Marriage, Matt Walsh, and My Take on Things

I'm finally caving. I'm jumping on the bandwagon with like 8 million other bloggers...

I'm re-posting about a Matt Walsh blog post.

I've avoided it up to this point. He's a pretty big name in blogging. He doesn't need my puny publicity. Furthermore, a lot of the time, while I agree with his general stance, I feel his angry, acerbic rants on the ills of society are a poor representation of the love that's supposed to reside in the Christian heart...and then came yesterday's post.

(That link should open in a new window. I'll let you take a few minutes to read it, and then you just come right back here and we'll discuss. *twiddles thumbs*)

Okay, so you read it right? Wasn't that a gorgeous tribute to his wife? Did you read any of the comments? There were some people that were angry. Of course, there normally are angry people associated with Mr. Walsh's blogs, but this just struck such a chord with me.

So many people lashed out at him saying he didn't know what the future would hold and then gave their own personal (or secondhand) stories of mangled marriages and broken bonds, the hurt and bitterness so overwhelming.

Oh dear Jesus, we are a broken world.

We seem to be a society that is incapable of looking past our own personal situations to grasp a picture of overall truth. So sensitive we've become to what others think or say, so easily offended, that we'll lash out an anyone who dares to tell us we may be wrong.

At one point in his post, Matt Walsh said:

If we feel ourselves drift, we reach out our hands and grasp tightly, because I choose to remain at her side, and she at mine. And if I ever look over to find that we’ve somehow lost sight of each other — both now walking alone and lost in that cold night — I will grab a torch and search for her until I find her again. She is my mission, my life’s work, and I’d sooner give up my life than give up on her.

That is an eloquent statement of conviction and dedication. It reflects the biblical viewpoint that marriage is a holy covenant.

Then the man said,

"This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man."

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother

and cleave to his wife, 

and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:23-24 (emphasis added)

The definition of the word "cleave" (when followed by "to," according to dictionary.com), is to adhere closely, stick, cling, or remain faithful. It isn't used in a casual manner; instead, its usage denotes hanging on for dear life. There is almost a primal desperation associated with "cleave."

And it that sort of energy and commitment with which which we are to cling to our spouses.

But alas, the drift Matt speaks of is the natural course of things. In their book Staying Close, Dennis and Barbara Rainey (founders of FamilyLife) say:

Unless you lovingly and energetically nurture  and maintain your marriage, you will begin to drift apart from your mate. You'll live together, but you will live alone....The good news is that isolation can be defeated. Its disease can be cured if you are willing to make the right choices and then put the necessary effort into building oneness.

 Did you catch the key words there? Choice. Effort.

Marriage is about choices. Each day we make a choice: we choose to put in the effort to grow closer to our spouses, to love and offer grace, or we choose to drift farther apart.

Think about it like this. When you go to the beach, you put your stuff in the sand and wade out into the water. You talk. You relax. You swim. You play in the waves.

If you're not thinking about making a conscious effort to stay in alignment with your possessions, to keep them nearby and in sight, you'll drift father and father away. If you take your eyes away for long enough, you'll eventually lose sight completely.

It takes a conscious effort to stay close.

But what if you don't? What if you lose sight of your things? Do you give them up? Abandon them?

HECK NO! 

Come on people. You know full-well you need your car keys to get home, and hell would turn into an icy wonderland before you'd let your cell phone go without a fight. 

That's marriage, my friends. 

Staying together takes effort. At all times we are either growing closer to our spouses or farther apart. It is only effort and intentionality - a daily choice - that keeps us from losing hold of the perfect gifts God has given us. 

I don't say these things from a place of condemnation, but from a place of experience. I was married once before Josiah, and he was married once before me. We both know the agony of divorce. We know who you choose to marry is of infinite importance, and while we are very aware that God hates divorce, both of us are sure that He has forgiven us and blessed us despite our failures. We have learned from our mistakes, and would be remiss if we didn't share those lessons with others.

I think that's why Josiah and I feel so strongly about The Art of Marriage event we're hosting this month and about the ministry we're starting together, which is aimed at healing the body of Christ, starting in the home (the quote from Dennis and Barbara Rainey came directly from The Art of Marriage resources, by the way). We are acutely aware that harmony cannot consists within the body of Christ when the relationships that are supposed to mirror our relationship with him - marriage - lies in ruins. 

