thing left is basic body functions such as blood pressure. My capacity to love or care diminishes to scary levels. My core is still committed, but I am reduced to a very base person. Everything that I know about God and the Bible says that I cannot earn God's presence in my life (or rather actions showing His presence - which is always constant). Part of me tries to say that I can't pull God toward me but I can push Him away by some kind of sin in my life. However, this sounds like a head game. Also, if this is true, then the first truth has been reduced to no effect. Maybe this is God's way of reminding me what part is Him and what part is me. It is still troubling. Lots of people go through life without the Holy Spirit, getting married, raising kids and even supporting charity efforts. I feel lucky to maintain a pulse. Last night, when I was with (name), I was scared at what would happen if the honeymoon suddenly came up and I was in this state. I guess I will just have to trust God to turn me on when He needs me and show me how to stay available. (name2)'s presence would help me to be more aware of when this was happening, but with (name) here all the time, it is more obvious.
- Oh Lord, most times I feel like Peter, 'Where else can we go?' You are so radical. I find that so annoying. Why can't You be more consistent, more predicable and less demanding? But isn't this the quality that draws me closer to You (and others) with ever increasing love and passion? Help me Lord to be more like You. When I am cautious and 'stable' perhaps that is when I am furthest from You and Your purpose. Help me Lord to have the faith to be as a child, to love as a child and to pursue life as a child. To take on Your literal 'devil may care' attitude. As the pop song says, 'You make lovin' fun'.
- Why do I struggle to accept that God is touched by my show of affection toward Him? He is more sensitive than me, of course. Why would I consider it sacriligious to think of the almighty God as One that gets choked up at the drop of a hat. Love begets love. 'We love Him because He first loved us.' The more we can accept His love, the more we can love Him back, and love others.
- Psalms 46:1 'God is our refuge' I needed the green pastures and still water of Psalms 23 and am reminded to 'abide in Him'.
- It was so painful to have my offer of intimacy rejected by (name) and (name). In my devotion, I read how Christ suffered the same rejection, only more, when the people whom He fed asked for more food and He said that He was the food and they left Him.
- Lord, I have asked You to be real and practical with me but how can I be real and practical with You?
- Song of Soloman 5 - When the reluctant beloved was stirred out of bed but the lover was already gone, she walked the city in search for Him and was beaten by the watchmen which represent time - the curse of our fast passed culture. As with the beloved, I cried to the Lord over His perceived absence and unwittingly was drawn out of myself and into a praise and worship session. 'The Lord inhabits the praise of His people.' His pulling away gets me in touch with my longings for Him rather than focusing on circumstances (they are just that - circumferencial events).
- I see a pattern. Thank You God. When a temptation overcomes me to the point that I cannot resist, I can pray to God and He will provide an escape. The Bible promises this. But, the escape will be only enough to escape, not to remove the temptation. This allows a moment for intimacy. By leaving enough of the temptation that it can still clearly be seen, we have been given the priveledge to still have a choice. The intimacy comes when we chose God while we are still face-to-face with the temptation. While we still feel it's lure. I learned ths lesson by choosing the temptation, regrettably. But instead of running into the woods to build fig leaf clothes, I bowed in the same path that we walk in the cool of the evening together.
- Oh Lord, as I pursue a more intimate relationship with You, I find the moment awkward. All of the previous intimacy was with You as comfortor. But You want to go beyond that. What do we do? What do we talk about? I am open to Your guidance.
- Isaiah 54 encouragement
- In the shadow of the cross, God's grace dominates to the point that all other things are silent. Pride with all of it's demands cannot exist. Forgive me Lord for separating Your gifts from You. You are the gifts, expressed in different ways.
- Nehemiah 8:10 - '...the joy of the Lord is our strength.' Forgive us Lord for being weak in our grieving. Forgive me for seeing the burden as something for You to remvove instead of the work that You have me to do. Why else would You place the yoke on me? Help me to pull with joy.
- Help me to remember Lord that You are my city of refuge, not (name). She is a fellow soldier.
- Psalms 118:14 When trouble swarms about me like bees, You are not just my strength but my song. Help me to sing.
- Help me Lord to remember in the storm that the purpose is not to get to the other side of the sea, the purpose is to get to You.
- How appreciative we are of something, such as a blessing from God, can be measured by our attitude if He takes it back. Appreciation is not bitter or demanding.
- Oh Lord, You were the only martyr that was not joyous because You asked more of Yourself than of any of us. You are not an ivory tower God.
- Thank You Lord for the intimacy of trivial requests. 'Lord, could I have a wife with eyebrows that speak strength over deep, dark brown eyes.' 'Certainly, and I put a little dimple with a wrinkle at the end of it to give the impression of a swirl. Do you like that?' 'Yes Lord, very much. Thank You.'
- Jesus took all those people across the Dead Sea in a storm to save one demon possessed man. He then got right back into the boat and sailed all the way back where He started.
- Lord, please help me, guide me to see You, relate to You, experience You, understand You, and share You outside the box that I have unconciously perceived You in through years of institutionalizing. You are so much more that we realize.
- Forgive me Lord. I always pray 'Lord be with me'. But today, I want to be with You. I don't completely understand the concept but I am willing. I know that You are all powerful but I know that Your love for us has made You vulnerable to pain, somewhat. When we suffer from our petty problems and from our foolishness, You suffer too, even though You could fix those problems and understand how not to fall into those pitfalls. What (name) and I suffer by having to be apart. As You say, even 'nature growns' waiting for the wedding day. You have helped us to see You better by sharing in Your pain. Forgive me for always looking at it as my pain. I strive not to be sacriligious in this, but I offer my small shoulder for Your head that, in some way, I could offer You comfort for the pain that You feel, not just for one person, but for billions. I can't imagine Your pain knowing that Your love for us is much more pure and intense.
