What Next, God?

Hi everyone. I just wanted to wish you all a Happy, Abundant, and Blessed New Year! I’ve been tapping into the concept that God has wonderful things in store for us and all we need to do is be as Godly and as generous as we can, and receive them.

I’ve decided NOT to set resolutions. They feel like ways of compensating for our failures, and thus set us up for MORE failure. Instead, I’m looking back on spiritual lessons and seeing what I liked and what seemed to get me closer to my goals, and set a goal.

This year I participated “Year of the Bible”, and so read the Bible cover to cover – 1 passage a day, every day, all year. This did two things:

1. it gave me the habit of reading the Bible daily, SO NEEDED!
2. it gave me historical context for the “how much I knew”.

The Bible was split up into the following for each day: an Old Testament scripture, a New Testament selection, a Psalm or Psalm portion, and a Proverb. Which means that I ended today by reading about a Proverbs 31 woman. (I read the last 2 days in a different order, so as not to break up sections.) Because I believe there are NO coincedences, and because I’ve struggled with grace and nobility in my character, particularly as a wife and mother, I decided, 2 days ago, that I’d read this complete portion lastly, and start the new year focusing on becoming more like a Proverbs 31 woman.

After googling the passage, I quickly found 3 websites I like, and found a few books I’ve added to my wishlist. First I added “Supermom Has Left the Building”, which is about how Prov.31 in today’s times makes us seem like we must struggle to be supermoms (ha! as if society didn’t do that enough). I read the first section online, and it was amusing and just what I need. It explodes the myth that God wants this from us.

Then I added “Beautiful in God’s Eyes”, by Elizabeth George, which starts by saying that you can scale a difficult mountain. Mrs. George is like the Martha Stewart of the Christian world. I read “A Woman After God’s Own Heart” for a Bible study, and it was HARD. OK, some things she recommended even had my very conservative group of church sisters chuckling at the impossibility. BUT I did learn some things. And even though Chris doesn’t think I’ve changed, and I still complain far too much, I’m not even a little bit the same.

I thought the balance was a good idea. I want to be more like this Proverbs 31 woman, but I also want to be, well, REASONABLE about what I can achieve.

Other goals? As mentioned earlier, God helped me get well on my way to conquering Habit 1 of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. I would like to shoot for Habit 2 in 07, MAYBE get towards Habit 3.

I’d like to conquer negativity, and Joyce Meyer is a great (and sometimes scary) help with that. Her advice is sound and really works.

Finally, I’m opening the doors of 2007 to true abundance. I’m thinking of buying Joel Osteen’s “Your Best Life Now”.  We’re moving soon, and I envision our new home and new location as filled with exciting opportunities – personally, spiritually and professionally. I’m also redesigning my business, adding products this year, and going back to school for professional writing. I just KNOW I’ll find a great part time sitter, church, pediatricians, nursery school for Zoe, neighbors, and friends.

Wish me luck!

Today I was giving my daughter a bath, while my littler one napped, and I was looking for a child-rearing book in my bathroom library, when I came across Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. I put this down when I was still pregnant with my 15 month old. I didn’t buy it TOO long before that, maybe a year, but it’s not an easy book to read casually – as most of my reading is part hardcore/mostly casual with 2 kids under 4. As I flipped through it, I realized I was not far into the 2nd habit, so I thought I’d review exactly what on earth the FIRST habit was:

BE PROACTIVE.

I was coming down with a serious case of pink eye, the phone was ringing and Amelia was acting up in the tub, so I was still a little bubble-headed about the habit. Amelia settled down and I scanned parts I had previously read and I came to this conclusion:

I GOT the first habit!

I do recall NOT having that habit when I first read the book, and folding down the applied part of the book for “later”, then moving on to habit two. I can even REMEMBER feeling uncomfortable about doing that, because who the heck was I cheating while reading a SELF HELP BOOK???