And even having been through a divorce, having witnessed the wreckage of our broken home and of other marriages all around me, I can say the following with conviction in every fiber of my being:

Josiah Coburn, there is nothing you can do, nowhere you can go, where I won't love you and fight for you. You're stuck with me for life, til death do us part. Don't believe me? Just try and get rid of me. But because you're stuck with me, I'll also fight every day to make ours a happy home: to give to you the grace I've been given by our loving and merciful Father in heaven; to give you far more smiles than frowns; to treat you every day like I adore you because the truth is, I REALLY do. Forever and ever. Amen. 

Today, if you're married, rededicate yourself to your spouse. Make every effort to stop the drift and connect. But most importantly, whether you're married or not, commit yourself to Christ. We are sinful, selfish creatures, and it is only through him that we can truly become the spouses, or heck - the people- we desperately want and need to be.

Photo credit: Amanda Truth Photography

Corinthians 3 Thursday: Pursuing Passion

Last week we talked about values, what ours are, and why it's important to define them. This week we're talking about passion.

Did you hear me? I said PASSION.

In Christian Coaching, Collins says: 

Your passion is what fires you up. It is a driving force that can give your life its greatest energy and fulfillment. If you get in touch with your passion (or passions) and let it motivate you in healthy directions, passion can be a powerful influence for good. It can invigorate your life and raise you to higher levels of achievement and self-satisfaction. If you ignore your passion or let it fade, your life becomes duller, emotionally flatter, less fulfilled, and sometimes tinged with apathy. Like a speech or a sermon without passion, life without passion can be boring, colorless, and uninspiring. 

So, live with passion and be invigorated, or live without it and let your life be dull and flat. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

But, as a Christian, is passion for anything other that serving God self-serving? Absolutely not! As long as your passion is in-line with the word of God, then it should be seen as a gift from Him!

Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Dream Giver says:

God has put a driving passion in you to do something special. Why wouldn't he? You are created in his image - the only person exactly like you in the universe. No one else can do your dream. (This is actually a quote Collins provides in Christian Coaching). 

Here's the deal, not everyone can be "in ministry;" it just isn't plausible. However, everyone can minister where they are, and there's no better way to do that then to pursue a God-given passion.

So, whether you eat or drink,

or whatever you do, 

do all to the glory of God. 

1 Corinthians 10:31

Lead a life worthy of your calling,

for you have been called by God.

Ephesians 4:1

So what is your passion?

Some people know what their passion is right away. They immediately know the subjects or activities that ignite their souls.

Then their are people like me. I've been a mom since I was 19. Now, as a mom with four children and one on the way, I'm lucky if I can find an ounce of energy or passion when I fall in bed with my husband at night, and I adore him! Now you're telling me I'm supposed to figure out some other passion?!

Luckily, Collins gives some great suggestions for finding out exactly what your passion is. 

• Ask somebody who knows you well to identify your passions.
• Think of times in your life when you felt exuberant and excited to be alive. What might this say about your passion?
• When you were young and your parents could not find you, what did they assume you were doing? What does this say about your passion?
• If you had no limitations in terms of money or time, what would you like to do?
• Look at your environment. Does this reveal what really interests and excites you?
• Search the Scriptures, wait, and pray that God will reveal his passion for your life.

I suggest implementing the last suggestion before pursuing the rest. We should always seek God in prayer and in His Word, particularly when we're looking for His guidance.

When I performed the tasks above, one answer screamed the loudest: books.

Josiah and Destiny said "books;" when I was young and quiet for a long time, my parents knew I was probably somewhere reading; my home is filled with books. 

Books, books, and more books. I love books. When I go Barnes and Noble, being surrounded by all the authors' words, imaginations, and experiences fills me with an electricity I can feel from my scalp to my tiptoes. That's a tell-tale sign of passion, my friends.

If you're thinking the same thing I was when I realized this, then you're thinking, "We've crowned our new Mrs. Nerd Universe 2014, whose overwhelming passion in life is...books."

And that's probably true. I am a nerd, and I'm cool with that. However, upon further examination, there's a deeper passion there. Like a fraction, we need to reduce this to its simplest form: words.

I don't just love books, I love words.

I love to write them, speak them, sing them, read them, hear them. My main love language is even Words of Affirmation.

Words, words, words...I loooooove words. They energize me and ignite a fire somewhere deep in my soul.

When I can't sleep at night or feel very passionately about a certain subject, I write books, blog posts, and speeches in my head. I dream of delivering messages God has laid on my heart to huge crowds of people. I dream of changing the world for Christ through the words I write and speak.

God gave me words.

