Category: Key Growth Posts

Following is a list of guidelines for walking through suffering with God. Find the ones that are helpful to you. Focusing on destiny helps to overcome trials. Spend a couple of minutes each day picturing your destiny in the perfect community of love with God and his followers. Honestly express your heart to God. Find Psalms or other passages that express your heart and use them to pray to God. If you are truly angry with God then respectfully express it to him with your emotions. Spend at least 20 minutes in solitude twice a week in order to become aware of the thoughts and feelings that are coming up inside. You can just sit and let them come or ask yourself some questions. When they come up then you can begin to process them. This will help keep the flow of your heart flowing freely and not bottled up. Continue Reading →

This is our third post on the topic of humility. We began with the challenge of humility then looked at the humility of Francis of Assisi. I thought that it would be helpful to list some of the traits of deeper humility mentioned by two great Christian teachers. The first list is from John of the Cross (b. 1542 – d. 1591) who observed: They think everyone else is far better than they are… Their good deeds and the gratification they receive from them only cause them to be more aware of their debt to God and the inadequacy of their service to him… These souls humbly and tranquilly long to be taught by anyone who might be a help to them. They rejoice when others receive praise… These souls would give their life’s blood to anyone who serves God… When they see themselves fall into imperfections, they suffer this Continue Reading →

Previously, we described the challenge of humility. On this day when we remember the crucifixion of Jesus and his deep humility, it might be helpful to remember someone who strove to imitate Christ’s humility. Francis of Assissi (b.1182 – d.1246) was founder of the Franciscan movement that swept across Europe in the 13th century. Francis left behind his family wealth after a dream from God and encounters with God that filled him with love and convinced him to follow the way of poverty. He began to minister to the poor and at one point he went to a local lepers’ house and asked forgiveness for despising them, gave them all some money and kissed each one on the mouth. Later, he spent two years nursing lepers and living in poverty. Many people in the town thought he was mad and they mocked and ridiculed him. Soon others began following him Continue Reading →

“We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7, ESV). This means we must be willing to accept some blindness. We cannot insist on being able to have spiritual sight about everything. For most of us God has already proven himself in various ways. We do not need to wait for something more to learn to walk in dark faith. We can’t keep going back to convince ourselves of God’s truths. There is a point at which we just start walking into the darkness of faith without any other support. This experience usually keeps cycling on and off throughout our Christian life. We step out in the darkness and eventually the light dawns and we reach a plateau. Later, we walk into another patch of darkness. Gradually, God trains us to connect with him on a different and deeper Spiritual channel. Times of dryness and darkness are our best Continue Reading →