- 'For Jesus, peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle but the presence of love.' Sept. 8 Listening to Your Life
- I long for a God who will meet my needs and desires in exchange for obedience and worship. That's what Israel had in the Old Testament. But God says that He will not take my freedom. That He wants Himself to be those needs and desires. As He told the rich man, 'Sell all that you have and follow me'. My desire is to be loved and my need is to be valued by others and myself. I did set those aside and allow God to meet them in Himself. He met my desire with intense moments that were random and few and far between. He seemed to ignore my need. This only increased my longings and therefore the pain. The Lord is too wild. I prefer a wife who wlll hold me each night. But the thought still plagues me that I could only accept the amount of love that i was willing to give myself. Could this prevent me from accepting God's love fully as it would a wife's? Maybe this is what God meant by granting me freedom rather than servitude. The freedom to love myself. How do I do this, Lord? I'm not sure that I even like myself. 'Love others as you love yourself.' Could this mean that I love myself when I am loving others? It's certainly hard to love someone who is not loveable. Then I will be in love instead of trying to get love. It all comes as a package - love of others, love of God, love of myself. Help me Lord to 'give all I have', to have an 'awakened heart'.
- It is hard to give myself to God because I know that He does not have my best interests at heart. My unmet needs of love and purpose are low priority with Him. He is more interested in saving the lost world and is only too eager to sacrifice me, let alone my unmet needs, for that cause. My only chance for some happiness or fulfillment is to have that same attitude. There is no hope when my affections are focused on my needs. The hard part is that He may or may not choose to do anything about my surrender to His will. That leaves my sacrifice unrewarded. Unless accepting His attitude and interests as my own is the purpose. That's a pretty bleak theology to think that my choices are to hang onto dreams that have no hope of fulfillment or hang onto God with no hope of fulfillment, at least not on a regular basis. Life stinks. But I know that the first choice leads to severe depression, eventually, more than I can bear. The second choice is still depressing but it makes me a little less self-centered. Philippians 4:4-7 Paul, sitting in prison, waiting to lose his head, tells us to celebrate God (message) every day, to pray about everything, and to not worry but let Christ's peace come on us. He does not promise that bad things won't happen. 'He does not try to explain them away as God's will or God's judgement or God's method of testing our spiritual fiber.' What He promises is 'the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus'. So, by God's gift of peace, we are able to turn worry into peace which allows us to rejoice. Aug. 22 Listening to Your Life
- I cannot trust God that the situations in my life will be positive experiences. In fact, the Bible says the opposite, 'In this world ye shall suffer persecution'. However, I can trust God that He will be with me and give me the strength to bear my situation.
- 'God does not love us out of need, but needs us because of Love.' p173 The Awakened Heart This is the opposite of my love.
- It's not that people don't believe in God, they just don't believe that God believes in them.
- 'In a sense, the paired thieves present the choice that all history has had to decide about the cross. Do we look at Jesus' powerlesness as an example of God's impotence or as proof of God's love?' p.204 The Jesus I Never Knew 'The healing of evil - scientifically or otherwise - can be accomplished only by the love of individuals.' M. Scott Peck 'Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.' p.205 The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey Do we want justice or love?
- Leo Tolstoy lived a long tortured life trying to cope with the view of God as almighty. Before I dismiss him as being legalistic and blind to Grace, I ask myself whether my view of Grace would be sufficient to cope with the amazingly clear view of God's power that he had. Could it be that God granted Leo a peak of heaven so that we, seeing his struggle, could be reminded of how awesome God really is?
- God has invited us not to come to Him but be in Him. Not to pray to Him but to pray with Him. To feel what He feels. To share in His joy and sorrows. To keep Him company.
- We may complain that God is hidden, but we hide incessantly.' p.141 The Awakened Heart
- Oh Lord, help me to learn in Your training times of absence to accept Your presence as a gift rather than an intitlement. 'If God grants us the freedom to draw close and pull away, should not God have that same freedom?' p.243 Reaching for the Invisible God
- 'He exposes them to as much testing by the pressure of opposed and discouraging influences as they are able to bear - not more (I Corinthians 10:13), but equally not less (Acts 14:22). Thus He builds our character, strengthens our faith, and prepares us to help others.' p.216 Reaching for the Invisible God
- Jesus refused the crown offered to Him by Satan because He prefered the crowns offered to Him from the heart of those that believe on Him. We crown 'among confession, and tears, and great laughter.' George Buttrick
- 'We can never be directly aware of the Spirit, since...He is always the go-between who creates awareness. p149 Reaching for the Invisible God John V. Taylor
- Help me Lord to resist the tempatation to tame You by creating a false image of You and attaching 'religious' practices to it to meet my own addictive desires.
- God's unpredictableness is what leaves room for love, not what diminishes it. If He were predictable, with a constant cause and effect, we would naturally become addicted to Him. True love happens when we choose His unpredictableness over other more predictable possessions, powers, or relationships. It is then no longer love for self's sake, but for God and others as well. We are free.
- I had always looked at the temptation of Christ as somewhat staged because He had the the inside track, the scoop, the whole picture. But now I realize that it was worse for Him because of that. We are tempted to think that we can 'handle it' by ourselves but we learn how foolish this is eventually. However, He really could have 'handled it' by Himself. He could haved turned stone into bread, jumped from a temple roof, and ruled the world very well avoiding untold amount of pain for us.
- Jesus spent 40 days in the desert just as Israel spend 40 years in the desert as our new Moses. The three temptations of Jesus are the three consequences of attachment. First, the temptation to seek satisfaction in something other than God - turning stones into bread. Jesus answered that we live by God's Word. Second, the temptation to manipulate God for our own self-indulgence by jumping off the temple roof. This is the difference between testing God by avoiding our own responsibilities or trusting God as we act responsibly. Jesus answered that we should not tempt God. Third, the temptation of idolatry by offering Jesus the world. Jesus answered that we should serve God. First, Jesus faced the temptation. Second, He used His strength to choose. Third, He did not use His will on it's own by working in harmony with God's will. p138,139 Addiction & Grace So the first temptation is to settle for less because we don't want to work hard for what we can never fully have. The second is a clinging to something or someone as a final solution totally dependent on it. The third temptation is to try to manipulate God to give us what we want or think we want.
