Awakening

Counseling

At some point on this blog, I will share my story, but for now, I would like to pick up in the present.  The last few years of my life have been riddled with anxiety.  In fact, it’s been the story of most of my life.  Several months ago, I decided it was time to seek counseling.  It took me a few months to choose where I wanted to go.  The church I attended at the time, had pastors available, however I was looking for something specific.  My father had introduced a few books to me years ago titled, Lifetime Guarantee by Bill Gillham and Handbook to Happiness by Dr. Charles Solomon.  My desire was to find a counselor, much like the authors in these books using a particular counseling method.  So, my first step was to call Dr. Solomon’sministry myself.  He actually got on the phone with me.  We couldn’t continue counseling because of distance, but we had a great conversation.  I told him I was on the edge of a cliff.  All I had to do was jump and let the net catch me.  After reading the book, I knew God was taking me somewhere, but I hadn’t quite made it to my next destination yet.  He said to me, “it sounds like you are onto something good.  You’re almost there.  You can almost see it.  Call me when you get it.”  So, I moved on to find another counselor.  I discovered  Don Burzynski at Cross Life Ministries in Vero Beach, Florida.  He was willing to counsel via Skype.  It has been absolutely amazing!!!!!  Here I thought he was just going to fix my anxiety.  Nope.  God was looking to dig deeper than that.  He had another agenda. 

A-ha Moment

I’ve been a Christian for many years.  I was probably your average Christian just treading along, trying to live the “right life,” hoping that God would just insert himself every so often to show me that He’s still with me.  Notice I said I was trying (in my own effort) to live the right life.  If I just followed the rules, stayed on the straight and narrow, I was okay.  That’s Pharisaical thinking and dangerous enough.  But here was an even bigger problem.  When I mess up, God was going to be pretty angry with me.  Sometimes I questioned my own salvation every time I screwed up.  No wonder I’ve lived in anxiety for so long.  Somewhere along the way, I’ve lived in this mentality that I need to perform to be accepted.  This thread goes back many years in my life which I will save for another time.  I was completely missing the eternal joy and peace God had for me.  In the early days of counseling, Don had to show me that we were never meant to be independent beings.  It was an outright lie the enemy has been trying to feed me for so long.  I bought it, just like Eve did in the garden.  Satan told her she could be just like God if she ate.  She was tempted by the idea of being her own independent being.  I learned that we are all guided by some voice, that we aren’t ever TRULY independent.  We can either listen to the voice of God, the voice of the enemy, or the voice of the world (which could also be the voice of the enemy).  I’m not looking to get into a theological debate over free will, however somewhere in the midst of all of that, God is still sovereign over everything.  Prior to becoming a Christian, I was enslaved to my flesh (the part of me that listens to the world or the enemy).  But after becoming a believer, I physically received the Holy Spirit, which is my guide.  It’s actually better than that.  The Holy Spirit is in me, living through me.  It’s not about how I perform or what I can do.  As far as performance based acceptance goes, I’m already accepted.  And I didn’t have to perform to be accepted because I couldn’t life up to God’s holy standard.  The blood of Jesus had to take care of that.  Also, I no longer have to live a life enslaved to the flesh anymore, but I can now live in the freedom of Christ, knowing that I don’t have to do this alone.  In fact, it isn’t really me doing anything, except participating in what the Holy Spirit is doing in me.  

“Our function is to be in union with the Greater and let Him express Himself through the lesser.  We are vessels – containers of the life of God.  Be we are not the contents of the vessel.  God is.  We cannot produce His life.  We can only express it.”  (Dan Stone, David Gregory – The Rest of the Gospel)  

Even Paul has much to say about it in 2 Corinthians.  He is constantly boasting in what God is doing in him, giving all credit to God, and not to himself.  

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18).  

Once these realities hit, we can really begin to live with Christ expressing himself through us.  I’ve been truly humbled, in that I need to get myself out of the way.  We can really begin to live when we get ourselves out of the way and let God do what He does.  I wept as I repented of that in prayer.  I’m sure I will continually do it again, but praise God I’ve been washed by the blood of Jesus and He patiently keeps trying usher me back in.    

