Retrospective on House-Buying Journey – Updated

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Marina Greenwood

We’ve been in our new house almost a year and I want to follow up on my previous post about our previous rented house going into foreclosure. As I said then, God has always provided the perfect house for our needs every time we’ve needed to move. Reminding myself of that helped me stay positive and hopeful as the process of trying to buy that house dragged on and then fell apart. When it became clear that we’d have to find a different house, it almost felt like a treasure hunt to find the house that would be clearly provided by God. And the day this house dropped in price to the point it showed up within our search parameters, I started to suspect we’d found it, even before I drove by on my lunch hour. When I walked around the yard and discovered it seemed bigger than the listing stated and saw how private and huge the back yard is, I felt even more strongly that this could be the one. As soon as we got to look around inside, we hoped it would be the one. It was a foreclosure and the price had dropped $10k every month, so we hoped a pretty lowball offer would be considered. Long story short, after even more evidences of God’s providential working, we were blessed with the opportunity to buy it. It has proven to be so amazingly perfect for our needs and for many of our wants. We thank God every day for it.

The house we moved from ended up finally selling recently – for about half what we had offered for it! It was owned by Freddie Mac, which we didn’t know until late in our unsuccessful attempt to buy it when our offer was rejected. Leave it to the government to accomplish that. (Yes, I know that Freddie Mac is supposedly technically not government-owned, but it really is since it gets bailed out by taxpayers when it is mismanaged by the bureaucrats who work there.) We’re so thankful we didn’t get it now, both because it would have been too big and expensive to maintain and because the house we’re in now is so perfect for our needs for this stage of our lives. We could be happy here for the rest of our lives and we’ll only be in our mid-80s when it’s paid for!

12/31/11 – I wrote the above less than a month before my husband died. Now I can say even more certainly that God spared me by preventing the purchase of the huge house and putting me in this one. Being alone here is still lonely with his absence felt acutely, but I’m so thankful we experienced a year and a week together here, giving me memories of every season and every holiday here to treasure. This feels like home, which I haven’t felt in any rented house the previous 20 years. When my daughters visit, though none of them lived here, it feels to me like they’re coming home. Going through so many firsts without him – my birthday, his birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas – has been bittersweet, but now I have precious new memories of those times as a family to build on the old ones.

Now I face a whole new year without him. My new reality doesn’t feel normal yet and I can’t imagine how it ever will. But time passes – 3 months has felt slow and fast at the same time. I see how God has worked in my circumstances (another post someday) and I watch for how he’ll continue to do so. This house has become a very precious reminder to me daily of that and my faith is strengthened by it.

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GOING MOBILE

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Marina Greenwood

Now that I have a HP TouchPad and a WordPress app, I plan to try to do a little more writing. Nobody knows I exist except Google Search, it seems, so I feel pretty free to ponder spiritual subjects mostly for my own benefit. Perhaps someday someone will hit on this and be helped, but I’m fairly sure that that’s out of my control.  I think every person who likes to write eventually realizes that there are very few people who read a lot nowadays, especially anything longer than a Twitter post or text message! Many people buy books and never get around to reading them (like me), and most people don’t stop to read “heavy” subjects like big questions about God. But I like to think that if I’d had the internet as a resource when I started my quest to know God for myself 40 years ago, perhaps I would have run across something like this blog and would have been helped. So for that remote possibility, I’ll make my ponderings public.

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To Baptist Friends

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Marina Greenwood

Dear Baptist friend,
 
I would like to broach the subject of baptism with you. You and I both understand that baptism in the Bible was an act of immersion in water, both for John’s baptism in the Jordan River and for Christian baptism such as the Ethiopian eunuch asked for when he said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” What you and I differ on is the purpose and meaning of that immersion in water which is done while calling upon the name of Jesus.

Before going further, let me clarify where I am coming from personally: I grew up attending a Lutheran church, having been “baptized” as an infant and “confirmed” as a young teenager. But I wasn’t content to unquestioningly accept the teachings of that denomination. That questioning was further prompted in high school by being in a singing group of kids from different denominations. Our discussions on the bus to and from performances opened my eyes to the reality that there is much division and disagreement in Christendom, which motivated me to want to be sure that whatever I believe is from what I see for myself in the Bible. I’m thankful that God rewarded my seeking by putting people in my life who could show me the Scriptures that answered my questions.