- '...and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. Gid did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from us.' Acts 17:26,27 KJV says 'though He is not far from every one of us.'
- The point is not 'Where is God when it hurts' but rather 'Where am I when it hurts'. Help me Lord to focus on my response rather than yours. John 14:20,21 The Lord promises us that when we keep His commandments and love Him, He will make Himself 'plain to us'. (The Message)
- How can I harp onmy disappointments with God when He has suffered through 6,000 years and countless lives of disappointment. Right at this moment, God is dealing with 6 billion times my disappointments.
- I am slowly beginning to accept that God's love is not some divine pity on someone that has nothing to offer in return. His love on Calvary stands above all other love ever shown on earth. Of course, I have been able to accept that show of love theologically, but it is much harder to accept it personally since it was done for all mankind. If I was never born, He still would have done it. It is easier to accept that He loves me than that He likes me. I am trying to accept that He actually yearns for me. That, for Him, heaven would not be the same without me. I look forward to receiving the stone with the personal lover's pet name on it. It would fulfill something deep inside of me to share my love with God and for Him to be satisfied with it.
- Oh Lord, when I first get to heaven, all I ask for is a big hug that I have longed for all my life and nobody seems to be able to provide. When that happens, I will have to break one rule. There will be tears in heaven.
- Satan know that the best way to hrt God is to break up the romance between God and I.
- The only weakness God has is His love for me in my weakness.
- It is harder to be angry with God for allowing me to be vulnerable to satan once I realize that, in so doing, He has made Himself even more vulnerable to satan by the extent of His love. But He continues to do it even with foresight. That is love. Iam not the only one suffering. Forgive me Lord for not being sensitive to Your pain.
- Forgive me Lord for seeing You as a hard task master rather than as a loving guide. To acept both hardships and blessings as for my good.
- It is easier to accept that You love me than that You like me.
- Help me to appreciate each aspect of Your friendship as it comes - visions, phrases, ideas, verses, Your presence, and Your blessings.
- Oh Lord, will You be my friend?
- An answer, at least partially, to a lot of the questions of why does God do that or doesn't do this or why He allows that is that His priority is to reveal His Glory. Our comfort is not His priority. He does this for our good, not His. 'If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.' As those He has rescued, it is our priority too.
- How do we trust a God, that promptly handles a hangnail of a problem for me and yet allow 6 million Jews to die without flinching? We have to give up our obsession with knowledge-understanding everything so we can control it. We must be at His feet in a cloud of mystery about who He is and who we are.
- Self-centeredness says, 'My pain proves God's absence' while God-centeredness says, 'My pain expands God's purpose'.
- 'Do you honestly believe God likes you, not just loves you...?' Brennan Manning He even loves my enemies. Lord, help me to do the same.
- The ever fluctuating good deads/bad deads that I see as mountains and valleys are seen by God as noise. What interests God, I believe, is when I can sit in His presence exposed yet at peace and in comfort.
- Jesus went through darkness on Calvary worse than any of my darkness so He knows and empathizes with my pain.
- 'Bidden or unbidden, He is present.' Irish proverb
- It was not punishment that motivated God to gradually withdraw His presence after Adam's fall, it was love and mercy. To be in His presence is to see ourselves as we are and we are not able to bear that.
- O Lord, I pray that I would accept you less seriously and more passionately. Forgive me for being a prude. Help me to be comfortable and enjoy being around your clownish ways.
- Sometimes no answer from God is the answer. As a Westerner, I want answers to everything. I need to accept God's silence as a loving embrace rather than as a harsh coldness.
- God is not a cozy teady bear that we can wrap our intellect around and be comfortable with.
- Maybe God is not available because I am in the Lower Room instead of the Upper Room. see Safest Place on Earth Larry Crabb
- Mary and Martha - 'Mary chose the better part.'
- I sometimes wonder why God doesn't come running to me like with the prodical son. Perhaps, unlike the prodical son, I have not yet fully come to Him.
- Those that search for fulfllment in pornography are closer than those that search in theology because God is passionate. Passion for God is supposed to exceed sexual passion. No wonder Western christianity, which is so heady, is so unattractive, especially to the young.
- Lord, help me not to be as Esau to give up my birthright for a bowl of soup. Our birthright is our priesthood. For most of us, the bowl of soup (need) is security. God wants to give us more. He wants to give victory.
- 'Getting closer to God' does not mean experiencing God more, it means thirsting for God more. p108 Real Church
- God creates a need. Then an expectation by providing a promise. If we submit to that promise, then He provides faith. Faith creates the arena that allows God to show His love and Glory to others.
- Is it disrespectful to see God craving our love. To be insatiable for it? I contend that He enjoys our praise (especially toward one another) even more than we do. As a small child that rushes over and gives us a hug and a kiss and says 'I love you Daddy', then runs off to play, leaving us all tore up. His heart is more sensitive than ours and so more easily touched.
- At times, it feels as God has boxed us in with all doors shut but count on it, the Devil has camouflaged the one open door.
- God has reality, the rest of us have perspectives.
- When Jesus sweat blood in Gethsemane it was not like the other martyrs who died full of the Spirit. He was cut off from God. But as a result of being cut off from God, He was cut off from us and the whole human race. His Spirit was blinded. This was the cause for His death - not the crucifixion.
- Everyone I know sees God differently. This can only mean that He dulls down His glory to fit our misperceptions of Him in order to not intimidate or offend us. Help us Lord to let go of our neediness and accept, even crave, You to be as You are. And when that happens, we can be who we are. I desire You more than the comfort of my misperceptions.
