2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 15 - Relating to Joy - Part 3

Feelings: This has been on my mind for several weeks. Others perspectives always give me something to think about and in turn something for God to teach me. With a lot going on in my life right now this has been on my mind as to whether or not love is both a choice and a feeling. This is just my perspective based off of what I have seen in my own life the last year dating and the lives of my single friends, coupled with the relationship we want to have with God and what I take away from His word and messages on the subject as it applies to us as humans and our relationships, of all nature, not just marital. I often hear others talk about that feeling of being in love and I do not disagree that there is a feeling. I wondered if love is both a feeling and a choice why I never got all tingly inside when I had to change a diaper at 3 in the morning. Of course maybe love of a child is different than love of a significant other or God. Are there different kinds of love for different people. I know we aren't capable to love others as God loves us. I know can only love because He first loved us. I also know love we have for those closest is not the same as love for friends or co workers and that it is impossible for us to love every person on the earth as God does. But think about when someone in particular is laid on your heart at a certain time of the day and you know they are going through something. Why do you suppose we think of them at that particular time. So while school is still out about whether love is a feeling or not, I do wonder if the magic of romance and feelings causes us to miss out on a lot. I have watched a romantic comedy and I know our daughters grow up with Disney fairy tales and I do not say that to say anything other than to say where do we learn to love.Where are we given the capacity to love. I once heard a message about soul mates and destiny and it begs me to wonder about the what if point the message brought out... much was made about going down the what if road. What if there is one person out there for me and I missed them, or what if they married someone else. If that is the case then that means there is a bunch of kids out there that aren't supposed to be here. The more I think about the what if the more sense it makes to me that God doesn't care who we marry. Someone once told me He puts people in your life and gives you the choice. What He cares most about is your choice to  love them unconditionally and to do things in the boundaries of His way. is that a choice or a feeling. Many people wonder about the stress of their relationship but are practicing premarital relations. Is it impossible to do it Gods way? Everyone sees things through their own eyes and maybe they see things differently later. maybe they realize there way was wrong and seek forgiveness. My point is not to condemn you if you live with someone but to say look and ask the question, do you like the results you are receiving? Looking at things it just makes more sense to me that God is watching motives and actions. Most people believe strongly at some point that the grass is always greener is not the case. That when you look at your grass through someone else's lawn your grass looks green too. I say this primarily for me who has gotten way to caught up in the when someone comes along that seems to be perfect. If I think they are and they think they aren't, what does that say. Shouldn't they be convinced that they are wrong. (not literally of course). Love should always choose to let someone walk away. It should never make someone a choice only an option. Love should be freeing not binding. I have met people who one day said God told them I was the one and the next that He said I wasn't. Maybe God did. I know most of the case for me has been some I choose and some I didn't. It was always just a choice. And it just happened. I have also met people who told me that they believed you meet someone and choose whether or not you want to put up with their baggage. I do not know exactly where I am going with this except to say, a feeling can disappear. I believe two people who are married 50 years lost that "in love" feeling along time ago. I believe that depth and strength of love comes through day in and day out choice. Why if so many people love each other is their divorce. Or does God care more about you sticking it out and choosing to love that person no matter what and glorify HIM with your marriage than HE does anything else. And I use just this example, but think about it, when we look at the car we drive or the house we live in, or the job we have. Does God really care. I do not judge you if you prayed for the type of car, but I just say think about it maybe God cares more about you just driving a car you can afford so that you have time for Him and others. So the next time I look at someone in a Mercedes where is my heart. And you have to think about the fact they didn't have any of these things 1000 years ago. People are motivated by different things than God is  motivated by. What if God just cares about your choice in what you choose to drive or where you choose to live that in what you do, you just do it with a grateful attitude and with love towards others. When we read about love and it says love is patient and love is kind and love endures. Well actually God is love. So, God is patient, God is kind, God endures forever. Most of this is probably meant for me to hear. I once heard that if we'd just follow the advice we give. I just thought about how much easier it is to believe that there is not this perfect person or perfect way, but that God can be glorified through who you choose to marry or what you choose to drive or where you choose to live. The dot theory that I am going to have to be at the perfect place and do everything at the perfect time in the perfect way is bologna. It makes for a good movie script and entertainment, but....We make things what they are by our choices. When we work at our marriage instead of cheating. When we court instead of living together. When we choose to love someone for who they are not because of what they are. When we choose to work hard at the job we have instead of quitting and thinking there is something better. When we choose to me seems the underlying theme of my decision. Not when I feel. I think feelings are associated with needs. If you believe God meets your needs then would that feeling be an emotional experience or up and down roller coaster or a leveled peace and joy that requires no energy on my part to muster up but is a gift and result of His mercy, grace and most of all love. I think our human ability to love others is always imperfect however we should rest assure that Gods ability to love is always perfect.

taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"

When rightly related to Me, joys are stabilized by the constancy of My love. The happiness thereby identified with Me as its source ceases to be destroyed by insecurity. When you are able to receive and fully accept all good in this way, you honor Me as truly as when you are patient in adversity.


Open your heart wide to life. The good I will bless yet more, and the rest I will transform. Restraint binds, and pessimism poisons even that which would otherwise be sweet. 

2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 14 - Relating to Joy - Part 2

taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"


In every moment of joy, it is I who am blessing you. Over and over I have come to reveal My love through others and concealed My presence in the fortuitous circumstance. Be not deceived by appearance. All actions that bear upon your life our second causes.

I am the first and only true source of good. You will receive a double portion of joy when you recognize My love coming to you through the kindness of others and when you learn to express your gratitude to both them and to ME.

Much has been written about My will moving through adversity, and from this awareness men draw courage in the hour of loss.

2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 13 - Relating to Joy - Part 1

taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"

I say to you, if you discern My love in every moment of happiness, you will multiply a thousand fold your capacity to fully enjoy your blessings.

Man is unable to be happy in his happiness and to rejoice in his joys because he doesn’t relate himself to My love for him and therefore blocks his own receptivity. He cannot abandon himself to joy because of the memories of the past pain and fear of future loss. He is robbed by the past and frightened by the future. He cannot free himself of either his remembered disappointments or his anticipated losses.

2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 12 - The Disciplines of Freedom - Part 6

My morning time this week has been disrupted and as a result I am beginning to miss my time in the morning and feel like the day is gone when I have a chance to sit down and let my thoughts out. Someone once told me the importance of putting down your thoughts somewhere. Primarily because you get out of you what is on the inside of you. it does you no good but to drive you crazy on the inside and gotten out, at least you can be sure He knows, and will answer. I believe you get out how you truly feel so then you can begin the process of what will be one day understood. There is no such thing as a stupid question to ask even our Creator and the thing to realize is if I am not answered then I am not answered, but in my experience at some point in time though, every thing that ever baffled me, every situation that I at one time didn't understand at some point, in time was later shown or made sense to me.  I am thankful not only for the chance to be honest with God but the fact that He listens! Driving in this morning I thought that nothing should come ahead of my relationship with Him and at how much stuff I do let distract and supersede. as the exploration into possible freedom comes to a close for now, it is my hope that we not only understand more about the path to freedom, but we take hold and walk in the freedom that has been given to us.


Taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"

Bringing you out, My children, is only the beginning. I am bringing sons to glory, and I say to you, I am preparing a people who SHALL GO IN. They SHALL POSSESS THE LAND. They SHALL BE STRONG IN THE LORD, and they shall fulfill MY Purposes.

Think not that all bondage comes upon you by the actions of other men. True liberation of our own spirit is yours as you are freed from enslavement to your own will and the selfish demands of your own flesh. For there is an inner world of spiritual combat in every soul where dwell both Egypt and Canaan and a wilderness battleground in between. My eye ever searches this inner man of each of MY children to find the secret overcomer.

2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 11 - The Disciplines of Freedom - Part 5