All that having been said, that's probably enough words from me for the day.

It's your turn! What are your passions? If possible, try to think beyond family. As moms, we are passionate about our kids, but I feel very strongly that we should have other passions, as well...if for no other reason than to teach children how to pursue theirs.

If you're just now joining us, Corinthians 3 Thursdays are designed to help us find our pursue our individual callings based upon two Corinthians verses: 1 Corinthians 3:8-11 and  2 Corinthians 3:17-18. As  guide, w're using the book Christian Coaching by Gary Collins.For more information, you can visit this post or any of the earlier Corinthians 3 Thursday posts below:

Corinthians 3 Thursday Post 1: Clarifying Values

Please link up or share your thoughts in the comments section! Feel free to grab and share my button, too!

Days Versus Decades

"I have one big piece of advice for you," said my professor. "Slow down."

Slow down. 

Two words, and they sound so simple right? 

Recently, as I've alluded to many times in last week's blogs, Josiah and I had a brief coaching session with my Christian Life Coaching professor, Eric Viets, regarding the building of our ministry. In addition to the little tidbit above, he had a lot of wonderful advice regarding blogging, newsletters, setting up the website, our logo, and so much more. 

Professor Viets was able to give this advice because, not only is he a wonderful professor at Liberty (seriously, he's one of the best proofreaders I've ever encountered), he and his wife have a flourishing ministry called Pre Engaged. Not only do they offer pre-marital counseling, they suggest and offer counseling before a couple gets engaged. I don't know about you, but I think that's BRILLIANT. They've been building this ministry for four years, so their advice was invaluable.

In preparation for the meeting, he had both of us write a ten-year letter (which we'll do in one Corinthians 3 Thursday link up), define our vision and mission along with some goals, and take a personality test. When it was time for us to work out our goals, I was on it.

I was going to have the entire ministry set up within weeks. I was going to have a book written within a year. I was going to have a website developed almost immediately. I was going to leap buildings in a single bound...or so I thought.

In my haste to set impressive goals and be the star pupil I overlooked the fact that doing things right often takes strong dedication over time.

Professor Viets said it this way: "We live day-to-day, but God often works in decades."

Mind. Blown.

I think I've quoted him a hundred times to various people over the last couple weeks because that one sentence applies to so many different facets of life! 

We live in a culture that wants everything now...faster, faster, FASTER! The professor called it a "Burger King mentality": we want it our way, right away.

But God doesn't normally work that way. He can, but he doesn't. Instead, he understands that, in order to build virtues in us like patience and persistence, we have to wait and work because "endurance produces character, and character produces hope." (Romans 5:4).

The prophet Isaiah said:

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

God is trying to build endurance in us through prayer and faith. Mark Batterson, in The Circle Maker, says this: 

We live in a culture that overvalues 15 minutes of fame and undervalues lifelong faithfulness. Maybe we have it backward. Just as our greatest successes come at the heels of our greatest failures, our greatest answers often come on the heels of our longest and most boring prayers. 

So today, tomorrow, or next week, when you're tempted to throw in the towel because God just isn't answering your prayer and hope is still out of sight, remember that God is always at work, always with you, always for you. He just works in decades sometimes, instead of days.

Open and Shut

A door slams in your face, and you're devastated...discouraged...disappointed...desperate.

The new job falls through...

a pink slip is delivered...

a relationship falls apart...

the perfect opportunity dies in front of you.

The door slams firmly shut, stubbing your toes and your pride in the process.

Once again this morning, I was reading The Circle Maker and Batterson brought to my attention a verse I've read before, more than once, but somehow never noticed. 

“The Holy One, the True One, the One who has the key of David, 

who opens and no one will close, and closes and no one opens says:

I know your works. 

Because you have limited strength, have kept My word, 

and have not denied My name, look, 

I have placed before you an open door that no one is able to close."

Revelation 3:7-8 (emphasis added)

We love open doors. We love to be given new opportunities and adventures, but rarely do we thank God for the doors that are closed securely behind us.

However, in this verse we're reminded that it's Jesus Christ who opens and closes the doors of opportunity for us, and his will is irreversible.

"And we know that all things work together

for the good of those who love God:

those who are called according to His purpose."

Romans 8:28

All things. Not some things, not most things. All things.

I've prayed for some stuff before, let me tell ya. I've prayed for that relationship I just knew was right, but didn't work out anyway. I've prayed about the job that seemed like the perfect fit, but I didn't even get an interview. In retrospect, I was able to see how every one of those closed doors was a blessing in disguise, and not just a little one either...a huge one.