- The concept of a 'personal savior' was started by D. L. Moody in the revival movement of the 50's. For a lost person, God is personal only because they are not part of the body of christ. The instant a person is saved, God becomes corporate. Ironically, this type of relationship is deeper and more intimate because love flows in all directions throughout the kingdom and it is all about God.
- God is not asking to be at the top of our priorities, but in the center of all. 'Do all to the glory of God.' p207 The Shack
- How can God have expectations when He sees our entire life before it started? God loves us - present tense, period. Expectations are about controlling the future, but with God, there is no future and no past, only the present and He loves you in it. p207 The Shack
- It seems neglectful that the good shepherd left 99 sheep to search out the one lost sheep, but He was loving the 99 as He did it because they knew that if that happened to them that He would be just a concerned. If He did not, it would have sent an equally negative message.
- How can we be generous to others if we are fearful that God will not provide for us?
- God is about love. The Devil is about fear. Which one is our motivation determines if we are serving God or the Devil. IF we are serving the Devil, we are hurting someone, usually not just ourselves. Every time I protect myself out of fear, I hurt someone else. Love can protect me.
- Man builds things to last. God builds things to change. Nature is all about change. That is real strength.
- Temptation to Jesus was more intense because He was capable of so much more than me. I can't turn stones into bread. But He said that we would do more than He did. That means to take on more spiritual responsibility and ability is to take on more temptation.
- Can the God who said, 'Peace be still' to the storm say the same to my troubled heart? Can He fill my empty nets? Will He speak the 'words of life' to my empty soul?
- I have another area in my life that I do not trust God for. I do not trust Him to keep my mess-ups from preventing me from getting to the goal without excessive work. He continues to use my mistakes to show me a better way. This hangup heads to self-loathing and self-criticism.
- The change that has happened to me is that when hard situations arise, I no longer blame God and feel hurt and alienated by Him. Instead, it feels like the situation happened to both of us. The hard time seems an inevitable part of getting to our goal. Insted of complaining where He is taking me, I agree with where we are going and so the hard time is necessary to get there. This feels great because I can be at peace when difficult stuations arise knowing it is part of the process. It is also nice to be in fellowship with God during hard times rather than to suffer alone because I have alienated Him.
- It appears that God has been healing me in my sleep. There goes my limit on God that says that there is no healing emotionally or spiritually without doing the hard work.
- God comforts me not by being my idea of a substitute wife and giving me hugs and telling me everything is going to be alright (closer to a mother). Instead He comforts me by affirming my manhood in strengthening me as I face life as a man. For example, miraculous growth in my weightlifting. "The principles He reveals are given to guide us in our commitment to reflect His character, not to comfortably organize our lives. We are intended to trust the goodness of God, not the reliability of principles.' p63 Who You Are
- The strategy of looking to God for guidance and to a wife for love is flawed because if I cannot get love and comfort from God, then I cannot get it from anyone else either because it is due to my inability to give it.
- Trials are God's merciful shortcut to Himself. The cruel way is to give us plenty of resources ( longer rope) as he did by giving Soloman wives galore, money and wisdom more than any other man. It took him a lifetime of frustration to find out 'all is vanity' and what we realy need is God. Trials get us to the end of the rope faster.
- When we can clearly see God's wailing for our pain, we too will not question His lateness to our Lazurus tomb but instead our trust in Him is magnified as we wait with anticipation of the manifestation of that love that is capable of reaching beyond hopelessness.
- Jesus was very controntive to different people including the religion of the day and even to His own apostles and disciples, but His confrontation was always on the subject of love.
- As I have said, I see God as a guide and I trust His guidance very much. But I do not trust Him as a comforter. Also, I have said that our perspective of God is a reflection of ourselves. Therefore, I must be more business than comfort. If I was to be more comforting to others I would feel God's comforting both through me and through them. Life would be more comforting and less harsh and serious. Also, I would be misundersood and falsely accused much less. Also, I could confront more vigourously and often since everyone would trust me to have their best as my intentions. Lord, open my heart to see opportunities to comfort.
- I keep begging God to fill the gap created by the pain of a life with not enough porpose and too much loneliness. But is this a matter of God revealing Himself or my heart opening up to seeing that He is already here? An openess that allow me to focus on forgiveness and to experience peace as I trust His plan in my life.
- I prayed that God would make Himself more real to me so that I could move more courageously and purposefully to Him such as when He wants me to wake up earlier for a prayer walk. This morning, He tapped me on the shoulder three times very gently but enough to wake me up instantly. I was tickled at His miraculous answer to prayer, but I soon forgot about it as my apprehension set in wondering if He would make Himself known to me on the walk.
- John 4:24 "...they that worship (come to) Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' I felt that God was telling me that He could not come to me because of my negative attitude toward Him. My response was that I have a negative attitude because He doesn't come to me. It was too much like my relationship with my Dad. I wanted so much to be close to him, to be like him. I liked his passion and knowledge. But he never was approachable. He was very demanding. It was like God was telling me, 'You get it right, then you can come'. The truth was right, but the way that I took it was wrong. I need to stop putting Dad's character on God. I need to trust Him when He is silent that it is for my own good. When I stop attributing that demanding, critical attitude to Him, then I can hear His instructions without hurt or offense and accept the dry times as times when He is working behind the scenes or trying to change my perspective.
- When the Greek asked through Philip to see Jesus, he says 'unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit'.
- In order to relate to God, I need to relate as a man. No whining. He wants to relate to me as a man.
- God wants to be craved, not needed.
- Can a God who is so great have His feelings hurt?
- Jesus came to Jericho. It was anticipated all week. The town counsel declared a holiday. Everyone lined the streets to point Jesus to the city hall where the mayor, the councel and all of the important people were waiting with food and decorations carefully prepared. But Jesus had other plans. There was one person there that was there just to see the face of God. Everyone else wanted a blessing or healing. He was short and so considered useless in an agrarian/warlike society. He had found a way to make a living and get back at the people that looked down on him. He was a tax collector and had become rich doing it. But he was the one Jesus had come to see. 'Hurry, I want to meet with you.' What a slap in the face of a city that had prepared so much. The one they rejected is the one that was placed in honor. His whole household got what they would never get from the city - love. It is all he ever asked for.