When I specifically questioned what it means to be born again and wrote in my journal trying to figure it out, I gave up in confusion. A few months later, I discovered that the young man I had fallen in love with knew the answer even though he didn’t know I had the question–clearly Providential. When we sat down to study the Bible together after he had re-studied the subject of baptism for himself, I had a completely open mind to whatever the Bible says because I didn’t have any vested interest in clinging to previous beliefs. And in kind of a good way, the fact that in the Lutheran church I grew up in we never were exposed to the book of Acts that I could remember made it easier for me to admit my ignorance. All the examples of conversions–the responses of those first century Christians to the instructions they were given–were seen by me for the first time. What I saw was so different from what I had been exposed to growing up that there was no reason for me to balk at what I saw. It was good news to me to finally see that the Bible does give clear answers to my questions. I knew right then that I hadn’t followed God’s instructions about baptism, so I asked to be baptized by immersion in water in the name of Jesus that very night. I viewed it then and still do view it as the point in time when I was born again.
 
Several times I have experienced lengthy discussions of baptism with others who are of Baptist background, which have ended in a frustrating agreement to disagree. Each time I have pondered afterward what was the main cause of the disagreement, but each time the more we talked and the more Bible verses that were brought into the discussion, the more it seemed it was impossible to “see the forest for the trees.” I have longed to figure out what the real issue has been that has made agreement seem impossible. Now I think hindsight has clarified the point of departure where my Baptist friends and I have begun to interpret the verses about baptism in different ways.
 
Much of the difficulty in interpreting the Bible lies in being aware of the assumptions that one brings to his or her reading of whatever verses are in question. This now seems to be the main cause of differing interpretations of verses that mention baptism.

I understand Baptist logic to be that since the Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith and not by our works, and since baptism is something that we “do,” then it could not be involved in becoming a Christian. That logic results in reading verses about baptism while filtering the meaning through that assumption that baptism couldn’t be required for conversion. I’ve seen Baptists read passages about baptism and not even realize that they have that filter in their mind. And when I’ve tried to discuss baptism with them without first facing the issue of that filter, then that’s when the discussion goes in circles and agreement and understanding of why I interpret the passages differently becomes impossible.
 
So I would like to ask you to consider the subject of baptism from the beginning point of discerning what your assumptions are about what it could or could not mean. When you read the following verses, how do you go about reasoning to deduce their meaning?

Thank you so much for considering this subject. I understand that Baptists generally view baptism as very important (after all, the name of the denomination would seem to imply that!), as do I. So I hope you will be willing to take a fresh look at the subject and help me understand your point of view. I believe that if we first can see clearly what our assumptions are as we read the verses, then we might be able to discuss our actual interpretations in light of those assumptions with more clarity and perhaps even find common ground to meet on. 

This subject is a very important and foundational one. It is listed by Paul as one of the “ones” in Ephesians 4:4-6 that all Christians ought to agree on, after he admonishes us in verse 3 to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” I personally have too often given in to the temptation to be timid and to avoid potential conflict with others who believe in Jesus but whose denominations teach differently from my own understanding. But my longing is to be part of the solution to the disunity and division in Christendom rather than letting my timidity perpetuate the problem. I long to find a way to be able to honestly and openly discuss what we believe and why we believe as we do with others who also love God and want to do his will.
 
The verses:
 
Matthew 28:18-19
 
Mark 16:15-16
 
John 3:3-6
 
Acts 2:38
 
Acts 22:16
 
Romans 6:3-5
 
Galatians 3:26-27
 
Colossians 2:12
 
Titus 3:4-7
 
1 Peter 3:20b-22

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The Holy Spirit–“Participating in the Divine Nature”

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Marina Greenwood

The last booklet to finish in the Precious Promises series is about the Holy Spirit. I started it over 4 years ago and am ready to finish it now. Why has it taken this long to get back to it? The sense of having it sufficiently mulled over in my mind until it’s ready to be commited to words hasn’t been there. It was more than just the subject being hard to figure out, though claiming to understand God in the personality of his Spirit verges on foolish. I’ve been aware all along that there are boundaries of what is possible to write, that the limit is what is actually revealed in the Bible. It’s important not to err either by understating what we can know from God’s revealed word or by going beyond what is written. That is especially daunting in light of Jesus’ own words in John 3:8 that just like the wind, we “cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Working my way through the Bible and writing about what we can know has been interesting, but so far it’s been a relatively safe and historical overview of how the Holy Spirit has worked through the patriarchal and old covenant ages, through the days of Jesus’ ministry, and then the arrival of the new covenant and the apostolic foundations of Jesus’ church being laid in the book of Acts. That’s how far I’ve gotten, and it’s fascinating but it doesn’t directly touch on what we’re supposed to understand in our lives now.

