What's the takeaway from the sermon on Sunday. For me, it's simple. Well, simple in the sense that it's easy to understand. Not simple when it comes to actually putting it into practice. Guess this is the case with most of the teaching of Jesus -- pretty easy to understand, but hard to do.
So, what's the hard thing to do? Being HONEST with God and others, letting them completely in on our thought-life, our fears, our failures, our uncertainty, our sin, our need, our brokenness, our joy. When you go about your day, do you have an ongoing conversation with the Spirit? Do you invite the Spirit to rescue you from your silly desires, to give you strength to meet the challenges of the day, to give you the fruit of the Spirit in order to live well? Do you confess your secret lusts, fears and hurts all day long?
Similarly, do you have a close friend (or a few close friends) with whom you share everything -- every embarrassing, shameful, ridiculous, or egoistic thought and action? Doing this is the only means we have of receiving the love of God and others. If we don't share these things, then others are only loving our mask. They aren't loving us.
I do very few things well, but Pastor Bill and I meet every Friday morning to take a walk and pray. During the walk, we tell each other everything we don't want to tell each other. And after we do this, we pray in response to what we've shared. Strangely, I look forward to this time AND wish it would go away. We continue to meet week after week because we know we need to do this -- for our sake, for our family's sake, even for your sake.
Have you found someone to be honest (TrueFaced) with? Have you begun to practice moment-by-moment prayer? Take a minute to post a thought
Posted on
Mon, February 16, 2009
by Jason Brown