Deep Well Discipleship

L istening can be one of the most difficult tasks anyone has.  It takes a very special person to listen, to truly listen, to someone.  Often we find our listening more of a means of deciding what we are going to say, how we will respond, if we must defend, etc...  Listening is indeed a discipline that I know I have had to perfect over the years.  Often I found myself listening to someone but really I was already thinking about what I was going to say when they were finished.  When this is our attitude of listening much is missed in the conversation and even misinterpreted due to a desire to respond instead of understand.  The Bible calls us to be hearers, that is to be listeners longing to hear. J ames 1:19 says "My dear brothers, take note of this:  Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry..."  What a challenge this presents to us in todays modern world where the dilemma is that everyone is easily offended.  When someone begins to talk it

I once heard it said that worry was nothing more than making a down payment on something that you will never own.  Since I was a kid I was making those down payments.  Throughout my childhood and into adulthood I worried about this, that, and everything in between.  I was, have been, and must say that I am a recovering worrier.  In the last year God has taught, and continues to teach me to stop the worry.  I have learned through the battle of cancer that truly I have no control and all the worry in the world won't change the fact that as I go through scans and tests, God is ultimately in the know and in control.  Our worry, strife, and anxiety accomplishes nothing except to make us feel sick.  Let me share what God has been teaching me in the last year. Philippians 4:6 Paul writes "Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."  Paul tells the church in Philippi not to worry.  He

PRESS ON Confession time, and this ones pretty obvious, my writing is sporadic at best.  I started blogging about my cancer last fall and when I started chemo I didn't feel like writing about it much less thinking about it.  I can honestly say that chemo is not only the most horrific thing I have experienced but it is the assuredly, at least at this time, the worst.  Throughout the process of treatment and feeling sick I found myself angry many times.  I cried out to God "Why me"?  I asked God why His intent was to kill me.  I was hurt, devastated, and lonely but God heard my cries and simply said "Why not you?"  I was shocked and stunned at this thought but I soon found my way into Philippians 4:11-14, that infamously misused passage of scripture.  It was there God spoke deeply into my pain and reminded me of His glory. Paul writes "...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to ab