Every slammed door is shut tight for a reason. And guess what? You may not know what that reason is on this side of eternity. You may never know why, but we know He's in control and working for our good, and we have to just trust Him.

I know it's hard. I've been there, and I know I'll be there again someday. It happens to all of us. However, I'm here to tell you that no door opens or closes that God doesn't have control over, and He loves you, and his love is perfect.

Just remember, often, the reason God shuts one door is because there's a much better door He wants to open for you just a little bit down the pike, and once He opens that door, no one can close it.

Corinthians 3 Thursday: Clarifying Values

What are your values?

No...don't just skim over it. Really take a second to think about the question.

What are your values?

If you're anything like me when I first read that question, then you said, "I know my values!! They are...uh...I mean...you know, I'm a Christian, so I have those values!!"

Which, is true. I am a Christian, and I have that worldview. Therefore, everything I look at is filtered through my faith. However, it's also a cop-out.

In Christian Coaching, Collins quotes authors Williams and Menendez from their book Becoming a Professional Life Coach: "Once clients are conscious of values, they act as the true north point of a compass, guiding coaching clients in a direction that makes their life journey less haphazard and more purposeful" (Collins, 2009, pg. 145).

So what we're talking about here is defining the things YOU value most in life and then making sure your actions line up with your values. If they don't, then you're living a life that doesn't reconcile...and that's bad news in the end. It's living a life with no "soul integrity" (which is, I think, a term from Unglued by Lisa TerKeurst).

But why is this part of the process of finding direction? Simple. We can't know where God wants us to go if we don't know who and where we are now. This is simply us taking an inventory of what we're working with before we get moving. To do this, we'll need to clarify our values, discuss our passions, and discover our spiritual gifts and personal strengths. THEN we can start talking about where we want to go.

So, how exactly do we list these "foundational values that anchor our lives" (Collins, 2009, pg. 367)?

Well, there are a couple ways. First, Collins provides a list in Appendix F of his book. The reader/client is asked to choose between 12 and 15 of the words that resonate with him the most. So, while many of them may apply, try to choose the ones that mean the most to you.

It's a long list, so take your time!

Accomplishment	Fun	Productivity
Affirmation	Gentleness	Purity
Ambition	Genuineness	Quality
Authenticity	Good taste	Recognition
Beauty	Growth	Relaxation
Being a model	Hard word	Respect for life
Being in control	Honesty	Respect for people
Career	Humility	Respect for the environment
Caution	Humor	Risk taking
Collaboration	Impacting people	Security
Communicating	Independence	Self-esteem
Community	Influence	Self-expression
Compassion	Inspiring others	Sensitivity
Competence	Integrity	Servanthood
Consistency with biblical teaching	Joy	Service
Creativity	Lack of pretense	Sexual fulfillment
Determination	Love	Silence
Diligence	Love of learning	Sincerity
Efficiency	Loyalty	Solitude
Elegance	Making money	Spiritual growth
Encouragement	Marriage	Stability
Enlightenment	Mentoring	Success
Excellence	Nurturing	Temperance
Excitement	Obedience	Tolerance
Experiencing pleasure	Orderliness	Tongue control
Faithfulness	Patience	Tranquility
Family	Peace	Trust
Forgiveness	Perfection	Truth
Forward looking	Performance	Winning
Freedom	Persistence	Worship
Frugality	Personal power	Add your own….
Fulfillment	Physical vitality

If you're anything like me, then your list was kind of long. However, there were some I circled that I really felt overlapped, or one encompassed the other. To help shorten the list, I asked Destiny what she feels my values are. After letting her look at me with a blank stare for about 30 seconds, I clarified: "What do I value most?" Her list was pretty comparable to my own.

She said my values were as follows: family, books, education, and faith. Pretty accurate, but I'm hoping she didn't mean in that order.

My final list, in order of priority or dominance, looked like this:

1. Faith in God
2. Family
3. Love
4. Joy
5. Humor
6. Communication
7. Authenticity
8. Learning
9. Analysis
10. Spiritual/Personal growth

With that, I let certain values be a subheading for others. For example, my faith in God also encompasses a lot of values that aren't listed, like honesty and integrity.

I'm sure a lot of people will find "analysis" a bit odd, but it's just a big part of who I am. I analyze everything - sometimes far too much. Nevertheless, it's a big part of who I am, and why I'm able to pour out my dirt/life's lessons on this blog.

