Monday, January 10, 2011

Whose Report will You Believe?

Time for another bought of total honesty. It seems so many of my postings are my intense struggles and I begin to wonder if I'm ever going to actually overcome and have something nice to say. So I vowed to start focusing on the positive. I tell people in my class that we process information through fear or through faith. We either look at something and base our decisions, opinions, actions, etc on what God says about it (FAITH), or we use our past (hurts, betrayals, spoken words, etc) to look at something and base our decisions, actions, etc (FEAR). I have noticed that I tend to be very negative and process through the past. I don't want to do that anymore. So I am working on changing my thought patterns. I'm trying to convince myself that even though God sees the same failures in my life that I see, He sees them differently. He doesn't look and condemn - instead he sees the potential in my life. He looks at my faults and says "though your sin be as scarlet, I can make you white as snow." (OK, that's the Terri Hall paraphrase, but it's close - google it, it's one of the major prophets; I think.) He looks at my faults and says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." I've got to start realizing that God isn't anywhere near as hard on me as I am. It's the enemy that wants to see us backed in a corner, giving up, warped in self condemnation.




Sometimes I think it's even harder in ministry, because you have plenty of people who will come along side of you and agree with every fault you can find. THey will even point out many more that you weren't aware of! It's imperative that we know who we are in God in order to overcome these times in our lives. So, that's what I've been thinking about lately. And the last 2 days I've been doing a lot of soul searching, prayer, and writing. I'm ready to make some changes. I'm ready to put some things into action. I will be writing later on the Satisfied blog so check it out if you don't read it already. I think what I've been dealing with the last couple days will help others to. http://www.imsatisfied.blogspot.com/ See you there!
 
As the old song says; "Whose report will you believe? We will believe the report of the Lord!"

Monday, January 3, 2011

Where I'm at Today.

Today I sat down to read my Bible and I briefly asked God to give me understanding of His word. Usually I read through the Bible, starting at the beginning and simply moving forward, but today I felt God wanted me to read James. As I turned there I asked Him to help me focus, not just read because I should read, but to really get something out of His word. As I read the first chapter in the book of James, the last verse made a serious impact.

" Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." James 1:27

This one simple verse had a double impact on me today. First, I had to examine my life recently and ask myself honestly, "Am I caring for orphans and widows?" Jody & I founded Aiming High Ministries on outreach. Our heart was outreach.We took food to the homeless, collected clothes for needy children, served in the Katrina recovery, put together Christmas events for families, and ran a food pantry out of our dining room just because we wanted to make a difference. There's an amazing feeling that comes with serving others. But somewhere along the way, our paths seem to have narrowed. Now most of my time is spent at a desk - budgeting, writing letters, fundraising, developing programs. Sure, I believe we are still involved in outreach. Afterall, we run a recovery program and most people come in poor, lost, and needing different avenues of help. But I realized this morning that we're not OUT anymore. People come to us, we're not going to them.

I'm not being judgemental on us. We've only been here 5 months and the huge undertaking of aquiring a recovery center has taken most of our time and attention. But I believe God responded to my prayer because it's time add community outreach back into what we do as ministers. Praying that God will now guide us into what He desires for us to do. And I know He will.

Second, pure religion is to be unspotted from the world. Hmmmm. I've always heard the religion that pleases God is to care for the widows. I think most people tend to leave the second half of this verse off. (Or I've chosen to ignore that part!) God expects us to refrain from the ways of the world as much as He expects us to feed the poor.  Being set apart is important. Very important. This verse has become the cry of my heart: give me the boldness and desire to reach out to others, and the strength to live a life of holiness. I desire to overcome the things of this world so that I might be an example of Christ's power in the lives of others. Today was a great start.