Tag: Truth

Prayer

Today’s a new day! Prayer has been a major part of my life. Especially, as I have walked through this crazy beautiful health journey. I have learned a lot about prayer during this time. I thought I would share a few things I have learned about prayer over the years.

I believe prayer is an act of listening to God, not just talking. Prayer begins with listening, or being still as the Psalmist says. Without this, I believe prayer can be downgraded to transactional communication.

Prayer was not designed to be transactional. Prayer is relational. I believe we must learn to listen to God before prayer will have the true meaning He desires for each of us to experience.

During this crazy beautiful health journey, I have learned a lot about just listening to God. Being still.

As I shared earlier, I believe prayer begins with listening. But it eventually becomes a way of life. I believe prayer is a divine attentiveness to the things of God in our everyday lives. It’s an increased awareness of God’s movement in the world. I believe this explains why Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17)

Over the years as I have learned to sit still and just listen to God, I have found peace in my health journey and in every area of my life. What a beautiful gift.

When prayer truly becomes a way of life, nothing happens by chance. No moment stands alone. Everything is connected. Good or bad, nothing is wasted. Every circumstance is an opportunity to see God, a realization of his movement in the world.

Prayer, the transformative kind, cannot be rushed. Short little pop up prayers are not wrong. God can use those prayers in powerful ways. There is also nothing wrong with scheduling a time for prayer. But I believe to truly experience God and the Spirit’s fruits (love, joy, peace, etc.), prayer must become something our day revolves around rather than something crammed into an already busy schedule.

I encourage everyone not to hurry through prayer. You just can’t. In America, everything is built on speed. We’re an on-demand, right this minute culture. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it’s toxic when we try to impose these cultural values onto prayer.

A few more thing I believe we sometimes miss about prayer.

Prayer is intensely personal and extremely intimate. When it comes to intimacy, how you approach it with God is how you approach it with everything in your life. If you struggle to find intimacy with God, it will impact intimacy with your spouse, family, friends, and everyone else you connect with in life.

Prayer shapes our capacity for relational intimacy. It’s hard to be intimate with another divinely-created person when you’re not intimate with the divine Creator.

My health issues continue to be a battle, but I strive to be still and listen to God throughout my day. By doing this, I feel more connected to God and I am more grateful for my life and relationships. I am also more concerned about the wellbeing of others. This journey is not all about me.

Coincidence? No. I believe my increased intimacy with God has given me a different lens in the way I look at people and the world.

So, as I continue to walk out this health journey, focused and intimate prayer will continue to be a major part of my life. I pray as you walk out your own journey, prayer will guide your steps and become a special and life changing time in your daily life. ~OC

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A Different View

Today’s a new day! I have several friends who do not like going to church, but they think Jesus is really cool. When Jesus was walking on earth, thousands of people flocked to hear him teach. He had something worth saying and his message was life changing. If you are a Christian how do you live? If a non-Christian spent the day with you, would they change the way they viewed Christians?

Some people believe that the Church is a place that is only for people who are good enough. Nothing could be further from the truth. The faith lived out by Jesus was one that was taken up by people who were the wrong sort according to the religious people of the day. They did not have it all together. People came to Jesus with their imperfections and some turned to him and called on him for forgiveness and he forgave them and he led them in a new life. Jesus never sent anyone away who was imperfect and he never sent people away who didn’t agree with him or who didn’t want to follow his teaching. One of his disciples Peter, cut off the ear of one of the people who had come to arrest Jesus (John 18:10), Peter also denied knowing Jesus three times (Mark 14:66-72). In Matthew 16:18, Jesus shares these powerful words, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” In Peter we see the worst and best of the Christian faith, but Jesus loved him and still chose to work with and through him.

Where some Christians go wrong is that they try to portray themselves as perfect rather than the truth which is that we are all broken and thankfully have been forgiven. That as Christians, we are all on a journey of change. I’ve heard it said that: God loves us as we are, but he also loves us too much to leave us that way.

When we make the choice to follow Jesus we are born again, spiritually beginning a new life. The Bible also talks about us reflecting the glory of God as he changes us (2 Corinthians 3:18). The apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament talks about a battle going on in every Christian between the Spirit (God in us) and our sinful nature (Romans 7:9). Who will we listen to? Will we live for ourselves only or do we want to live for God?

I pray every Christian will walk securely in God’s love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace and all of His beautiful gifts. I pray as God’s children, we will be guided by the Holy Spirit living in us to keep on striving to become more like Jesus. ~OC

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Gift of Grace Part 2

Today’s a new day! Being a Christian and living a life saved by grace does not mean we take sin less seriously; it means we take sin more seriously. We cannot continue to live in our old self and continually bring out the grace card. Yes, we are saved by grace through faith and not by works. But that doesn’t mean we can be flippant about our sin. Jesus told us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The Apostle Peter reminded us that “as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15). Genuine faith produces the fruit of good works; by the same token, “faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26). That’s why Paul, even after he has told us that there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), admonished us to “put to death the deeds of the body,” which themselves lead to death (Romans 8:13). If we take a casual attitude toward sin, we will eventually take a casual attitude toward Jesus. While we should never live in guilt and shame over sin from which we have truly repented, we cannot allow ourselves to live a life where we think that a decision to follow Jesus means anything less than actually following Him. ~OC