If you still need help clarifying your values, you can do a couple things. First, ask someone close to you. Be careful with children, though..they're brutally honest. *smile*

You can also ask yourself some questions, such as:

• If you could only take ten values with you into a strange and possibly dangerous territory, which are the ones you absolutely must have?
• What values would you fight for? Die for?
• What values are so important that you would quit a job if they were violated by your employer?
• How would people who knew you best describe what you are like? (Collins, 2009, pg. 1445-146)

So, what are your values? What words on that list resonate deep within you? Like Absolem said to Alice: "Whooooo aaaaaaare yooooooouuu?"

If you're traveling on this journey with me and you have a blog, please link up! It will be a lot of fun to go through this together!!If you don't have a blog, please leave what you discover in the comments section below!

To link up, simply use the Linky Tools link below, enter your blog address, title, and maybe a couple other things, and you're on your way!!

Wade In the Water

I am not a risk taker. At all. I don't even buy scratch lottery tickets because I don't feel the possible gain worth the $1 or $5 risk.

Yup...not exactly a girl livin' on the edge.

However, I may be living on the edge in another way, and that's probably not a good thing.

I was reading The Circle Maker this morning, and something the author (Mark Batterson) said stopped me in my tracks.

He was talking about the confidence Elijah had that God would answer his prayers. He was so sure God would come through that acted often before he could even see God working. 

He just knew the answer was "yes" before he heard it.

Batterson then went on to talk about the Israelites crossing the Jordan before they could go into the Promised Land. So the Israelites would know God was with them and would accomplish great things for them, He had Joshua tell the priest to carry the Ark of the Covenant ahead of everyone else and walk into the Jordan.

The exact words were, "Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant: 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river'" (Joshua 3:8).

Sure. That's no big deal, right? Just tell the priests to take the seriously heavy golden ark and go stand in the Jordan river in the middle of the flood season (Joshua 3:15).

If I were Joshua, I would have felt like such an idiot telling people to do something like that, and maybe Joshua did, but he had received a promise from God - so he acted on it.

And as soon as the priests' feet touched the water, the river stopped flowing, and they crossed on dry ground.

So here's the real question - how many miracles am I sitting on the edge of because I won't take the first steps because I might look stupid? How many? One? Three? Five?

I don't know about you, but I know I'd like to witness a miracle or two, and it may just be my own pride keeping me from seeing them.

There are promises I know God has spoken into my life that I feel like I'm just sitting on because I'm too afraid to take the first steps because I haven't seen God step ahead of me first...but what if He's just waiting for me?

What if he's just waiting for me to wade on into the river before He clears the way to the Promised Land?

Let me give you an example...

Recently, I felt very confused about the information I was getting from a couple different directions, and I felt like God was asking me to email my professor about the situation and ask for help.

Yeah, I ignored that. Why would I email someone who knows nothing of me but the assignments I turn in and blast him with my confusion about my life, my mission, and who knows what else?! That's crazy talk!

And yet...I kept hearing the small nudge of the Holy Spirit telling me to do it anyway, and finally, I obeyed.

It was a mess of an email. I barely knew what I was writing; I didn't even know why or what I was asking him for!

His response was such a blessing, though! He met with Josiah and me last Saturday on Skype, giving us a wealth of information, advice, and encouragement that I desperately needed!! (More information about that meeting to come in future blogs).

"For we walk by faith, not by sight."

2 Corinthians 5:7

That's such a simple passage of scripture, one of the first we learn. And yet, it's one of the most difficult to live by, I think...walking by faith.

So today I ask you, what promises are you sitting on the edge of? What has the Spirit moved you to do that you just haven't been able to act on yet because you were waiting for God to move first?

Maybe, just maybe, He's just waiting on you to make the first move.

Be sure to check back in tomorrow for our first "Corinthians 3 Thursday" link up!

An Announcement About Thursday...on Tuesday!

A couple weeks ago a dear friend confided in me that he felt lost. He was working hard in a lot of different areas, but still didn't feel fulfilled and had no idea which direction to go in next. For some reason, this resonated so deeply with me, and I wanted to reach out and help him somehow. Then I figured out why I felt his plight so deeply...

I feel lost, too. Wow - talk about the blind wanting to lead the blind.

Let me define, though, what I mean by lost (from my perspective, not his, of course - I can only speak for myself). As a Christian, I know I am always loved and taken care of, and there is always a plan, even if I don't know what that plan is.

