Am enjoying Experiencing God immensely! So much good stuff and it's very challenging. It's discussing crisis of belief right now, which is the point in time where you realize what God is asking you to do and you know you cannot do it on your own, that you will have to trust Him to do it. So you have to decide what you believe about God. Do you believe what you say you believe and are you going to make that belief reality by actually acting on it? Good stuff.

I really appreciated today's lesson...here's an excerpt:

"What our world often is seeing in our day is a devoted, committed Christian serving God. But, they are not seeing God. They comment on what we are doing,
'Well, there's a wonderful, dedicated, committed group of people serving God.' They, however, do not see anything happening that can only be explained in
terms of the activity of God. Why? Because we are not attempting anything that only God can do.

Our world is not attracted to the Christ we serve, because they cannot see Him at work. They see us doing good things for God and say, 'That is wonderful, but
that's not my thing.' The world is passing us by, because they do not want to get involved in what they see. They are not having an opportunity to see God.
Let the world see God at work and He will attract people to Himself. Let Christ be lifted up--not in words, but in life. Let them see the difference that a living
Christ makes in a life, a family, or a church; that will make a difference in how they respond. When the world sees things happening through God's people that
cannot be explained except that God Himself has done them, then the world will be drawn to the God they see."

Great stuff. How often we do that..our little "do-gooder" works. Not that doing good is wrong, but we need to be sure that we are spending our time doing the things God calls us to do. Watching and seeing where God is at work and then joining Him in that task, not dreaming up things to do for God and asking Him to bless it. I think sometimes we fail to truly believe (by acting on our belief) that God is involved in this world. I think sometimes we think He's up there hanging out, waiting for someone to get a creative idea so that He can bless it. God is already at work. He's already moving. He's calling us to join Him in His work that He is doing. He's the boss.

Hey! :)

BOOKS

I read The Healer by Dee Henderson this week. It's a continuation of the O'Malley Series. Great set of books! The premise of the series is that there are 7 orphans who wind up a Trevor House and they adopt each other as family and when they grew up they legally changed their last names to O'Malley. Each book focuses in on one of the children (now who are all adults) and takes us on their journey of finding Christ and whatever else happens to be going on in their lives. They have all been excellent romantic/mystery novels. And they are very light reads.

Experiencing God is going really well. We started Unit 4 this week. I'm enjoying the daily discipline and also the new desire within me to make this a part of my life. Today we talked about God and all the different names there are for Him. We took time to worship Him and call Him by those names..it was good :)

WHAT'S GOING ON?

Not much. Keeping busy basically. We have developed a routine that works, but is tiring :) With all the kids going to school it makes it interesting in keeping up with who needs to bring what on what day and when. :) But we're figuring it out.

My major decision has yet to be decided. I'm not sure what God's waiting on, but I'm learning to follow His lead. So I'm waiting and trying not to worry or figure it out :)

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Take time to pray for your friends. And take time to give them a call and see how they are doing..just because you want to :)

Don't forget to sound off!

I'm BACK:)

BOOKS

The Presence ended up being really good. It was very encouraging along the lines of learning to trust when God is speaking to you. The main character has a tremendous amount of faith and trust in God. Good book :)

Experiencing God is going really well..am thoroughly enjoying. It does require quite a bit of time each day and so that seems to be taking up what little free time I have had for things like reading, getting online, or just watching tv. Which isn't a bad thing :)

There are so many things through this book that are not new, but are said in a way that it makes sense. The theme over and over is that there is no method or formula to make you a good Christian--it's all about a relationship with God. And the point is not to become a "good" person or Christian, but to enter into a relationship with God. To learn how to love Him. And then ultimately to learn how to see where He is at work around you and adjust your life to become part of it. That is so different then asking God to bless our plans or to "help" us out. It's not about us, and while we agree with that statement, how often do we go ahead and continue to make it about us? What is God doing in MY life? What does He want ME to do? We get so busy doing and pleasing God (which is important) that we forget about the relationship. There is a statement in the book that says, "You cannot bypass the relationship." I'm so guilty of doing that. I like to be busy, I like to do all kinds of things and I think that I'm doing them because I love God and I want to serve Him. But I think that if I was really honest with myself, I do them because I want to be a good person and a great Christian and I want to feel good about myself. It's not because I love God.

There was another place in the book where a church member was asked by the pastor, "Can you describe your relationship with God by sincerely saying, 'I love You with all of my heart?'"

The strangest look came over his face. He said "Nobody has ever asked me that. No, I could not describe my relationship with God that way. I could say I obey Him, I serve Him, I worship Him, and I fear Him. But I cannot say that I love Him."

That hit me upside the head yesterday because I realized that if I was truly honest, I would have to say the same thing. I would add that I respect, honor, and appreciate God. But love, I'm not so sure. To be really honest..I don't think that I know Him well enough to honestly say that. I kind of liken it unto great speakers and/or authors I have heard or read. I know a lot about them, I've seen how they develop their speeches or their stories, I'm "wowed" by them, but I haven't entered a personal relationship with them. And sometimes I wonder about my relationship with God. I say I love God, but do I spend time with him? I know I judge how a person feels about me by the amount of time they spend with me. Especially in my marriage. If Josh spent as much time with me as I do with God, our marriage would be in BIG trouble. And I think before I always thought of spending time with God as one of the things you do to make you a good Christian. And while I know I knew in the back of my head that really it's to develop a relationship with God, I didn't live that way. So this study has been really good for me to really fall in love with God. Not just to serve, worship, obey, fear, respect, and appreciate--but to LOVE GOD! It's been awesome and I find myself looking forward to the time I get to spend in the study and the time I spend afterwards just "being" with God.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Do you love God? OR do you just obey and serve Him etc.? Take some time to fall in love with God again, or for the first time! Don't forget to Sound off and tell me about it!