Day 1 Results

I looked on the Internet for Jesus today and I found Him.  For starters, I Googled 'what is grace' and a lot of sites popped up.  I pretty much kept my search to the first couple of pages of results.  I narrowed the search further by eliminating any sites that were legalistic. Sites that told me what to do, or that told me that certain denominations had the 'right' answer and that if I didn't follow the rules I was wrong.  I did this because my tendency is to view the Bible as a To Do list rather than a love letter.  At this point in time more To Do's will drive me further away from Jesus and I'm already farther away from him than I would like.  I'm not looking for the 'right religion', I'm looking for Jesus.   Deep down, I hope that this Advent Retreat is the result of Jesus' work in my life, that HE is the one directing my search, calling me back to him.  This is a time apart, a time for Jesus and me to reconnect, a time for finding my way back home.  One blog really spoke to me and I am going to trust that He will lead me to the things that I most need to hear at this particular point in time. One of the things I read today said something to the effect that "grace was God's working in my life despite my resistance and my faults."

I think the words that really jumped out at me were "my resistance."  Of all the things I read today this particular passage felt like the place to start.  All day I have been pondering the concept of God continuing to work in my life despite my resistance.  I had difficulty defining what "my resistance" is.  I concluded that my resistance is really a deep seated belief that Jesus is a cosmic policeman, a sort of bad Santa who keeps a list of who's been naughty and who's been naughtier.  In other words, my resistance boils down to a basic distrust of God's grace...my feeling that I will live a life failing to please God and in the end I will be condemned.   I have wrestled with this concept in the past.  Its not something that Christians want to admit to - we who have a relationship with Jesus aren't supposed to feel this way.    It tends to make us feel like 'bad Christians, worse we believe we are bad Christians.'  The strange thing is right now - I don't feel like a bad Christian.  I feel perfectly safe bringing up this topic - distrust.  In fact I feel relief - this fear is out there on the table between Jesus and me and I don't hear Him condemning me for my lack of trust.  Instead I hear him saying - 'This is good, I led you to that particular blog because it gives us a starting point on the road to discovering the truth.'  I hear him saying that He is working in  me even when I don't realize it, even when I am working against it.  He's still here.  I feel hopeful. I feel good.

Today I found Jesus in an internet blog, and through my conversations with Him I felt no condemnation.  He held out his hand and I grabbed hold and took a step closer to him.

Introduction

In the Christian Church Advent is considered a time of Preparing for the Coming of Jesus.  More specifically, it's a time to remember the first coming of Jesus and also a time to get ready for His return.  Since this blog is relatively new, I'm changing the focus for the next month.  Currently, I am in the midst of a crisis of faith,  My husband is a pastor and the weight of the clergy spouse role and my inability to be what I feel God expects me to be within this role has created a classic case of church burnout.  At this point it is difficult to even step into a church and over the course of the last year I have just stopped going.  Advent is a perfect time to take a look around and test my beliefs and feelings, a time to look for what is real and true, a time to take a retreat from all of the self imposed "shoulds" of my Christian faith and simply look for the presence of Jesus.   Go back to the beginning, so to speak.   The Bible tells me that if I seek Him with my whole heart I will find Him.  That's what I want to do - look for Jesus.

This brings me to a question - where is the best place to look for Him?  I can't start with church - I'm not going to church regularly.  I could maybe start with the Bible but I confess that I tend to see the Bible as a giant To Do list with the consequence of failure being condemnation.  My husband tells me that Jesus came to bring us abundant life -- he didn't come to bring us the To Do list.  There are plenty of verses in the Bible that support this belief.  One of my favorite of those verses is John 3:17 He didn't come into the world to condemn the world.  He came to save it (my paraphrase.)    I guess this is the beginning of my search - this passage.

Worry

I worry all the time - my husband says that if I don't have something to worry about I will make up something to worry about. I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't afraid or worried. I worry about my kids, I worry about my job, I worry about my friends who don't have jobs, I worry about everything. If I could change one thing about myself it would be my tendency to worry and my tendency to be self critical. Oops, that's two things. I need to begin changing my thought patterns. How does discipline or rather self discipline relate to worry? How do I stop worrying? It's something to think about. I'm not able to say - I won't worry about this issue and then stop worrying. So I have to find a way to stop this futile thinking, to keep my brain from running in circles. Perhaps the first step is to recognize what I am doing. I think I will try to keep a record of all the times I worry. Something else to consider - what function does worry play in my life? I mean do I use worry to distract me from other problems? Perhaps the rubber band on my wrist technique will help me be more aware of my thinking.

It seems to me that self-discipline can be considered very much like a muscle - it will atrophy if it isn't used. It stands to reason the opposite is also true - each time you use a little self discipline whether it is related to eating habits, patience, exercise, or even keeping the house clean - each time you exercise self discipline you feel a little bit stronger. What I would like to do is to start to keep track of what I do that increases my self disciplne. What little changes can I make to feel stronger. I'm not a person who can make big changes all at once. For example, I fail at diets because I can't maintain the all consuming committment to monitor my eating day after day. My house is disorganized because I am unable to see and respond to everything that needs to be done.

I hope that through this blog I can begin to make tiny changes to improve my life - to become stronger.