In his book The Circle Maker Mark Batterson talks about a point in his life when he felt like his life resembled an airline joke - the pilot comes on the overhead speaker and says, "I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is we're lost; the good news is we're making great time."

My life feels like that a lot of the time ( and you know that because I've written about it...oh...eight billion times). The issue, I've discovered, is that in order to know where you're going, you have to know where you are.

Like Bilbo discovered in the movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug when he and the dwarfs are lost in Mirkwood Forest, sometimes you have to stop moving, running around in circles, look up (or in his case climb up) and take an accurate assessment of where you are. Only then can you determine the direction in which you should move.

God reveals His plans to us in many different ways, and He revealed to me yesterday that He'd been smacking me in the face with answers for the past 8 weeks. I was just too buried to see it.

At the end of my last semester at Liberty I took a Christian Life Coaching class. Many of the discussion board assignments for this class were designed to make you think about the material from a personal perspective, but because I was operating in overload, and under some serious time constraints, I kept the material at arm's length and attacked it mainly from a scholastic perspective.

But times, they are a changin'. It's time to get personal.

And of course, I've decided I want to bring you along on the journey! Aren't you excited?!

First, I should probably share a little about what the heck life coaching is...and what it isn't. Actually, we'll start there.

It isn't therapy or counseling. Those deal with the past, this deals with the present and future.

It isn't mentoring. Mentors guide you to be more like them; life coaches want you to be more like you.

It isn't discipleship. Discipleship is purely spiritual in nature, while coaching deals with many different aspects of life, albeit from a Christian perspective (if you're dealing with Christian Coaching).

So what is it? Well, Life Coaching is helping someone become exactly who or where they want to be. It's telling them, but helping them discover through thoughtful questions and guided self-examination.

Christian Coaching, on the other hand, is helping someone become exactly who or where GOD wants them to be. You use the same methods, but instead of just seeking inward, you first seek upward.

If you'd like more information on this, I would strongly advise you to take a look at Christian Coaching by Dr. Gary Collins. It's the main book I'll be using throughout this series of blogs, and it was the main textbook for the course.

And of course, I'm not just writing this because I'm a huge over-sharer...I want you to walk along with me!! Have you been feeling lost? Do you feel like your life should have greater purpose or a more defined direction? Then let's take this journey together!

(Disclaimer: I have taken one Christian Life Coaching class and am going by the book on this one. What this means? I am in no way a certified life coach. This is all amateur, folks. If this sparks a serious interest, I strongly advise you to seek a real life coach to help you on your journey!! But until then, we can have some fun together.)

And you'll never guess what else...this series is going to be my first link up!!! I'm so EXCITED!!!!! Can you tell?

Thus far, I've been very intimidated by the link up process, and I've just kept telling myself, I'll wait to start a link up when I get Seeking the Symphony up and running. But guess what, that's taking a while, and in a recent talk with my Life Coaching professor, which was invaluable (more on that later), I discovered that it's okay that it's okay that it's taking a while. Sometimes, things that need to be done right take time...and I've got to learn to be okay with that.

So, with that, I introduce to you Corinthians 3 Thursdays!!!

Why Corinthians 3, you ask? And which Corinthians: 1 or 2? BOTH

As I was looking for Bible verses on our purpose according to Christ, I found the following verses:

For we are God's co-workers.

You are God's field, God's building.

According to God's grace that was given to me,

as a skilled master builder I have laid a foundation,

and another builds on it,

because no one can lay any other foundation that what has been laid - 

that is, Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:8-11

Now the Lord is the Spirit;

and where the Spirit of the Lord is. there is freedom.

We all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting the glory of the Lord

and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory;

this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Two verses, from both Paul's first and second letters to the Corinthians, and both in the third chapters, beautifully articulate the purpose of this series.

I don't want to find direction and purpose according to my own plans, Instead, by following these steps, I am praying God will reveal HIS divine purpose and plan for my life...at least this next stage of it. We're laying a foundation for Jesus to build on, being transformed by Him.

That is the purpose of this series, and I sincerely hope you'll come along with me!

Now because this is a process, if you decide you want to come along, but you need to skip a week or two here or there, I would strongly advise you to go back to the next step for YOU. This is not a race to purpose, people. We all have our own lives and our own schedules. If you decide you want to link up with your blog and you're "behind," just link up with what you've got. Ain't nobody judging around here.

I think that's enough for today. This Thursday, we'll have our first link up, and we'll talk about values and why it's important not just to have them, but to be able to define them!