You dont have to live like this!

You don't have to live like this.

2 Cor 5:17

Eph 4:22

1 Pete 1:3

You

Dont

Have

To

Live

Like

This.

You don't have to live like this

You don't have to live like this. A message to the world.

Im serious... are you listening?

Am I even listening to my self?

Roll it around on your tongue.

I don't have to live like this.

Yell it.

I DON"T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!?!!

Wisper it with quiet reflection.

I don't have to live like this...

And then pray.

And change.

This was my prayer...

God, I want to be fully prepared for amazing things to happen.

Are you. Am I? Now my prayer, when I pray for growth or for other people or aginst sin and evil, i pray with this phrase...

I am fully prepared for amazing things to happen.

And its painted on the floor, on the wall, on my guitar case. Its written in my bible and on my mind and on my heart.

I am fully prepared for amazing things to happen.

I AM FULLY PREPARED FOR AMAZING THINGS TO HAPPEN!

I am fully prepared for amazing things to happen.

Risk

Ive realized that I've never taken a risk in my life.

Believe

14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15 And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. 16 And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.”
Where is my belief? Why do I feel so inadequate? Like Ive been tested and found wanting? Lord help my unbeleif.
JESUS
HELP
MY
UNBELEIF!

3 Weeks

Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.-Jack Lewis
In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. 3 I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks. 4 On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris) 5 I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. 6 His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. 7 And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves. 8 So I was left alone and saw this great vision, and no strength was left in me. My radiant appearance was fearfully changed, [2] and I retained no strength. 9 Then I heard the sound of his words, and as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground.
10 And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, 14 and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
Prayer and fasting for 21 days, while God had already sent the answer.
I loose focus after a few minutes in my prayer and sometimes as the answer gets to me, Ive already forgoten and moved on thinking God hasnt answered and God hasnt moved, and then I miss it when the answer does come.
What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when He catches us, as it were, off our guard.-Jack Lewis
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.- GK Chesterton

To the Rabbi

To the Rabbi of the world
I send greetings.  The thing that I've been thinking an dwelling on for the last few weeks is this

Ministry seems inheritently unhealthy.

We who are the ministers are telling people to have a healthy relationship with God, with themselves and with other people. But those who minister are often times even worse off than those that we are supposed to be ministering to. Its almost like we are outside of the body of christ. If the rest of the church is the body of christ, then we are like a personal fitness trainer. Near and around, completly familier with this body, but not a part of it.

People dont meet my expectations of them for relationships. They let me down. They are grumpy and human. I went to church and had a shitty day sunday, to the point where people made me cry. I have thick skin ya'll! Do you know how hard it is to make me cry even under pain circumstances? And these people were just being grumpy. What is a matter with me? I had expectations of frindship and fellowship with people who were looking at me a tool or a sourse of help and information.

The truth is that it is hard for ministers to not look down at those they are ministering to.

Call it what you will, professional distance, keeping ministry and friends apart, whatever. It is sin. I understand the desire to have those who are unrealated to your ministry as friends (and dont get me wrong thats okay to have) but it can be an exscapist retreat from reality. "I just need to get away" and statements like that are signs of unhealth.

Let us be ministers who are healthy.

Let me repeat. LET US BE MINISTERS WHO ARE HEALTHY. Above and before all other things let us be people who are not looking to have healthy ministries. Let us be healthy ministers. Scratch that... Let us be healthy followers of the Christ. May we be covered in the dust of our rabboni.

Remember what life was like before ministry, when being a christian was enough. When identy wasnt tied to your job, to your position, to your ministry, when it was enough to be Sarah and stand unabashedly in the presence of your Father.

Elijah called out to God in the desert of his lonleyness and God shows him a community. Maybe too He has a community for you Sarah. Just a thought.

Remeber that we are all His children. Walk in the fact that you are not a minister or a servant, but a child of God who has been asked to invite others to join you as a child of God. We are the under-Rabbi sent to call forth our brothers and sisters from the world.

Be blessed
The Rabbi Adam Thomas

Rabbi= Teacher
Adam= sinner
Thomas= doubter
The= created and loved by God, unique and chosen.

Prayer

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.-Victor Hugo
What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when He catches us, as it were, off our guard.-Jack Lewis
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.- GK Chesterton
Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.-Jack Lewis
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.-Mother Teresa
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.-Jack Lewis
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.-Emily Dickinson
Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.-JL
God is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.-JL
If these holy places, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could we but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm. Hence both the necessity, and the perennial danger, of 'religion.'-JL
In the Trinity Term of I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?-Jack Lewis