Journal of Faith: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Philippians 2:12

People must think I am crazy the way I seem to be talking to myself.  Here is how my process goes when I am waiting to hear from the Lord about a prayer:  I ask God what to do, then I wait to get an idea.  An idea comes and then I say God is that you or is it just me?  Then I proceed to wonder if the idea came from God or if it was some rambling of my own mind.  Then I worry that I am just following my own idea instead of waiting for God's idea, and I ask God again.  Lord do you want me to do this?  I feel like the idea might work, but I don't want to move because I want confirmation that it was indeed God and so I ask again.  Lord are you sure that it was you?  This process could go on for weeks, and sometimes out loud!   So how do I know that I am not just going crazy?   I do the check for biblical soundness, and I ask a wise person what they think.  I have God's word to go on that he will never contradict himself the...

I was studying trying to gain the spiritual understanding of the roots of a plant.  What do they represent?  What do they mean for us today?  The most simple answer came to me.  Roots are the heritage through which we filter all of our physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual stimuli for the purpose of turning them into nourishment for the rest of the plant.   Then I realized that the Bible talks about roots in the parable of the seed sower and some other passages to address where they are planted or plucked up.  In other words where we place our roots has at least as much if not more significance then the roots themselves.  Our focus should be on placing ourselves in fertile ground, in environments where our roots can take in lots of water and nutrients. Where are our roots?  Are they at jobs, education, or in marriages?  Maybe they are rooted in our identities as  parents or caretakers.  I know that I tend to root myself...

My son is a terrible two right now, and it has me questioning if I can do this by myself.  Boys are different from girls.  Boys really do need a man, but what do you do when you are single?  I feel so bad for him sometimes because I wish that he had a dad that was there all the time to teach him how to be a good boy.  Let's face it; I have never been nor will I ever be a boy.  He needs someone to relate to that is close and not his 13 year old uncle or his newly married uncle or his grandfather.  He needs some man around who is just focused on him.  I can't be that for him no matter how hard I try.  The best that I can do is teach him how to be a good Godly person.  I just pray that the Lord will send him a Godly man to teach him how to be a Godly man.  That is something that I can not teach no matter how hard I kill myself to do it. No mother should try to be a man for their sons.  They should just try to be examples of good people...

Have you ever been to a point where your thinking has taken you as far as you can go with it?   Have you ever felt like there was nothing more that you could think of to get further in your life, and did you feel doomed to be where you are forever? I had that feeling for a long time.  There sometimes seems like nothing I can do to make my life move forward.  I get exhausted and almost resigned to seeing my life expectations end.  It is here where God smiles on me as if to say "If you only saw what I see.  Come up a little higher."  God never intended for any of us to stop growing and prospering.   God is not linear but he is dynamic, and as his children we are also made to be dynamic.  God wants to open up my eyes and your eyes to greater possibilities.  We are uncomfortable where we are because God has placed a desire in us for more.   God has created us for a tailored purpose.  We have to fulfill his work in us for us to fee...

I have heard the parable of the seed sower many times.  It basically talks about people spreading the gospel of Jesus and how some people receive the witness and others let it die through different life circumstances.  Recently I have been asking the Lord about that seed that falls on good ground.  Biologically seeds are suppose to break open to grow a plant with roots a stem, leaves, flowers, maybe even fruit.  The bible talks about his people bearing fruit so somehow we are suppose to go through these processes.  We are suppose to grow roots, leaves, flowers, and fruit.  Because God understands me so well he knows that sometimes I need a picture instead of words.  The motion picture that he gave me was of a tree growing. My study is ongoing but the first thing that I wanted to study was the roots of a tree.  The roots of a tree gather water, oxygen, and nutrients for the surrounding soil.  The roots are the life force of a tree.  If...

I have heard people blame love for bad choices, and I have been guilty of that same thing.  Looking again at what God calls love that can't be right.  Because God is love that means that love can never be wrong and love can never do wrong.  Love never fails...EVER.   Therefore if we fail to make good relationship choices including but not limited to the areas of family, friends, spouses, dating, church, work, or the community, then it wasn't because of our love for those people and things.  People do not just have sex because they love each other, they do it because of other motives such as arousal, the desire for children, stress, etc.  If people had sex every time they felt love for each other without any other feeling accompanying it such as lust then they would never make it to work, school, church, or anywhere else.  People aren't having sex constantly therefore love is not a sufficient reason for it. No one can use the excuse that they were forni...