I’m almost to the point of moving out of Acts and into the epistles, and though discerning the context of what applies only to those times and what is true for all time is still important, I know that focusing on the personality and role of the Holy Spirit in the life of every Christian will be life-changing, and I want so badly to be accurate as well as affected personally by the truth revealed by God about his Spirit. So I think my procrastination about finishing the booklet is rooted in my own struggles with living with a conscious focus on spiritual truth.

Also, I have a constant struggle to balance faith and knowledge. While it’s important to gain knowledge of truth about God and about his will for our lives that he’s revealed in the Bible, that knowledge must move from the head to the heart in order to do us any good. It’s the difference between believing and believing IN. The apostles are a good example of that. When they were with Jesus during his lifetime, they believed him to the extent that whatever he said (that they could make sense of), they believed. But it wasn’t until his resurrection that they truly believed IN him, that what he had said when with them was understood and his wisdom appreciated. The difference was that there was a change from Jesus being WITH them to him being IN them, through the Holy Spirit being breathed into them by Jesus himself before he went back to heaven (John 20:22), and then through the miraculous power they received when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:5,8, 2:1-4).

What has had to be sorted out is what is true and applicable to the life of every Christian for all time, first from a knowledge basis and then how that knowledge will impact daily life. We need to know what we can know, and then we need to know how that truth will set us free from the bondage of human wisdom and from the slavery to sin that we all experience in the world.

The need to sort through each of the topics of the booklets has come from having a nagging sense that I’m not “getting it” and that I suspect that most other people don’t “get it” either. I think almost everyone accepts the reality that “church” now is very different from what the first century Christians experienced. But most people don’t seem to question what should be the same and what changes are acceptable. The overall fellowship that I’m part of refers to itself as the Restoration Movement and prides itself for not being a denomination because each congregation is autonomous under the oversight of elders, which is the biblical pattern after the apostles died. Historically, this movement to restore biblical patterns by going directly to the Bible rather than merely reforming existing denominations was a good idea and made a good start. Yet “the way we do church” in other ways has, to me, glaring differences of focus and experience in all the areas of these booklets compared to what the Bible teaches and exemplifies.

This topic of the Holy Spirit has been especially lacking both in focus and experience in my 35-year history in many different congregations within the Restoration heritage. Even when the subject is broached, there is disagreement over how the Spirit works in the lives of Christians today. The human element of overreaction to what are understood to be errors in the teaching of different denominations comes into play, too. The pendulum swings back and forth, and it’s hard to have confidence that there actually is understandable teaching in the Bible on the subject.

Whenever a subject is confusing because there are so many different beliefs about it in different kinds of churches, my yearning to understand kicks in and my pondering temperament compels me to try to sort it out. And from experience, I’ve learned to pay attention to those nagging questions and to bring them to consciousness rather than pushing them down like I used to. In each subject of the previous booklets, researching and writing has resulted in discovering that the Bible does have clear answers and guidance that ought to be appreciated as one of God’s precious promises. These precious promises need to be focused on by every Christian and every church, because they are foundations upon which growth and transformation are built.

It’s been so helpful to my own life to have focused on each of these promises. I’ve often felt that I and most others go through life as though we’re collecting puzzle pieces but without any organizing principle for putting them together. We go to church functions and pick up a new piece with each sermon or lesson, and we experience things in our lives and perhaps search the Bible for a principle that applies, or we read our Bibles in personal devotionals and skip around picking up a piece here and a piece there. So I’ve felt the need to have a clear idea of what the big picture is so I’ll know where to plug in the pieces. The promises covered in these booklets are the big parts of the picture.

When I put together a jigsaw puzzle, I look at the picture on the cover of the box and look for sections to work on, one at a time. First I find and put together the edge pieces, so I have a framework for the whole thing. Then I sort the pieces into the ones that seem to belong to the different sections. Each piece more easily becomes discernable as part of the whole. If I didn’t do that, I’d never see how the pieces fit together. Once the puzzle is done, the whole is so much more than the sum of the parts. Each piece is almost meaningless on its own, but so important when plugged into the right place.

