Friday, January 30, 2004

God's Grace...

I have been trying to decide whether or not to post about "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning as I have been reading it. Part of me did not want to for fear that I might "ruin" the book for someone out there, but I think in some ways I would prefer to disclose things as I read because the lessons I am learning are so valuable and need to be heard.

The first chapter of Ragamuffin begins simply by discussing how we are given the gift of salvation by faith alone through God's grace. Brennan notes that there is nothing that WE can do to gain salvation, it is simply God's gift to us. He says, "This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer...My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it."

That and everything else in that chapter spoke volumes to me. I am not saved because of how hard I try to be "good" or how many prayers I say or how many good things I try to do. I am saved and entitled to a life-long relationship with my Creator simply because He loves me. And the best part is...He loves me AS I AM. With all my blemishes, all my faults, and all my sins. I experience His grace simply because I have faith in Him and He has offered it to me.

I really made the connection even more when I finished reading Genesis last night (as part of my Read the Bible Through in a Year plan). All through my readings in Genesis, I would have questions to ask Darryl about Abraham, and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and all the others. I would read the stories of things they did and the things they said and be in constant amazement that God continued to bless them. They did things that involved deceit, lying, prostitution and even murder. I asked Darryl how this could be, and he simply replied, "They, too, were sinners." It wasn't until I read Ragamuffin that I made the connection.

God extends himself to us. Period. Despite our history, our mistakes and our sins. He takes us as we are and blesses us. If that isn't reassuring, then I don't know what is.

Thursday, January 29, 2004

Sorry Subscribers!

If you have subscribed to this blog in order to receive updates when we post...it wasn't working! I just fixed that, so tomorrow updates should resume.

Sorry folks!

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

The 40 Days of Purpose Revisted

This blog site originally started with a focus on the book by Rick Warren called, "The Purpose Driven Life." We read one chapter a day for 40 days as part of a study our church was doing. Hubby and I wrote on this site each day as well. Now, our small group is re-focusing on the book one chapter a week, and my hope is that once a week I will pop in here and write a bit more about the chapters we originally shared our thoughts on.

This week was Chapter Two: You Are Not An Accident (we missed Chapter One because we have been in the new members class for our church). Click here to see what I originally wrote about (October 28, 2003).

When I first read this chapter and wrote about my thoughts, I focused on some pretty external things like appearance and our current location. When I go back now and think about the message of this chapter, I am also drawn into thinking about all the other things that God did for me or gave me that were not an accident. Like this blog perhaps. I have always enjoyed writing, and in the last few years, web design has become more of a focus for me. I honestly think that God has given me this skill and ability as a way to reach people.

In our small group on Sunday, we also talked about accepting things, things that are difficult for us to understand like when a loved one is taken from us, or hardship comes our way. We discussed how we are often limited by our humanness in our ability to understand some of God's concepts or plans, but that it is our faith that bridges the gap between our human capacity for knowledge and God's wisdom. I find myself still asking a LOT of questions, but as long as I remember to keep my heart open to receiving the answers, I can't go wrong.

Sunday, January 25, 2004

Investing Into Our Teenagers

This morning's sermon at our church was given by the Assistant Pastor who is in charge of Youth Ministries, and his message spoke to me even though I am fast approaching the 30 year mark in my life. He spoke about the priority, purpose and passion of student ministry. Sitting there listening to how teenagers who believe in God are not only faced with a plethora of issues that any other teen is faced with, but how they are also faced with additional issues because of their faith, I began to think back to my own teenage years and how I lived my life from then until now as a direct result of how I was supported, challenged and tested by those around me at THAT time.

I have mentioned before that I went to Sunday school as a young child, but once I got to about the 6th grade, the church I went to had no regular or effective youth group or student services. I didn't see myself identifying with or being able to understand the issues that the younger kids were dealing with, and the issues and studies of the older members were not relevant or too "over my head". The only real influence and modeling I had were my parents, and for me at that age, my parents were the LAST people I wanted to listen to about anything!