Now I’m NOT going to go out and say I mastered this skill, but so much of what it said to do I realized I already DID. None of this happened casually or without hard work on my part, but NONE of this occured because of what I read in the book.

This is the amazing thing: In simply trying to be Christ-like, trying to be Godly, I accomplished Habit 1 (more or less). I need some work, say in the area of child-rearing and marketing my business, but I am far more proactive in my life than reactive and ALL of it is thanks to applying God’s will in my life. Wow.

So for 2007 – Habit 2??

I’m not sure what God is going on about right now, but everywhere I turn I seem to be getting signs about the Name of God. Sunday’s sermon was the 2nd or 3rd message – and I shouldn’t have even been in that service, but a last minute change put me there. Songs about the Name of God, and the chapter I’m up in “More Than A Carpenter” pretty specifically covered the Name of God.

THE NAME OF GOD?
Well, it’s not something I’m comfortable with – that Name of Jesus. It’s really not. You can’t be a Christian without it, and it IS somehow so much more explosive than other religious names: Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi. “More Than A Carpenter” explains it’s because Jesus equated Himself with God, unlike the others.

Perhaps. Or perhaps for those of use who believe – or are at least trying to – it’s about a name that is hard to imagine. The Name God would give Himself if He lived among us is so powerful.

I have a wonderful friend who is Jewish and explains things of Judaism to me. (It’s hard enough in life to fathom ONE religion, so I ask others about other religions.) I hope I’m not getting this wrong, but she always write G-D instead of God, because that name is sacred, it’s powerful.

And with Jesus, it seems more so. I have a neighbor sending her son to my church’s nursery school, a privilege I cannot give my daughter because of her special needs, and she goes CRAZY when he sings the “Jesus” song. Ooo. That’s tough. She is one of those more casual believers, I guess. I always thought, in for a penny in for a pound – or else you ARE casual. I was always casual. I always shied from Christianity since I rejected Catholicism in my teens. By 8th grade, I had no qualms about Jesus – talking to Him, believing Him, saying the Name. But after the rejection, it just seemed impossible – I spent the next decade just trying to wrap my brain around God. After finding my way, I spent 10 more years learning before stepping closer to Christianity.

SPEAK MY NAME
It’s the most beautiful religion, but it requires to give up your embarrassment. Say the Name, God is telling me, just say it.

So I try, but it’s hard, unless I’m being profane (blasphemous). It makes you feel embarrassed, and I can’t say why. It’s painful too. Jesus. Jesus is God, Jesus is God’s son, Jesus lived and died and sacrificed for us.

POWER
Why on earth is that so hard UNLESS it really has power? Unless the Name of Jesus wasn’t something true and godly and divine, it wouldn’t really have the power to make you cringe when you use it. The worldly powers and darker powers just don’t like it. Makes them itchy, I guess.

Hm, wow. More logic defining faith…

It’s been quite a while since I posted. Life is going very good, thanks to my growing and increasing relationship with not just God and the Holy Spirit, but this mysterious person called Christ.

I’m convinced of His Divinity and Validity. My pastor lent me a copy of “More Than A Carpenter”
and it’s got some great logic in it, that I didn’t know.  If there is a refutation or lay/atheist response to this, I’d love to read that too, so pass it along to me.

I’d like to move on to getting to know Christ better – in the sense of feeling His presence.  I’m so backwards – I feel God first, then His Spirit and THEN Christ.  Well, I haven’t actually felt Jesus the way writers from Josh McDowell to Anne Lamott do, but I’d like to.  And I’d like to have the faith of a child, like in that Jars of Clay song.  Haven’t felt anything like that since I was 12, but a girl can hope can’t she?

We are moving most likely next month, and I feel that for a while at least, we will be commuting to our current church.  But given my still-liberal attitudes – like not taking the Bible literally – I still feel I need to find a community of believers more like myself.  I hate this “outsider/outcast” feeling – and I’ve had it my whole life.  I’d like to belong just once.

Wouldn’t that be nice?