And so another day begins. Another 24 hours – some in sunshine, some in darkness – just like our souls, for there are moments throughout this journey that we could find our minds slipping on icy matters. It is dangerous to begin to believe what we start to hear about ourselves. Complimentary laurels wrapped around our shoulders can hook our spirits and before we know what has happened our spirit is hooked into believing that we are something that we are not.
It is all about God!
It isn’t about some distant issue. It isn’t about fighting another cause. It isn’t about our church, our denomination, our faith … or even about our country. Oh, we can love all of them … commit ourselves to the life within them … but when all is said it still has to be about God. Does it matter to God … really, really? Or, is it something that simply has become our political issue? Is it more about our religion instead of our faith-walk with God?
An observation: When an individual challenges some of our assumptions about faith or our feelings about church the tendency is to become defensive. We don’t like to be challenged. And, we don’t like to be stretched. We find our comfort zone and pray that no one invades our little world. If they do … God forbid … we immediately put up a defense as to why they are wrong. That should be the first warning sign that something unhealthy is going on. Actually our first response should always be, “Hmmm, let me think about this or about that and see where God might be revealing a new thing for me, about me.”
Remember, it is all about God – it isn’t about us or our faith or our church. It is all about God.
Therefore, it becomes our responsibility to ask the deeper question: What does this say about God and how does it affect our relationship with God? Everything else is small potatoes as in “don’t sweat the small stuff … and everything is small stuff.”
Sometime ago I discovered the freedom to place everything on the table when it comes to faith, Bible, Christianity, church … even my preconceived notions about God, Christ and Holy Spirit. It is kind of scary because what begins to happen is the discovery of some prejudices and old ways of thinking (fences of the mind and spirit) that was keeping spiritual growth at bay.
It all started with a simple question from a spiritual mentor: Do you still believe everything that you believed last year, last month, yesterday? If you do, you just might not be growing with God. While God is the same yesterday, today and forever … nevertheless what we know of God is less than 1% and by holding onto old ways of thinking and believing we are denying ourselves new possibilities, new horizons, new friendships, new experiences. Another word for all of this is CHANGE … our faith should be in a constant state of change. If it isn’t changing then it isn’t growing …
Or, at least that is my thinking as I begin this new day! Happy journey!
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