- Oh Lord, show me the simplicity of Your passionate perspective.
- For those that the Lord calls to greatness (that's all of us), He requires us to pass through the purifying fire. He promises us that we will not be burned but it is very scary and heartbreaking to see things catch fire that we thought were a part of us. Resistance to letting go of these things is what determnes how hard the trial will be.
- How could we have gotten a feminine view of Jesus? For example, men tear a whole in a roof to interupt a service for a paralyzed friend. Obviously not your typical christians. Jesus holds His hand over the man and glares at the Pharisees. 'You've got a problem with this?' I like that!
- God brings hardships on us (usually in the form of people) and then shows us the loving response needed for the situation only to show us that we are not christian enough to give that kind of love that much. The result is to be drawn back to Him who loves us that much, that way.
- Trials purge our confidence in the flesh. But it is not my flesh that I am tempted to lean on but another's. I leaned on (name) for wisdom, but he had none. I leaned on (name) for love and nurturing but she had none of that either. I leaned on (name) for love and spiritual guidance but she had neither. Help me Lord, to see that You are my guide and You are my support for no onle else can understand and no one else wants to. Help me to understand where the role of a spouse and friend stop and only You can fill. What an overwhelming predicament to be overwhelmed with love for a sovereign being that is so elusive. As Peter said, 'Where can I go? You have all the answers'. I am not writing for just answers, but for love that can fill my overwheming need that, up to now, has only been answered by apathy from all those that I have offered my love to. Love that none of them could understand. All I have ever desired is a consistent truthful warm embrace. But, it is the very unpredictableness that I admire. Do I want to domesticate God?
- The Lord seems to prefer to teach me through pain. Probably, because I don't usually make an idol out of pain.
- Oh Lord, to see You in Your Glory (love) fully would destroy us, but to see it in manageable doses destroys everything that is not us.
- I want to be loved for me and not for what I can offer. I thank You, Lord, that You do.
- Sometimes the Lord allows our pain to intensify in order for us to see it clearly.
- Pain is not something to just be endured or something to test our faith. It is a road map to God just as is our desires. Many times, the pain and desire are the same thing.
- If we are having problems finding God, look in the one place we do not want to find Him.
- When the Lord allows trials into our lives, it can appear that He is being cruel. when I think this way, I am not only seeing God in the wrong light, but I am seeing myself in the wrong light, also. As strange as it may sound, when God allows an intense trial, He is giving me a compliment. He promises that He will not only 'not give me more than I can bear' but that the 'yoke would be easy'. If, by faith, 'I can do all things through Christ', no trial will seem too grievous. When God directs, I can 'move mountains' and even do greater things than He did as Jesus when He was here. To see myself as anything less is to hinder His work. It terrifies me to see how far He will push me and others, but I need to not only see my abilities, but others' also. As a counselor, I do not need to do the pushing, let God be the heavy. I just need to explain, guide and comfort as God directs. I am capable of doing anything God directs me and I am totally incompetent in everything else.
- We can know what God has planned for our future by listening to our desires. The desires always come before the opportunities.
- It is easy for me to be cynical toward God with plenty of evidence to show His lack of participation in meeting my needs and getting my life fixed. But maybe I would see more action from Him if I would participate in what He is doing rather than trying to get Him to participate in what I am doing. It is easy to see my pain more than others and so assume mine is worse. This causes me to be selfish and isolated from God and others. When I pray for others sins, I see my own more clearly.
- It wasn't Dad's beatings that hurt so much as his lack of love between them. Help me Lord not to attribute that coldness to You.
- When hard times hit, it does not occur to me to run to God. I rather see Him as the instigator. I plead to God, 'why?'. I am at that point again where I can see nothing in the future (never mind the past or present) that I can find hope with. I am bitter with God for giving me all my dreams (marriage, sandrail, promise to build houses) but putting a 'fly in the ointment' for each one, till I no longer desire them. How far does the brokeness go? I am fearful to hear whatever else God has to say. (name) already said that it will get much worse. Seeing God clearly is my only hope. I must be careful to weigh, even that, against my pain. It may not makeup for all my disappointments. That isn't the point.
- Forgive me Lord for seeking Your purpose more than seeking You.
- Lord, help me to find comfort in You. Everyone else is absorbed in their own situation except (name) who is afraid of me. You understand, and even enjoy my eccentricies because You made them.
- Help me, Lord, to enjoy Your perspective.
- The Lord's kindness has shown me that my perception of Him was slightly harsh. I know that in His perception, physical comfort, health, and even life are not as important as His purpose to reach a lost world. However, to think that He takes pain or joy lightly is a misperception. I cannot have a negative view of life without having a negative view of God. The negative view destroys faith as it destroys hope. It is the root of my depression and stress. I begin to believe, not that God is incapable of meeting my needs and stopping my pain, but that He is unwilling an uncaring. Therefore, the burden falls on me. The intimacy is lost. It is true that He withholds from us to draw us to Him, but only so that our perspective can be focused on Him over the needs and desires so that He can give us more. To be bitter at unmet needs and desires is to resist the process.
- God is not in the future or in the past. He is in the moment. The Awakened Heart - Gerald May
- Thank You for reminding me from Awakened Heart that it is not that You are not here, it is that I am not here. Help me to be in the moment with You.
- God's glory is shown not in His people being able to put Him above their needs, but rather by our submission to Him so that He can give us strength beyond our needs.
- A lot of my craving for God's presence is a craving for approval. 'Am I doing it right'. The answer, of course, is always 'No, but don't worry about it'. Love is not a craving for 'atta boys'. Hearing God's voice has nothing to do with how well I'm doing. That only leaves one reason to crave God's presence - God. As long as I use God's presence (sense of presence - He's always present) to give myself koodos, I limit Him from showing Himself. I already have His approval. Live with it. Forgive me Lord for trying to use You to find self-worth. I am not dong good or doing bad. I'm not doing. You are.