I sit at almost the end of this day and take a moment to reflect. I was listening to someone talk yesterday and I know we really do not really really know many people that well. Someone recently told me about the "I'm good" mask. Why do we feel as though we have to be something and live this life that is so far from the truth. My son ask me all the time, why dad? Like when my uncle bought him something for Christmas that he didn't like and he told him that he didn't like it and my mom was like that is not nice. Kaleb was like why is it not nice to tell the truth. Why when people ask you how you are doing do you always say I'm good. not everyone is good. Try this, the next time someone ask you after you say fine, say anything back at them besides how are you? as a matter of fact you don't have to say anything. 9 times out of 10 they will reply i'm good. they are so use to saying it, I am like do you really believe that. what if we got real. what would happen? I see in my own life a line or a ledge that I steer clear because of the past. A friend of mine recently posted that anticipation only leads to disappointment. I remember another friend of mine lived by the saying expect the worst. Why do I let the past circumstances dictate my level of faith. I recently read about the "Caleb attitude" and how when Caleb said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." - why did so many people after all they had seen still live in fear. why could they not believe. If faith is the antidote to fear and doubt. If "Faith is what allows us to declare in confidence that God is with us no matter what happens." Then where does my effort end and His begin. This is just an assumption I made yesterday. I've had conversations that many people who profess to not believe in God seem happier than those who do. I am convinced that they realize that there are just some things they know they can't control and they don't waste their time and energy trying to work the outcome to every single detail of their life. In a sense they have surrendered or given up as well. Draw your own conclusions, just something that was on my mind. Some days I read these things and I don't make the time to sit down and just let anything come out. so that is all this is, just what is on my mind. I listened to my son talk about faith and the belief that something can happen. I believe faith cannot stretch it's limits without belief and hope. As I just sit and think about life. My grandfather who never really talked about his faith, he worked hard all his life, in his later years he worked 12-16 hour days. Never complained. Always happy. Always sharing a story or a laugh, or talking or listening. That is right there for all of us. In our own efforts though I just do not know if it ever comes to pass. I've come to the point that I realize anyways, my way leaves me with a lot more weight than relief. If only I could step out and let something be done about it. If I spend less time wondering about the how that mountain is going to be moved, and more time knowing that it will be moved, and less time wondering about where is the promised land and more time spending energy to move my feet in the direction it is. What if I learned lessons, not to say I am smarter I am not going to do that again, but because God saved me and I do not even have to think about it again. No one ever had to tell me not to touch the heater the first time I got burned. What makes me think what I do now will yield any other result than a burned hand if I try to do it my way. I don't know. I told someone last night, I seem to get more questions, but what if instead of I don't know, it just became I don't care. My grandfather used to say 100 years from now you'll never remember what you are fussing about. Truthfully, i'd wager a couple of weeks from now most of us want remember what we were fussing about today. So why let it, take anything at all anyways. Life is becoming to me more of a result than an action. What do I want the result to be? Something speaks from this verse. According to your faith will it be done to you. Matthew 9:29


Taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"


To bemoan the tasteless bread of the divine discipline and harbor a hidden hunger for the exotic diet of the world as the children of Israel loathed the manna us to resist the liberating power of the Holy Spirit at work in your own soul. Every challenge and every choice moves you either backward to the bondage of Egypt or forward to the full blessing of the promised land. 


An entire generation perished in the wilderness because of indecision, for though they were bodily freed, they never wakened to their spiritual liberty, of whom it is written that they grieved the Spirit of God for forty years and died in the wilderness, never having received the promise.

2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 10 - The Disciplines of Freedom - Part 4

Taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"

The tyranny of Egypt and the soul destroying influences of bondage to man are more than history: They are the present challenge of My people today as they are freed from bondage to man and loosed in the Spirit. You are freed, My people, not to use your liberty as an opportunity to express self-will, but you are free to learn the holy discipline of the Spirit and to become a true bond slave of Jesus Christ, honoring Him in the liberty He provides...the liberty to choose to serve and follow the only One who is truly free.
All sin is binding. In Christ is freedom, because in Him is holiness. Your constant desire for purity is the is your safeguard against the desire to return to the fleshpots and slavery of Egypt, which is always a symbol of the world. The world with its desires passes away, but he who chooses to do the will of God will live forever.

2011 - A year of giving up - "On the High Road of Surrender" - Day 9 - The Disciplines of Freedom - Part 3

taken from "On the High Road to Surrender"

"Thus I say unto you, My children, hold fast in the liberty wherein I have set you free and allow not man to bring you back into subjection. The children of Israel through many hard lessons learned to accept the leadership of Moses, but this was obedience, not BONDAGE. They were taught to respect God-ordained authority, but they were severely punished when they expressed a desire to return to the slavery of Egypt for the comfort of the flesh and satisfaction of carnal appetites. Many times they would gladly have exchanged the disciplines of freedom for the ease of slavery, for slavery imposes no responsibility for individual action. Personal response to the challenge of a higher call is impossible to the slave, so the soul is bound as well as the body."