Not just words

Our Daily Bread
Yes, I know, I am mentioning a BeeGees song in my blog.   Yikes!  "It's only words, cause words are all I have..."  ha!  There is one set of "words" that is the key to life -- The Holy Bible!

There is so much discussion about the Bible.  There are so many folks that try to make is say what they want it to say.  They want it to fit their lives and their beliefs instead of letting the Holy Spirit guide them into the correct way of believing and living.  Taking God's Word out of context or prooftexting is worse than forgetting a word in a Shakespeare play!  Read the Bible.  Rely on the Holy Spirit to enlighten your understanding even if means changing your belief system!  That is what Jesus challenged his followers to do when he was here on earth!

Lord, thank you for your Holy Word.  Please help us use it as a way to know you more.

Teaching Tuesday
A life of being, having and doing enough by Wayne Muller - final entry
I finished this book over the weekend.  I got a lot out of it.  It was very repetitive in my opinion, but sometimes this old bear needs that!

One of the concepts that struck me is the spiritual application of the Alcoholics Anonymous concept of "enough for today".  He tied this together with our feeling to "get caught up".  What is enough for today?  What is enough for this hour?  This spoke to me because sometimes I get caught up in the "Lord, how can I handle this for the rest of my life?  Is your grace really sufficient to last that long?".  God spoke to me saying "Well, of course it is, but you just take it one day at a time.  One day at a time...".  I still suck at this after trying to put it into practice the past few days.  I will work on it.  I will trust.

Another section that I really liked was about Acceptance and Gratefulness.  I read this section a few times.  It talked about how it is easier to finally accept some things if we are grateful for the end result.  I immediately thought of a relationship that didn't work out.  I realized that I was grateful for not being treated the way I wanted.  The feelings of guilt, shame and regret started to fade almost immediately.  Another instance came to mind that made me grateful for the way some things turned out even though the path to get there was a rocky one.

I highly recommend this book for those (and I mean me) type A personalities.  I also recommend it for the LGBTTQI community.  We have a tendency to think that we are not "enough" because we have been told that our entire lives (at least the folks my age).  Let go.  Be enough.

*****************************
We are far from perfect, but despite our mistakes and our sins, we will never abandon the Lord and he will never abandon us - adapted from a statement about Abraham from the EfM Training Guide