- (name) got something that went with the previous 2nd object lesson. God tests us at our weakness (ex. Abraham with his son Isaac). There is no need to test elsewhere. The test to submit to God because we want Him more than our needs.
- Object lessons from my walk today:
- The tree cannot be straightened all at once by digging it up and moving it after a rain without it being crooked. The cable needs to be tightened, little by little, so the branches can grow to adjust. God will change us little by little.
- The bushes have thorns only on the ends of the branches where they are tender. God causes trials and pain only where necessary to protect our growth.
- Forgive me Lord for measuring Your presence based solely on how much it is benefiting me at the moment.
- Help me Lord to 'draw near' to You in order to not be self-centered.
- Help me Lord with the battle in my heart between the desire that man has put in my heart (neediness due to neglect and abuse) and the desire that You have put in my heart (longing for Your fellowship and to be like You).
- Why is it that, many times, the youth assume that justice prevails in the world now rather than later and that the consequences of transgressions will be proportional to the transgression. But, in reality, the little boy/girl plays hooky. A pedophile spots him/her on the street and he/she is molested and killed. Other times, evil goes unchecked. God promises to be with us but He does not promise to protect us. We must not tempt fate and we must take proper precautions. It is irresponsible to assume that God will take all the responsibility for our actions.
- It appears that my spirit is taking over the rest of me or I am just more aware of it. When my spirit shuts down, the only thing left is basic body functions such as blood pressure. My capacity to love or care diminishes to scary levels. My core is still committed, but I am reduced to a very base person. Everything that I know about God and the Bible says that I cannot earn God's presence in my life (or rather actions showing His presence - which is always constant). Part of me tries to say that I can't pull God toward me but I can push Him away by some kind of sin in my life. However, this sounds like a head game. Also, if this is true, then the first truth has been reduced to no effect. Maybe this is God's way of reminding me what part is Him and what part is me. It is still troubling. Lots of people go through life without the Holy Spirit, getting married, raising kids and even supporting charity efforts. I feel lucky to maintain a pulse. Last night, when I was with (name), I was scared at what would happen if the honeymoon suddenly came up and I was in this state. I guess I will just have to trust God to turn me on when He needs me and show me how to stay available. (name2)'s presence would help me to be more aware of when this was happening, but with (name) here all the time, it is more obvious.
- Oh Lord, most times I feel like Peter, 'Where else can we go?' You are so radical. I find that so annoying. Why can't You be more consistent, more predicable and less demanding? But isn't this the quality that draws me closer to You (and others) with ever increasing love and passion? Help me Lord to be more like You. When I am cautious and 'stable' perhaps that is when I am furthest from You and Your purpose. Help me Lord to have the faith to be as a child, to love as a child and to pursue life as a child. To take on Your literal 'devil may care' attitude. As the pop song says, 'You make lovin' fun'.
- Why do I struggle to accept that God is touched by my show of affection toward Him? He is more sensitive than me, of course. Why would I consider it sacriligious to think of the almighty God as One that gets choked up at the drop of a hat. Love begets love. 'We love Him because He first loved us.' The more we can accept His love, the more we can love Him back, and love others.
- Psalms 46:1 'God is our refuge' I needed the green pastures and still water of Psalms 23 and am reminded to 'abide in Him'.
- It was so painful to have my offer of intimacy rejected by (name) and (name). In my devotion, I read how Christ suffered the same rejection, only more, when the people whom He fed asked for more food and He said that He was the food and they left Him.
- Lord, I have asked You to be real and practical with me but how can I be real and practical with You?
- Song of Soloman 5 - When the reluctant beloved was stirred out of bed but the lover was already gone, she walked the city in search for Him and was beaten by the watchmen which represent time - the curse of our fast passed culture. As with the beloved, I cried to the Lord over His perceived absence and unwittingly was drawn out of myself and into a praise and worship session. 'The Lord inhabits the praise of His people.' His pulling away gets me in touch with my longings for Him rather than focusing on circumstances (they are just that - circumferencial events).
- I see a pattern. Thank You God. When a temptation overcomes me to the point that I cannot resist, I can pray to God and He will provide an escape. The Bible promises this. But, the escape will be only enough to escape, not to remove the temptation. This allows a moment for intimacy. By leaving enough of the temptation that it can still clearly be seen, we have been given the priveledge to still have a choice. The intimacy comes when we chose God while we are still face-to-face with the temptation. While we still feel it's lure. I learned ths lesson by choosing the temptation, regrettably. But instead of running into the woods to build fig leaf clothes, I bowed in the same path that we walk in the cool of the evening together.
- Oh Lord, as I pursue a more intimate relationship with You, I find the moment awkward. All of the previous intimacy was with You as comfortor. But You want to go beyond that. What do we do? What do we talk about? I am open to Your guidance.
- Isaiah 54 encouragement
- In the shadow of the cross, God's grace dominates to the point that all other things are silent. Pride with all of it's demands cannot exist. Forgive me Lord for separating Your gifts from You. You are the gifts, expressed in different ways.
- Nehemiah 8:10 - '...the joy of the Lord is our strength.' Forgive us Lord for being weak in our grieving. Forgive me for seeing the burden as something for You to remvove instead of the work that You have me to do. Why else would You place the yoke on me? Help me to pull with joy.
- Help me to remember Lord that You are my city of refuge, not (name). She is a fellow soldier.
- Psalms 118:14 When trouble swarms about me like bees, You are not just my strength but my song. Help me to sing.
- Help me Lord to remember in the storm that the purpose is not to get to the other side of the sea, the purpose is to get to You.
- How appreciative we are of something, such as a blessing from God, can be measured by our attitude if He takes it back. Appreciation is not bitter or demanding.