This puzzle analogy is so true of the Bible. It’s thrilling to see the big picture and then to be able to see how separate pieces fit into it. One of the clear proofs that the Bible is from God and not from man is the way all the parts fit together and how one part makes another part clear. Further proof is in the completeness of the way the Bible gives us answers for how to deal with every aspect of life, whether in attitude or action or both. By command, example, and necessary inference we can discern principles that apply to any situation. Even in the things left out, it becomes obvious that God intended to not answer some questions until we finish living by faith in this life and go to be with him forever, when all will be clear.

So here I am, preparing to tackle trying to understand what God has made understandable about his Holy Spirit in my life. The fact that I’m 55 and have sought God for over 35 years is a sad commentary on how teaching about him is neglected in churches today. I feel a yearning to understand how amazing it is that we are promised that we can “participate in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). We are also promised in 1 Corinthians 2:12, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” How enticing! I think I’m ready to dig in now.

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New Challenges and New Insights into Prayer

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Marina Greenwood

The house we are renting went into foreclosure proceedings, so we’re trying to find out if we could buy it. I know that a few months from now we’ll be on the other side of this, either owning the house or having had to move once again. I know that I’ll look back on the next few months and be able to see how God will have worked everything together for our good. Knowing how he has worked things out in some amazing ways in the past helps my faith be stronger and helps me have more peace. I can see growth in consciously setting my mind to trust God and not panic, though the feelings are still there initially and tempt me to give in to my natural human perspective rather than the spiritual outlook the Bible promises we can have. I know that God has provided just the right place for us to live at each stage of our lives, and so I know in my head that if it would be better for us to live somewhere else, that will become clear. But in my heart I honestly hope that this time will prove to be God providing this house to be our home, a place to feel planted in the community we’ve lived in for the past 13 years with hopes that God could use us and this house to find others who are seeking him and build a close-knit “ekklesia/assembly of the called out” (otherwise known as “church”), and a place we can use as a homeplace for our family as our children form their own families. It would be wonderful if they could have the same feeling we had when we used to go to “the Farm” where my husband’s parents lived as our children were growing up–ah, memories!

I’m approaching this time with a new insight into and experience of prayer. A woman who spoke at a seminar recently described how God loves to listen to us. He tells us to talk to him all the time: “Pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) in my own words that make it real means, “Talk to me all the time, tell me everything! I always want to know what you think and feel!” We all yearn to find a friend who truly could say that to us and mean it. I had a childhood friend in whom I felt that confidence, and when we were pulled apart by circumstances in 6th grade I felt the longing to find that kind of friendship again, but never did. My husband’s friendship comes closest but is not quite the same due to natural male/female differences of perspective, and marriage is a whole different dimension from the kind of platonic friendship I need. All these years later, after reconnecting with that girlfriend through cyberspace, her friendship is so special because I know I can be completely real and honest and rambling with her and she can not only sympathize but also empathize. Having her friendship long-distance made me get past good intentions and take initiative to try to cultivate that with a couple of women from my congregation. I’ve loved feeling the connections and sense of realness and honesty deepen over time. Now one of those friends may move away, which makes me sad, but I’m determined not to let it discourage me from continuing to seek close friendships.

I’ve become more conscious of how deep the longing for that is in me and surely everyone else and how our Heavenly Father–“Abba” as Jesus called on him–“Daddy”/”Papa” in our culture–longs to have that intimate, open, real, moment-by-moment connection and communion and communication. I also realize more how amazing it is that Jesus wanted to be able to not only sympathize but empathize, so he came to earth to experience all the human angst we do. He was the example to us in his relationship with his Abba, in being totally honest, real, dependent, and submissive to him, and especially in longing to spend alone time with him and talking over everything he was going through and decisions he was making.

My conscious effort now is to overcome the barrier that the word “prayer” has put up in me through the years. It’s religious jargon and lingo that gets in the way of experiencing what God is trying to offer. I don’t mind talking about praying, because that’s the easiest way to refer to the idea of talking to God. But in my experience of “praying,”–actually doing it–I no longer want to default to using any phrases such as, “I pray this,” or “Dear God,” or “Dear Father,” etc., which are wordings I’d never use in talking to anyone else. (It goes without saying I never use King James English, and it’s always struck me as ironic that “thee” and “thou” were actually familiar and more personal pronouns back then, like “tu” is in Spanish vs. the more formal “usted,” while those who pray in King James English now use them as more formal language that makes prayer seem artificial and stilted.) I want to cultivate a new default to talk to my–what–“Father”/”Abba”/”Daddy”/”Papa”?–I haven’t settled on that yet. My own Dad was not, sadly, able to offer me the kind of Daddy/daughter experience that would have made it easy to understand the relationship God wants with us. So though I’ve known in my head that I have to overcome that and not let it cripple me in relating to God, it’s been much harder to overcome in practice and I’m realizing that I desperately need to consciously face it and experience what God is trying to offer me as his precious daughter. It’s much harder to move things from my head to my heart than I thought it would be.

