Embrace the Within no. 29

“Your Maker wired you with thirst–a ‘low-fluid indicator’. Let your fluid level grow low, and watch the signals flare. Dry mouth. Thick tongue. Deprive your body of necessary fluid, and your body will tell you.

Deprive your soul of spiritual water, and your soul will tell you. Dehydrated hearts send desperate messages. Snarling tempers. Waves of worry. Growling mastodons of guilt and fear. You think God wants you to live with these? Hopelessness. Sleeplessness. Irritability. Insecurity. These are symptoms of a dryness deep within.

Treat your soul as you treat your thirst. Flood your heart with a good swallow of water.”

• Max Lucado, Fear Not For I Am with You Always

“Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul.”

• Martin Luther

Shabbat Shalom.

“Thank God It’s Friday” or TGIF is all around this broken culture BUT are we truly thankful to God for anything? I am working on expanding my spiritual health as my physical and mental health are a few miles further down the road than my spiritual health. It’s only natural since I started this whole process from being mentally healthy and looking to help out my body and after some time of those two working in alignment I finally got my spirit on board with the program. So, my nephesh isn’t always at the same health in all parts simultaneously. So, the spirit part is lagging behind.

Working on my spirit started with scripture and a devotion to reading every book that constitutes a part of any Bible version out there. As I continue to work my way through all the books, I started incorporating better prayer into my life. A lot of my prayers over the past few decades were selfish and/or self righteous and definitely infrequent. I can’t have a relationship with my wife, my children, my friends, my neighbors, my enemies, or my God if I don’t converse with any of them. So, I started the routine of praying when I first wake at least a prayer of thanksgiving for being alive and awake and a prayer of thanksgiving and blessing for others before I sleep at night. Prayer is an important component of my journey that I totally overlooked in most of my life BUT I will not overlook anymore. I neglected two really key components of a righteous walk with God, scripture and prayer. How was I going to be spiritually healthy not doing those things?

It seems kind of stupid and obvious now BUT it didn’t ever occur to me before. I wasn’t taking it seriously before. That is changing. I am still not good at remembering to pray before meals. I am still inconsistent in praying before starting a task. I am still inconsistent in keeping the conversation with God going in all things. BUT I do now have an awe and a reverence for talking to God.

So, I wanted to end this Friday blog with a prayer for the weekend. I awoke this morning a bit earlier than normal and God was convicting me about prayer. So, I figured I would work out the way my prayers are structured for the benefit of myself and others as a framework for this weekend. And I think every Friday from now on is going to at least be a prayer if nothing more. What better way to get ready for Sabbath than to get into a mind of praise and thankfulness?

“God, thanks for guiding me through another week. This week has had a lot of obstacles. You got me through that whole situation with my knee. I started this week on crutches and I ended this week back to doing my daily workout routine without pain. And for that I thank and praise You.

I started this week with very little organization in my classroom schedule this year. I was so preoccupied with my pain that I couldn’t think beyond the moment. And I am ending this week with a well-organized plan going forward. And for that I thank and praise You.

There are many obstacles and challenges that I am going to face in this journey with You. And I know that through this journey I am never alone. Lord, help me to keep my trust in your consistency. You do not change. You do not leave. You do not falter. You are always perfect.

Help me to see Your ways and to lead me in those paths. Help me to do what You tell me to do without looking for reasoning and understanding. Help me to be a better example to my self, my family, and my neighbors that Your Will and Your Truth be known.

In all these things I ask for your help through the Son, the Spirit, and the Father. Amen.”

Peace to your home. Bless your being. The reign of God is now. Be a blessing to God and others.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin

Embrace the Within no. 28

“Anxious care is out of place in a heavenly Father’s presence.”

• Kenneth Wuest

“Biographies of bold disciples begin with chapters of honest terror. Fear of death. Fear of failure. Fear of loneliness. Fear of a wasted life. Fear of failing to know God.

Faith begins when you see God on the mountain and you are in the valley and you know that you’re too weak to make the climb. You see what you need . . . you see what you have . . . and what you have isn’t enough to accomplish anything.”

• Max Lucado, Fear Not For I Am with You Always

"Jesus has so incomprehensible a love for us that he wills that we have a share with him in the salvation of souls. He wills to do nothing without us. The Creator of the universe awaits the prayer of a poor little soul to save other souls redeemed like it at the price of all his Blood."

• Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four, writing to a friend.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”(Galatians 5:22-23).

Fear should be reserved for God and not for anything else in life. I spent a lot of my time in the beginning of these fourteen days, which I am likely to stop referencing soon since it appears all BUT a few staunch statists are moving away from worry and fear about that whole Rona thing, when I felt like the world was out to get me. And guess what? The world is out to get me BUT just not in the way I had thought in the beginning of this story.

I was consumed with temporal problems. How was I going to feed my family? What is going to happen? How can I solve this now? And I was so consumed by the moment because that was where I was living my life back then. I was center of my universe. The sun arose and set on me and my life. My philosophies, my thoughts, my knowledge, were going to be enough to get me through all of this. And, don’t get me wrong, those ideas were working on getting me somewhere. They were just getting me somewhere that I wasn’t planning.

There is no need to fear because God always has a plan. I was too busy worrying and working my plan that I failed to think about God’s plan. God’s plan was no where on my mind or my radar. And even though I wasn’t consciously working out God’s plan, three years later, here I am right in the middle of God’s plan.

So, my fear, my worry, my work, did nothing BUT get me further into God’s plan. And that is what the plan was all along. That wasn’t my plan. BUT it is my plan.

I never knew where this journey was going to go and I still have no illusions that I am in any way in control of the journey. BUT I no longer need to fear where the path is leading. I no longer need to worry about all those distractions. I no longer need to be concerned about the temporary situations of life because there is a constant God there. And all sorts of things in my life will change. I will encounter new diseases, new taxes, new regulations, new laws, new social movements, new ideas, new government tyranny . . . BUT through it all, I have a constant God that is with me. I am not alone and I need not fear.

Folks are out there right now worried about the next thing that the organized fear squads are pumping into our consciousness BUT we don’t have to be afraid. There is nothing they can invent that God has not already allowed. There is nothing that can happen that God doesn’t already know. There is only one way this all eventually ends. And that is the way God intends.

I am going to choose to live abundantly. I am going to choose to live a life of love and grace. I am going to choose, “. . . love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” in the face of everything. I am not alone and I need not fear.

Peace to your home. Bless your being. The reign of God is now. Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin