God, the Creator of Pleasure...........

OK. I don't know why this hit me while I was reading the Shaping of Things to Come. I mean, I guess I could have figured this out, after all, I know that God created all things. So, some people cannot connect God with our daily lives. Some people cannot feel God in pleasure. Is pleasure selfish and therefore sinful? God created the things in us that give us pleasure. Our taste buds, our skin, even our likes and dislikes. Here is what I think.... God wants us to feel pleasure. He wants us to enjoy our lives. Can pleasure LEAD to sinfulness? Absolutely. But that is because we fail to see God in those things that make us pleased. We fail to see our pleasure as a gift from Him, and therefore misuse and abuse it. Those are just my thoughts. What are yours???

What Are Your Thoughts???

Please check out one of my older posts....Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. What do you think about the comments that were made???

Shaping of Things to Come....

I love, in this book, how they talk about the well in the center. To summarize, if you are a farmer and have livestock on a small farm, you would fence it in, to keep your animals with you and other animals out. If you are a farmer and have miles and miles of farmland, it is impossible to fence that in. So how do you keep your livestock from running away? Put a well in the center. Animals do not travel far from a water source. OK. Now think about church. In the past, church seemed to be the farm that put up a fence. We are in, they are out. What we want to be is a farm where you are never out, just a little further from the "well", which is Jesus and the Gospel. The closer that you are to the center well, the more Christlike your journey is. I desire to be close to that well. I pray that God leads all of closer and closer to the center. I pray that he allows us to see all of his people, not as being non-Christian or Christian, but as being a little further away from the center, never out. Gods grace reaches all over and covers all of us.

HUH?

OK. I have always been one that is true to myself, not ashamed of my own limitations and not embarrassed by most things. Can I just ask if I am the only one who is having a hard time reading this book??? It has been my understanding, in the past, that when one is defining a word, they take the word, and use smaller, easier to understand words to explain it. It seems that in this book, I get excited...like OOOO I finally get an explanation of what incarnational (just as one example) means....then they use other huge words, that I do not know what THEY mean, to define it????!!!!???? I am feeling inadequate. Maybe this book just wasn't made for the stay at home mom who hasn't read much besides Veggie Tales: The Chicken Noodle Soup~er Bowl, for the past few years!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday Kaileigh! Finally older than Dylan again! I love you sweetie!!!!

Outside the Walls

Page 23 begins to paint this picture in my mind. They talk about a man named Brock Bingaman that opened up a shoe store (his great passion) to serve the community and to begin to blend the secular and non secular lives. A shoe store fitting people with the love of Christ and a snazzy pair of sneakers! From that point, they talk about different places doing the same sort of thing; a bar, an art gallery, etc. Moving outside the walls of the Church. Moving out of the "come to us" mindset. I cannot help but get a picture of a downtown. A street full of shops. Some owned by Christians, some not. Blended beautifully. Owners of shops getting to know the people in the community. Helping to serve their needs. What would your shop be? Help me paint this picture.

Error

Just wanted to clarify, I misspoke in my last post. I was not in Chapter 2. I was in the Second Section of Part One. Confusing. Thought I was almost where I needed to be for tomorrow nights meeting! I was wrong. Oh well. I will use page numbers from now on!