Here’s what I want to grasp: God loves me so much that he went to the extreme of planning in advance that his Son would take my place in death so I could experience life as he meant it to be lived, and then Jesus went through carrying out that plan perfectly for 33 years without one time giving in to temptation, even though it was painful both physically and especially spiritually and especially as he was crucified, then ultimately he had victory in coming back to life and going back to heaven to wait for me to arrive home there with him and his Father. Meanwhile he gave me his Spirit to experience eternal spiritual life even here on earth while I wait and get ready for heaven. That is so amazing when I really focus on it, and that’s what I want to consciously remember every day, all day.

Going through this challenging circumstance in my life will help me grow. I’m thankful to realize that my default sense of dread has lessened and I feel more peace and contentment and hope for whatever comes to be good for me in ways that God will make clear down the road. It will be interesting to me to look back on this time to see what that good has proven to be.

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Thankfulness and Praise

Posted on October 27, 2007 by Marina Greenwood

Many difficult circumstances have helped me remember to turn to God over and over. Every time I feel the rush of anxiety and panic and self-pity when some new challenge arises, I’m reminded to rely on God for help and comfort. The Bible verses that are so well-known have, by much use, become more and more a part of my default response in those times.

But…in my typical mode of wanting to figure it all out and understand exactly what God would want me to know and do, I know all the verses about casting anxiety on God or about how to view difficulties as growth opportunities. But I still feel angst about the circumstances and haven’t yet arrived at the contentment that Paul talked about in Philippians 4. I don’t naturally feel the joy that James instructed us to focus on in James 1. Dread rather than peace is still my usual underlying feeling.

So I took a day off work and intended to have a little retreat to figure out what I was missing in the formula for peace and joy. I’ve done that before, and it takes hours and hours of proactive sorting-through–by writing, talking to God, reading the Bible, singing, and quiet meditation–to first of all dig out what patterns of thinking I’ve been defaulting to, and then to find and focus on the Bible verses that challenge and correct my natural human ways of thinking. Often just reading Scriptures and even memorizing them makes a big difference, as the truth nudges out my twisted thought and reactive habits.

I preach at myself, even. Try it sometime! It’s amazing how just a little bit of objectivity helps. By addressing myself from a second-person perspective, I somehow can see in me what needs admonishing or correcting, teaching when I realize I’m ignorant, or rebuking when I realize I’ve slipped into rationalizing sin. Most of us could do this, if we asked ourselves, “What would I advise someone else to do if they were in my situation?” I’m convinced that most of the time, it’s not that we don’t know what’s right, it’s just that we either don’t want to actually do or obey what’s right or we get bogged down by the emotions of the situation and can’t think clearly. So by stepping outside myself (no, not literally but rather as a mindset), I can get my mind refocused.

Jesus promised that if we hold to his teachings, we’ll know the truth, and the truth will set us free. It’s not enough to know his truth, we have to hold to it, and that’s hard to do with all the distractions and lies we’re bombarded with in our daily lives.

So obviously I still haven’t figured out how to consistently overcome the pain and frustration and helplessness of very real problems that are beyond my control. I ask myself, “Self, what are you missing? Surely God has already told you in his Word the solution to either 1. your problem, or 2. your attitude about your problem.” I know that the Bible promises that God has revealed “everything we need for life and godliness,” and that it has answers for how to live life here in this life in preparation for the next one in heaven. I also know enough of God’s promises to trust that his goal is for us to be joyful and at peace, no matter what the circumstances we’re in.

I have to admit that I didn’t settle down and use much time on my day off to sort through this. I enjoyed the day and don’t regret how I spent it, but I didn’t devote as much time to facing my angst head-on and have felt it still working on me.

I have another couple of days off in a couple of weeks, so perhaps by then I’ll be  really ready to proactively ponder all this.

