Our Minnesota summer is winding down with school starting Sept 4. This last week has been busy with back to school events, last minute fun activities, and the MN State Fair.  Since the kids started 4-H it’s been a tradition to spend one day at the State Fair, usually ending with their Share the Fun skit performance.  This year we were there for the 4-H Performing Arts acts as one of our kids received a champion at the county fair.  We were able to fulfill our tradition of eating cheese curds and Sweet Martha’s chocolate chip cookies.

I’m really looking forward to getting back into a routine with kids going to school.  I’m planning to rework my clock schedule and try to stick to it!

One of our classes at
TK with a spiritual
focus was called
“Soul Making”.  We
usually talked about
a specific idea and
read scripture about
it.  At the end there
would be questions
for personal reflection.
This first one is on Desire.

Scriptures used:

1. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12)
2. Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)
3. Come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Some questions we discussed included:

• What are some traps that promise love and fulfillment, and why are they so attractive?
• Who or what has been your source of security? Achievement? Belonging?
• Have these sources led you to true fulfillment or have they been destructive?

Desire is given by God.
He’s placed in each of
us basic human desires
of safety, acceptance,
and achievement.  These
have somewhat of a
building on each other.
If basic safety isn’t
possible, it will be
difficult to think about
what we are achieving
with our God-given
talents. The layers are
depicted well here…

In our session we talked about how it’s nice to feel safe with other people, it’s comforting to feel like others accept us, and it’s inspiring to see what we’ve accomplished, AND all of that pales to the safety, acceptance, and accomplishment we feel when we are in Christ and the Spirit is in us.

Here are the personal reflection questions we answered. Feel free to write out your own answers.

1. What would it be like to walk on a path towards Jesus carrying your burdens?
2. What would it be like to surrender your burdens or baggage to Jesus? What emotions would you feel – hesitant, excited, doubtful, dreadful, sad, happy?
3. If you symbolically carried your burden to the cross of Jesus today, what would it feel like? Would you want to pick it back up again?
4. What does surrendering fully mean to you? What do you wrestle with and what do you know confidently?

New Song posted – Father’s Heart – about His desire for us.

One of our sessions focused on faith – now the faith they’re talking about isn’t necessarily in God.  There are a dozen short sections to the lesson we discussed, so I’ll try to boil it down to the important parts.  First is a list of Types of Faith.  After establishing that I’ll write about the rest from a faith in God perspective because that, I believe, is important in recovery.

Types of Faith

1. The individual has faith in their
   own ability to achieve something.
2. A person can have faith in someone else to
   help them, such as a doctor or therapist.
3. People can have faith in ideas.
4. The individual has faith in God.
5. People have faith in their religious beliefs.
6. Faith can be inspired by other people,
   such as when one in recovery sees
   the progress others are making.

This lesson was written for those struggling with addiction, but it applies more broadly to anyone struggling with eating disorders, mental disorders, depression, anxiety, and even to someone that’s a new believer in Christ.

The next list was Reasons for Taking a Leap of Faith in Recovery.

• There may be no amount of evidence that one can see light at the end of the tunnel – overcoming addiction, managing eating disorders or depression, or even how a life of following Jesus is possible.
• If someone in any of these circumstances is cynical or suspicious of people, they’ll need to set aside that negativity to take a chance or leap of faith.
• Faith – confidence that life will improve – is necessary until a person’s self-esteem improves due to progress in recovery.
• A person in recovery needs to trust others to help them or they may not get the support they need.

Faith is closely related to having realistic expectations in recovery. It’s unreasonable that
once recovery begins life will be perfect as recovery is a long process. It takes time to
overcome or learn to manage difficulties
that resulted in a need for recovery. Faith,
then, allows a person to have hope that
life will get better while working toward
that goal, especially in the early days of
recovery which are the most turbulent.
It’s easy in the early days to question the
decision to begin recovery. It’s a tough
time. There’s emptiness left by activities
or thought processes given up, and until
new patterns are formed a person can
feel at odds with life.  Again, faith that
life will get better allows one to continue
working on recovery instead of giving up.

Faith in God, his forgiveness, and the peace that follows can make the whole process easier.  Understanding the love of God for us personally is sometimes the only way to move forward.

We’re back home today from the
Brotherhood Conference in Gridley.
We had such a blessed time as elders’
wives together, and the conference on
Fri was both inspiring and convicting. I’d
like to share a few snippets from my notes.

2018 General Brotherhood Conference in Gridley, IL.

• The Gospel is only about GOD – Jesus died, shed his blood, and rose again (I Cor 15:1-4)
  • •   The Gospel is not the Ten Commandments.
    •   The Gospel is not “God helps those who help themselves.”
    •   The Gospel is not God wants us to be happy.
    •   The Gospel is not the two greatest commandments.
    •   The Gospel is not “let go and let God.”
    •   The Gospel is not repentance. (that’s our response to the gospel)

• Faith is a noun, Trust is a verb – Faith we hold and in Trust, we act.
• We need to remember where we came from…
  • We were born in sin. (Psalm 51:5)
  • Our hearts are desperately wicked. (Jeremiah 17:9)
  • None are righteous, all have sinned. (Romans 3:23)
  • The wages of sin is death. (Romans 8:6)
  • Out of the heart proceeds all manner of evil. (Matthew 15:18-20)
• Christ died when we were still sinners. (Romans 5:6)
• We were adopted into the family of God. (Ephesians 1:4-6)
• Christ is our ONLY HOPE.
• Justification is an Event, an Acquittal, and happens at the time we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord of our life and repent of the sin we were born into and the sin we committed.
  • Getting justification wrong leads to drifting from the simplicity that’s in Christ into legalism or license.
  • Getting justification right leads to seeing God in the right perspective, and peace, service, and growth flow out of love instead of fear.
  • Justification is not a lullaby to put us to sleep, but a battle cry to lead us forward into a life of faith.
• Sanctification is a Process, is lifelong, and happens as we cooperate with God in the work he wants to do in us.
  • Sanctification is  the process of making us holy and is only accomplished by the grace of God.
  • It’s purpose is to bring God glory and make us ready to be used by him.
  • Sanctification is prohibited by pride and by not spending time in relationship with God through prayer, reading the word, and seeking to know him.
• Justification without Sanctification is Fruitless.
• Sanctification without Justification is Pointless.
• As a child of God we are not whitewashed, we are washed white.
• We are saints, a part of the family of God, and should represent the family well wherever we go. (Ephesians)
• We can do nothing without him (John 15:5) AND we can do all things through him. (Philippians 4:13)
• “The task ahead of you is not bigger than the power behind you.”
• Have Faith only in Christ – not in what we do, what we think, what we believe, what we feel.
• Everything will fail us, except God – God can do anything but fail.
• As we ground ourselves on the solid rock and then push off to climb up or rappel down to the work God has for us, are we giving God the permission to hold our rope for us?

This is longer than I planned on, but what should I expect out of a full day’s teaching?!!
During the day on Fri, I was so moved by some of the teachings shared that I wrote in my notebook right then.  I’ve posted the song that resulted – My Only Hope.