- Oh Lord, You were the only martyr that was not joyous because You asked more of Yourself than of any of us. You are not an ivory tower God.
- Thank You Lord for the intimacy of trivial requests. 'Lord, could I have a wife with eyebrows that speak strength over deep, dark brown eyes.' 'Certainly, and I put a little dimple with a wrinkle at the end of it to give the impression of a swirl. Do you like that?' 'Yes Lord, very much. Thank You.'
- Jesus took all those people across the Dead Sea in a storm to save one demon possessed man. He then got right back into the boat and sailed all the way back where He started.
- Lord, please help me, guide me to see You, relate to You, experience You, understand You, and share You outside the box that I have unconciously perceived You in through years of institutionalizing. You are so much more that we realize.
- Forgive me Lord. I always pray 'Lord be with me'. But today, I want to be with You. I don't completely understand the concept but I am willing. I know that You are all powerful but I know that Your love for us has made You vulnerable to pain, somewhat. When we suffer from our petty problems and from our foolishness, You suffer too, even though You could fix those problems and understand how not to fall into those pitfalls. What (name) and I suffer by having to be apart. As You say, even 'nature growns' waiting for the wedding day. You have helped us to see You better by sharing in Your pain. Forgive me for always looking at it as my pain. I strive not to be sacriligious in this, but I offer my small shoulder for Your head that, in some way, I could offer You comfort for the pain that You feel, not just for one person, but for billions. I can't imagine Your pain knowing that Your love for us is much more pure and intense.
- 'For Jesus, peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle but the presence of love.' Sept. 8 Listening to Your Life
- I long for a God who will meet my needs and desires in exchange for obedience and worship. That's what Israel had in the Old Testament. But God says that He will not take my freedom. That He wants Himself to be those needs and desires. As He told the rich man, 'Sell all that you have and follow me'. My desire is to be loved and my need is to be valued by others and myself. I did set those aside and allow God to meet them in Himself. He met my desire with intense moments that were random and few and far between. He seemed to ignore my need. This only increased my longings and therefore the pain. The Lord is too wild. I prefer a wife who wlll hold me each night. But the thought still plagues me that I could only accept the amount of love that i was willing to give myself. Could this prevent me from accepting God's love fully as it would a wife's? Maybe this is what God meant by granting me freedom rather than servitude. The freedom to love myself. How do I do this, Lord? I'm not sure that I even like myself. 'Love others as you love yourself.' Could this mean that I love myself when I am loving others? It's certainly hard to love someone who is not loveable. Then I will be in love instead of trying to get love. It all comes as a package - love of others, love of God, love of myself. Help me Lord to 'give all I have', to have an 'awakened heart'.
- It is hard to give myself to God because I know that He does not have my best interests at heart. My unmet needs of love and purpose are low priority with Him. He is more interested in saving the lost world and is only too eager to sacrifice me, let alone my unmet needs, for that cause. My only chance for some happiness or fulfillment is to have that same attitude. There is no hope when my affections are focused on my needs. The hard part is that He may or may not choose to do anything about my surrender to His will. That leaves my sacrifice unrewarded. Unless accepting His attitude and interests as my own is the purpose. That's a pretty bleak theology to think that my choices are to hang onto dreams that have no hope of fulfillment or hang onto God with no hope of fulfillment, at least not on a regular basis. Life stinks. But I know that the first choice leads to severe depression, eventually, more than I can bear. The second choice is still depressing but it makes me a little less self-centered. Philippians 4:4-7 Paul, sitting in prison, waiting to lose his head, tells us to celebrate God (message) every day, to pray about everything, and to not worry but let Christ's peace come on us. He does not promise that bad things won't happen. 'He does not try to explain them away as God's will or God's judgement or God's method of testing our spiritual fiber.' What He promises is 'the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus'. So, by God's gift of peace, we are able to turn worry into peace which allows us to rejoice. Aug. 22 Listening to Your Life
- I cannot trust God that the situations in my life will be positive experiences. In fact, the Bible says the opposite, 'In this world ye shall suffer persecution'. However, I can trust God that He will be with me and give me the strength to bear my situation.
- 'God does not love us out of need, but needs us because of Love.' p173 The Awakened Heart This is the opposite of my love.
- It's not that people don't believe in God, they just don't believe that God believes in them.
- 'In a sense, the paired thieves present the choice that all history has had to decide about the cross. Do we look at Jesus' powerlesness as an example of God's impotence or as proof of God's love?' p.204 The Jesus I Never Knew 'The healing of evil - scientifically or otherwise - can be accomplished only by the love of individuals.' M. Scott Peck 'Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.' p.205 The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey Do we want justice or love?
- Leo Tolstoy lived a long tortured life trying to cope with the view of God as almighty. Before I dismiss him as being legalistic and blind to Grace, I ask myself whether my view of Grace would be sufficient to cope with the amazingly clear view of God's power that he had. Could it be that God granted Leo a peak of heaven so that we, seeing his struggle, could be reminded of how awesome God really is?
- God has invited us not to come to Him but be in Him. Not to pray to Him but to pray with Him. To feel what He feels. To share in His joy and sorrows. To keep Him company.
- We may complain that God is hidden, but we hide incessantly.' p.141 The Awakened Heart
- Oh Lord, help me to learn in Your training times of absence to accept Your presence as a gift rather than an intitlement. 'If God grants us the freedom to draw close and pull away, should not God have that same freedom?' p.243 Reaching for the Invisible God
- 'He exposes them to as much testing by the pressure of opposed and discouraging influences as they are able to bear - not more (I Corinthians 10:13), but equally not less (Acts 14:22). Thus He builds our character, strengthens our faith, and prepares us to help others.' p.216 Reaching for the Invisible God
- Jesus refused the crown offered to Him by Satan because He prefered the crowns offered to Him from the heart of those that believe on Him. We crown 'among confession, and tears, and great laughter.' George Buttrick
- 'We can never be directly aware of the Spirit, since...He is always the go-between who creates awareness. p149 Reaching for the Invisible God John V. Taylor
- Help me Lord to resist the tempatation to tame You by creating a false image of You and attaching 'religious' practices to it to meet my own addictive desires.