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The Gift of Grace Part 1

Today’s a new day! The beautiful gift of Grace is not freedom to sin; rather, grace is freedom from sin. Jesus did not die for our sins so we could continue to live in them. No, He died for our sins so that we could go and sin no more. Will we always deal with sin in our lives? Absolutely. Does our struggle with sin separate us from the love of Christ? Absolutely not. But our attitude as one truly saved by grace should not be to continue wallowing in the very behavior that Jesus died to deliver us from. Rather, a person redeemed by the love of Jesus will strive to trust in the work He did on the Cross and desire to become more like Him each day. When the Apostle Paul explained salvation by grace, he anticipated the replies of those who would seek to abuse it. That’s why he asked, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2). The Apostle John shared this warning, “No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him” (1 John 3:6). Jesus Himself warned that we “will recognize [people] by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20). As believers in Christ, we must not offer the world a cheap grace that allows us to proclaim devotion to Jesus with our lips while having a love affair with sin on the side. Our daily lives should reflect a real and life changing encounter with Jesus. That is what a broken and unbelieving world is looking to experience. Do our lives reflect the love, forgiveness, hope, grace and freedom of Jesus? The world is watching and wanting to experience that true freedom and grace. ~OC

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Trust God

Today’s a new day! Never be afraid of the journey God has you on. He could be preparing you for an amazing adventure. Trust the process. Trust Him! ~OC

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True Friendship

Today’s a new day! As most of you know, friendships mean a lot to me. I have written several post about the importance of friendships and how I believe many people take friendships for granted. So I thought I would look more into what a friend really is. I figured the best place to look was the Bible. Here are a few things I discovered.

The Hebrew word for “friend” in the Proverbs passage is ʾahab, or ʾaheb, and is a very strong word that literally means “lover.” It’s used elsewhere to describe God’s friendship with Abraham: “Did You not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?” (2 Chronicles 20:7). Then in 1 Samuel 18:1, we read about Jonathan’s friendship with David: “Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself”

I believe that’s the type of friendship we all desire. Sadly, those kind of friendships are becoming more difficult and rarer, in large part due to our current culture’s social media conditioning that trains us to be aloof, uncaring, and self-centered. Such an attitude is bad enough when it’s aimed at other people, but it’s an eternal catastrophe when it’s directed at God.

I truly believe we can do better. Will we make mistakes along the way? Sure we will. But I believe having real friendships is worth a few bumps along the way. How about you? ~OC

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Surrender All

Today’s a new day! Being honest and real really is the best plan for our lives as we walk through the storms of life. It is the first step towards healing and it is where God is able to meet us. God doesn’t want us to pretend and fake our way through life’s struggles. To live in our pain or make the choice to completely shut Him out. No, God wants us to be real with Him. Raw honesty. God desires an open and honest relationship with us. Not a fake, genie in a bottle kind of relationship. So whatever storms you’re currently facing, do not shut God out. Do not let your doubts or questions make you feel as though God doesn’t love you anymore. Take that pain and suffering, to the feet of the Cross and give God the truth of your heart- every bit of it- and surrender it all to Him. It is then that He will start to work in and through you. ~OC

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you”- 1 Peter 5:7

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The Prodigal

Today’s a new day! Remember, we’re all prodigals until we come to a saving relationship with Jesus. So keep praying and loving the prodigal loved ones in your life. No judgment or condemnation. Just love and grace. ~OC

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Take a Risk

Today’s a new day! As I was praying this morning, God brought a phrase to my mind. That phrase is “To love is to risk.” With everything going on in the world, that phrase really spoke to me. I had to asked myself, Do I take enough risk in loving people? Do I take enough risk in letting people love me back? Do I take enough risk in reaching out to those I would not normally reach out to and love them – love them like Jesus would love them? Am I happy not to risk being rejected and just sit in my comfort zone and only love those around me I am comfortable with?

Taking risk can cost:
To reach out for one another is to risk involvement.
To expose one’s feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before people is to risk their loss.
To live is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But I believe risks must be taken,  because the greatest pitfall in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,  has nothing,  is nothing.
They may avoid loss, suffering and hurt, but they miss learning, growing, and truly loving. 
Chained by their fear a person who refuses to take risks, misses out on freedom. Only a person who takes risk in life is truly free.

I choose to be a risk taker. I do not want to be someone who risks nothing,  does nothing,  has nothing,  is nothing. I want to be free – free to go and love on people no matter how they respond. Free to risk showing love, hope and forgiveness even if I am not shown this in return. Free to reach out to people even if it does risk being rejected. I want to love even if it comes with risk. Who will join me?

The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life. ~1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭9‬-‭11‬ ‭

What would the world look like if we all took the risk and truly loved people – all people no matter their color, their political beliefs, spiritual beliefs or their cultural background, the kind of love we as Christians are called to show to all around us? I just wonder. ~OC

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God’s Voice

Today’s a new day! I have been walking this crazy beautiful health journey for over twenty years. Anyone who has endured long term health issues will understand immediately the agony of this path, not only on your own body and life but in the lives of those that love you. But in the middle of all of that, I have learned to recognise the quiet voice of God. To date, God’s voice has not let me down or steered me in the wrong direction. His voice brings peace and comfort and allows me a chance to breathe when the reality of my battle would seek to crush the very air from my lungs.

So I continue to lean into God and make sure His voice is the one voice that doesn’t get ignored. Over the years, I have learned how to weed out the voices that would seek to bring harm, no matter how well intentioned and allow only those voices that bring hope, peace and encouragement. I know there will be some who read this post and call me naive. But you know what? I don’t care.

My journey, my rules. It’s my race and I decide how to run it. And in the center of my race, I choose to run into the unfailing words of God.

I have no idea what this crazy beautiful health journey holds for me, but I know that if I am anchored with deep roots in God’s Word, I will continue running a strong race. As grateful as I am for my medical team and the medications that keep me going, I have never put my hope in them. My hope, my confidence, is in the God of Heaven.
He will never let down. ~OC

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