All that said, as the title of this post suggests, I think I’ve gotten some hints through various Providential means that the changes I need to make have something to do with thankfulness and praise. I’ve known that I “ought to” be more expressive of gratitude and adoration to God, and my self-protective default to stoic unemotional rationalism (known in my family as “being a Swede” due to the baggage of my Swedish heritage) will require conscious effort to overcome. I had another day off this week (my birthday) and mostly spent it intentionally vegging out, but in a chunk of time alone, I was determined to try to talk to my Heavenly Daddy with only thanks and praise and not requests about my circumstances. I kept catching myself slipping, so I know I need to do that more.

Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I know that verse very well. But I have to confess, upon rebuke (and encouragement) from that alter-ego preacher (and thank God I’m the only one who will ever hear her preach!), I haven’t truly submitted to the wisdom and truth of every part of the verse.

I believe in the disciplining hand of God as Hebrews 12 describes. I’ve learned and grown so much from turning to God for guidance and strength in every difficult circumstance. But obviously I haven’t believed this verse enough to just do it. I think I’m about ready to submit to God’s instructions, and not in a dry and rote way but rather with a humble, needy, yes grateful attitude.

I’m sure I am going to feel real foolish for taking so long to learn this.

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Seeking Seekers

Posted on October 21, 2007 by Marina Greenwood

For the past 15 years, I have been in a “watching and waiting” set of circumstances. On 2/16/92 my husband and I made the hard decision that the church we were part of had crossed the line into becoming a cult. That’s a story in itself for another time. We stayed in it longer than we should have mostly because at least that group had provided us with good opportunities for trying to bring others into faith in Jesus and a relationship with God. The reason we left it in the end was because that very goal of the group caused it to evolve into a very human and authoritarian, ultimately cultic organization where the pressure to convert others in great numbers undermined the ability of members to act from the heart. We were unable to use our God-given freedom in Christ to make choices based on our own conscience and understanding of God’s will from our knowledge of his Word.

That said, in spite of many ways that group went beyond Scripture wrongly, we are thankful for the experiences we had of being in circumstances where the norm was to have confidence that others could be converted to faith in Jesus if they were open to being exposed to God’s Word in a small, home-based, informal Bible study group. There’s no feeling quite like getting to watch God work in someone’s heart and mind and life, seeing them realize either for the first time or in a greater way than ever before that God’s will is not only understandable but that it is truly good news.

At times when I have had no group like that to invite people to, as has been true for many of these past 15 years, I feel frustration at having no natural way to broach the subject of Jesus’ teachings. Inviting people to come to worship services is not real workable, partly because I live 35 miles from where we attend services and partly because so many people are already settled into their own Sunday morning commitments.

I have had good experiences of witnessing God at work, drawing people who have been either seekers already or at least who have been open to learning more of his will. I long to have more good experiences, and I long to find others who are eager to seek seekers along with my husband and me.

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This is the beginning…

Posted on October 20, 2007 by Marina Greenwood

So, I’ve finally discovered a user-friendly way to put my writings on the internet! At 53, I’m still so computer-illiterate and amazed at what is possible. To think that one can potentially connect with any or every other person in the world is wonderful.

Therefore, I’m seeking like-minded or at least open-minded fellow seekers of truth, of God, of biblical knowledge, and of life in fellowship and community with others who yearn to understand God’s mind and will.

How can anyone make sense of life in this world? Even as a Christian, it’s clear to me that it takes a lifetime to learn to live by faith and not sight. God’s ways really ARE higher and better and wiser, but we are usually hard-hearted, dense-minded and sensory-oriented. We have to learn so much the hard way.

I look back and see so many lessons that could have been easier to learn if I had first–rather than last–asked, “What attitude or actions does God say are best?” If I had really understood that anything God instructs me to believe or to do is meant for my joy and peace, then I’d be more mature and more like Jesus by now. So I’m so thankful that God gives us so much time and so many opportunities to gradually learn and then do what he knows is the best way to live.

I’ve been sorting through life issues fairly proactively for my whole adult life. Writing the downloadable booklets posted on other pages here has helped me organize and make sense of the many pieces of life’s spiritual puzzle. I still have to read them again once in a while in order to remind myself of what we humans have such a hard time keeping in focus.

One of the best analogies to come from the computer age is the concept of resetting a default. That’s how I think of my life in this world: I am in the process of gradually resetting my default in each of life’s many compartments, changing them from human and worldly perspectives to the godly and spiritual paradigms that God so generously reveals to us in the Bible.

I hope this blog will give me a way to find and be found by others who are seeking God’s truth about these big questions about life. At least I hope it will give me a link to give out to those I cross paths with either in life or in cyberspace. 

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