- God's unpredictableness is what leaves room for love, not what diminishes it. If He were predictable, with a constant cause and effect, we would naturally become addicted to Him. True love happens when we choose His unpredictableness over other more predictable possessions, powers, or relationships. It is then no longer love for self's sake, but for God and others as well. We are free.
- I had always looked at the temptation of Christ as somewhat staged because He had the the inside track, the scoop, the whole picture. But now I realize that it was worse for Him because of that. We are tempted to think that we can 'handle it' by ourselves but we learn how foolish this is eventually. However, He really could have 'handled it' by Himself. He could haved turned stone into bread, jumped from a temple roof, and ruled the world very well avoiding untold amount of pain for us.
- Jesus spent 40 days in the desert just as Israel spend 40 years in the desert as our new Moses. The three temptations of Jesus are the three consequences of attachment. First, the temptation to seek satisfaction in something other than God - turning stones into bread. Jesus answered that we live by God's Word. Second, the temptation to manipulate God for our own self-indulgence by jumping off the temple roof. This is the difference between testing God by avoiding our own responsibilities or trusting God as we act responsibly. Jesus answered that we should not tempt God. Third, the temptation of idolatry by offering Jesus the world. Jesus answered that we should serve God. First, Jesus faced the temptation. Second, He used His strength to choose. Third, He did not use His will on it's own by working in harmony with God's will. p138,139 Addiction & Grace So the first temptation is to settle for less because we don't want to work hard for what we can never fully have. The second is a clinging to something or someone as a final solution totally dependent on it. The third temptation is to try to manipulate God to give us what we want or think we want.
- '...and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. Gid did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from us.' Acts 17:26,27 KJV says 'though He is not far from every one of us.'
- The point is not 'Where is God when it hurts' but rather 'Where am I when it hurts'. Help me Lord to focus on my response rather than yours. John 14:20,21 The Lord promises us that when we keep His commandments and love Him, He will make Himself 'plain to us'. (The Message)
- How can I harp onmy disappointments with God when He has suffered through 6,000 years and countless lives of disappointment. Right at this moment, God is dealing with 6 billion times my disappointments.
- I am slowly beginning to accept that God's love is not some divine pity on someone that has nothing to offer in return. His love on Calvary stands above all other love ever shown on earth. Of course, I have been able to accept that show of love theologically, but it is much harder to accept it personally since it was done for all mankind. If I was never born, He still would have done it. It is easier to accept that He loves me than that He likes me. I am trying to accept that He actually yearns for me. That, for Him, heaven would not be the same without me. I look forward to receiving the stone with the personal lover's pet name on it. It would fulfill something deep inside of me to share my love with God and for Him to be satisfied with it.
- Oh Lord, when I first get to heaven, all I ask for is a big hug that I have longed for all my life and nobody seems to be able to provide. When that happens, I will have to break one rule. There will be tears in heaven.
- Satan know that the best way to hrt God is to break up the romance between God and I.
- The only weakness God has is His love for me in my weakness.
- It is harder to be angry with God for allowing me to be vulnerable to satan once I realize that, in so doing, He has made Himself even more vulnerable to satan by the extent of His love. But He continues to do it even with foresight. That is love. Iam not the only one suffering. Forgive me Lord for not being sensitive to Your pain.
- Forgive me Lord for seeing You as a hard task master rather than as a loving guide. To acept both hardships and blessings as for my good.
- It is easier to accept that You love me than that You like me.
- Help me to appreciate each aspect of Your friendship as it comes - visions, phrases, ideas, verses, Your presence, and Your blessings.
- Oh Lord, will You be my friend?
- An answer, at least partially, to a lot of the questions of why does God do that or doesn't do this or why He allows that is that His priority is to reveal His Glory. Our comfort is not His priority. He does this for our good, not His. 'If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.' As those He has rescued, it is our priority too.
- How do we trust a God, that promptly handles a hangnail of a problem for me and yet allow 6 million Jews to die without flinching? We have to give up our obsession with knowledge-understanding everything so we can control it. We must be at His feet in a cloud of mystery about who He is and who we are.
- Self-centeredness says, 'My pain proves God's absence' while God-centeredness says, 'My pain expands God's purpose'.
- 'Do you honestly believe God likes you, not just loves you...?' Brennan Manning He even loves my enemies. Lord, help me to do the same.
- The ever fluctuating good deads/bad deads that I see as mountains and valleys are seen by God as noise. What interests God, I believe, is when I can sit in His presence exposed yet at peace and in comfort.
- Jesus went through darkness on Calvary worse than any of my darkness so He knows and empathizes with my pain.
- 'Bidden or unbidden, He is present.' Irish proverb
- It was not punishment that motivated God to gradually withdraw His presence after Adam's fall, it was love and mercy. To be in His presence is to see ourselves as we are and we are not able to bear that.
- O Lord, I pray that I would accept you less seriously and more passionately. Forgive me for being a prude. Help me to be comfortable and enjoy being around your clownish ways.
- Sometimes no answer from God is the answer. As a Westerner, I want answers to everything. I need to accept God's silence as a loving embrace rather than as a harsh coldness.
- God is not a cozy teady bear that we can wrap our intellect around and be comfortable with.
- Maybe God is not available because I am in the Lower Room instead of the Upper Room. see Safest Place on Earth Larry Crabb
- Mary and Martha - 'Mary chose the better part.'
- I sometimes wonder why God doesn't come running to me like with the prodical son. Perhaps, unlike the prodical son, I have not yet fully come to Him.
- Those that search for fulfllment in pornography are closer than those that search in theology because God is passionate. Passion for God is supposed to exceed sexual passion. No wonder Western christianity, which is so heady, is so unattractive, especially to the young.
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