The Hope

There is hope for the next generation of Christian leaders.  Until we begin to realize the work Christ is doing for us, it will be hard for us to be an encouragement to others.  My desire is that for those of you reading this blog, that are in a place where I’ve been for many years, will begin to see that God is so much more.  We need to make more of Him and less of us.  We can begin putting our own desires aside and begin to live the life God always intended for us.  Some battles will go with us to the grave as we will not be perfected until the next life.  However, God is sanctifying us every day, but first we need to recognize our worth in God’s eyes.  When God looks at the believer, He sees Christ, and He is pleased!  As a believer we are no longer sinners, we are saints!!!!  

Community Life

What is Community?

The idea of community seems to be foreign to western culture today.  We see pockets of community in the secular and Christian circles, but in western culture, it’s more rare than not.  I am fortunate enough to live in a court where community life exists.  It’s almost hard not to when you live in a townhome in such close proximity to your neighbors, however we’ve had to work for it.  What is the definition of community?  The Webster’s definition of community is this: “a unified body of individuals.”  In fact there are several definitions of community according to Webster.  However, this blog is not going to be just about community, but community life and discipleship and how it applies within the church.  How does the Bible define community?  This is probably one of the most famous pieces of Scripture taught in the church today, yet I’m not sure in our culture we know how to live it out.  This is taken from Acts 2:42-47, 

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”   

Have you really taken the time to sit down and focus on what this is saying?  Take some time and ask God now what this is saying to you.  Here’s another question.  Do you think children were just as much a part of that church culture?  Do you think adults were constantly separating themselves from the children?  Was it just the adults breaking bread together?  Or was it a family unit breaking bread together with other families, singles, just married, etc?  I know what I think.  I will discuss this later in future posts.  What I wish to do for now is give you a brief summary on my experiences with community.

Community for Me 

I was born into a close-knit large family.  Community for me began at birth.  My family has always been close.  I was the only grandchild for the first eight years and was likely spoiled rotten.  Through most of my childhood, we had Sunday dinners, my aunts were more like sisters to me, we had big family Christmas celebrations, and basically spent time together.  Even as a child, I was included in many family activities.  My childhood years were spent in small churches.  I attended a large church as a teenager, but even then, my youth group was still small and quaint.  I spent my first year in college at a tiny university in North Carolina.  When I returned home to finish college, my days were spent partying with my close group of friends almost every night.  But then I came back into the church, probably 50-70 people in size, community life within the church resumed again.  My husband and I got married and helped usher in small groups within the Catholic Church we attended, which is still going strong today.  Money got tight, and we spent 18 months living with another family that had 5 kids and a close, large extended family themselves.  As rough as those months were, once removed, we learned through many mistakes, what living life together really looks like.  It’s messy as anything, but God doesn’t always want us to run away from our challenges.  At the time we left this family, we were involved in a house church.  I would say that was a season of growing for us in community as well.  Imago Dei will always be a part of who I am.  For a while there, that was Acts 2:42-47 being lived out regularly.  And we weren’t just families with kids.  We had singles, married with no kids, and those who already raised kids.  The church lasted 18 months until the leaders were called elsewhere. 
My family ended up back in a larger church, which for the most part, lived out community life well for a large church.  A smaller group ministry already existed within the larger church.  We committed to those groups for five years and spent our last year there leading a community group.  Our community group was different from most, in that children were a large part of it.  Adults had their time to just be adults, but then we spent time together as family units.  We did not look like the rest.  We were the exception.

I find that my thinking is the exception everywhere I go, yet as I read Scripture and the idea of raising up children and embracing diversity and living as a community, what I see now doesn’t agree with what I read.  What has gone wrong?  We’ve lost the art of mentoring.  Take a look at Titus 2:1-6.   

“You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.  Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.  Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.  Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.”

Burdened

Our culture spends a great deal of time breaking up the family of many whom are already broken up.  I’m not sure kids have much of a place anymore, except in another room while adults tend to their own concerns, which there is a place for, sometimes.  They are looked at as nothing more than an inconvenience most times.  This burdens me greatly.  The church is losing its next generation.  Our children are left figuring the world out for themselves, and that’s scary.    Maybe that’s why so many teens have become so angry and have resorted to killing, doing drugs, drinking, and suicide.  Where else can they go?  That’s why I have started this blog today.  It’s time we lay our selfishness aside (I include myself) and begin living our lives with Christ at the center, and allow Him to transform lives through our human bodies.  We are just vessels that contain the living power of Jesus Christ.  Let’s be that vessel and begin preparing our next generation.  We can’t accomplish Titus 2 on our own, but Jesus can once we are willing to participate in what the Holy Spirit is doing in us.  That’s what this blog is about!