I sometimes wonder if I had been given the message then that the youth in my church are given now, would I have had so many struggles the last few years? Would I have been able to find someone else like me to talk to about my faith, and would my church attendance not all but disappeared? If I had been supported and taught as a teenager, would I just NOW be beginning my real spiritual journey? I sometimes have to wonder about those things.

The fortunate thing is that I did have enough basic influence in my life, and I had attended church enough as a child, that no matter how far away from organized church I got, the Holy Spirit never let me get all the way away. Even at my darkest moments within the last year or two, the Holy Spirit was there...pulling at me, whispering to me that my life was not going as it should, that there was more that I could experience and be a part of. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was there all along, even in those lonely teen and college years when I struggled with faith on my own. It must have been, because when I look back now...no one else was. But GOD was. JESUS was. The HOLY SPIRIT always was.

Another thought that struck me during the message was that just as a teen has to deal with many changes as they age, everyone faces similar changes as they grow and walk in their relationship with God. Spiritual maturity in Christians young and old is something that needs to be modeled, challenged, supported and tested in much the same way as we model, challenge and support our teenagers. Even though I am almost 30 years old, and was saved through a camp experience when I was much younger, I still liken myself to some of the younger children in the church when it comes to my knowledge and experience with truly living a Christian life. I may be able to understand and grasp the concepts easier, and I may have the ability to teach myself on my own, but the milestones are the same as I grow in my walk with God.

So in essence, I guess I just want to say that we should definitely be supporting our teen and student ministries, but we should also make sure we are looking to those around us and supporting their growth and spiritual maturity, no matter what their age.

And oh yeah...in case any of the youth from our church read this blog, here is a great link to some info on the Thundercats!

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Spending time with my Bible...

I have never read the bible all the way through. In fact, I have really never sat down and read it just for the sake of reading it. Almost all of my bible reading has consisted of turning to chapters or verses during worship service or small groups and reading along with the message being given to me. I am now finally beginning to spend time in the Word of God simply for the sake of spending time with God and trying to better myself. I will be the first to admit that it is hard, but I am making a real effort.

Darryl mentioned one of his New Year Resolutions in his entry, and reading the bible through in a year is one of mine, so I thought I would mention it as well. I wanted to be able to give myself a plan...something that I can do everyday and in one year be able to say that I accomplished my goal. We sat down and figured out the best way for me. There are tons of "Read the Bible Through in a Year" plans, but I didn't want one that just started at the beginning and would run me straight through to the end. Because I have not read the whole bible (some books I don't even know if I had ever opened!), I wanted to make sure I got the Big Picture. So, we found a plan that allows me to read the bible through chronologically as it happened.

I am enjoying it. I will also tell you that I haven't actually read EVERY single day, but I am at least making an attempt to keep up and if I can make it all the way to the end of the bible by December 31, 2004, then I will feel awfully good. The one thing that I can say is that I find messages for me in what I consider to be the most unlikely places. I can be reading about something (like Job's trials) and think to myself, "Wow...that applies directly to ME". I am learning so many lessons about myself, how I should be living, and how I should be spending my time in Christian fellowship. God is truly amazing, and His Word is showing me more each day.

If you have never had a plan for reading the bible through, I am adding links to two PDF (Adobe Acrobat) files so that you can save them to your computer or print them out. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can click here and download it for free.

Click here to get a Standard reading plan.
Click here to get a Chronological reading plan.

If you can not get them to work, feel free to email me and I can send them to you as Word documents.

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

It is done!!!

I spent several hours here tonight redesigning this blog for Darryl and I to FINALLY begin regular journaling about our thoughts on God and how He is working in our lives. I made an entire site and found out it did not work with the coding of the journal host I use and had to start over. Some of the linked pages do not have a lot of info yet, but they will soon!

I had to redo the comments sections, so the comments from the old blog are gone....but I saved them and will re-add them to the appropriate posts. I don't want anyone's input to get lost in the transition.

Our hope is that folks will read this and perhaps identify with something we may be thinking/learning/experiencing about God and His glory. Feel free to post comments and have dialogue in the comments sections...that is what they are there for.

I will be adding more links and info in the next few days and over the weekend. Welcome back! We are here to stay!

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Tomorrow is the Day

I will be updating this site :)