Categories
Comfort Love Peace Relationships

GRANDKIDS BEING MISTREATED

I’ve had a few friends who have been unable to find peace due to a constant focus on the situation of their grandchildren. Mind you, they’ve done all that they can do. One even called child protective services only to have them find insufficient evidence of a problem. That, of course, wound up costing the […]

Categories
Gratitude Life Challange Mindfulness

BEING PICKY POSITIVE

I need to take heed to myself, get the beam out of my eye, see the other as supremely important and find ways to encourage and build them. Which do I focus on more: what I want God to do for me/what God has already done for me? My brain is naturally wired to be […]

Categories
Life Challange Relationships

WATCH YOUR TONE

If you put on a good show of being religious and do not control your tongue (including it’s tonal content) you fake yourself out and your heart is deceived. He who controls his tongue and uses it to build up the brethren is mightier that he who conquers a city. James 1:6 This blog is […]

Categories
Christian Living Life Challange Worship

Give Up Works, Then Go Do More?

Elijah was used by God to call down fire from heaven and defeat the slave-priests of Baal, but then he burned out whining that he was the only one left and might as well die. Works? Then God leads him off to sleep eat and hang out in a cave for a while. Climb off […]

Categories
Christian Living Grace Mindfulness

Another way I’m messed up—

How cool is that? In Romans 7 Paul laments that he keeps doing what he knows he shouldn’t and doesn’t really want to do them. Then he doesn’t get around to doing what he knows he should and really wants to but the sin in him keeps bossing him around. I can relate.  Paul calls […]

Categories
Life Challange Sin

CONSEQUENCES OF CARRYING HEAVY BURDENS ALONE

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom: the fear of the Lord is to hate evil: in order to hate evil I need to see the consequences of my choices. The greatest evil is iniquity ie. I will be my own god by deciding right and wrong, doing this “right” in […]

Categories
Forgiveness Gratitude Life Challange

RESENT NOT–STRESS NOT

My brain sometimes feels that I will protect myself from further hurt by circling round and round on the details of past hurt. Once I accept that I am powerless and can’t change something, having obeyed and done the little that I can with God’s help;  then I need to cast all my care on […]

Categories
Anger Life Challange Relationships

OUT OF THE SAME MOUTH

James 3:8-12 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren , these things ought not so […]

Categories
Comfort Grace Life Challange

More On Burnout–Don’t Stuff Stuff

Caring, godly people hit bottom and burn out sooner or later. I always have admired my dad for his faithful following of the Lord and service to the kingdom. He shared with me that there was a time when he felt burned out but kept walking with God and pulled through. A while back, I […]

Categories
Life Challange Mindfulness

KINDLING STARTS FIRES

Many of the illnesses that I work with are KINDLED. That means that they tend to gradually worsen. It becomes easier to fall into a relapse and harder to recover. Change for the better or for the worse tends to be like that. I can become discouraged by how slowly I replace a bad habit […]