Thursday, March 17, 2011

A GPS For Spiritual Growth

A prominent rental car company advertises its available “Never Lost” system.  For someone like me, who can get lost in a box and can’t read a map, this sounds pretty good.  Still, I’m skeptical.  Never lost?

What about spiritual direction?  Is there a GPS device for spiritual growth, for healing and change?  It is often uncomfortable for me as a Christian counselor to be unable to access a “road map” for spiritual growth.  Although there are reliable Biblical principles and effective counseling strategies, there is no formula to get from Point A to Point B.  I cannot reassure a client that they are halfway “there.” 

I have often admired Abraham—“Abram” at the time—for obeying God’s instructions to "Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you.”  God didn’t even tell Abram where he would be going!  And so we see Abraham, the father of faith, believe God and leave his family, with no forwarding address.

Christians are Abraham’s spiritual descendants.  Unfortunately, we are also Adam and Eve’s.  Every day we must make choices to believe God and follow Him or to choose our own way.  Our own way often seems so much more reasonable, so much more secure.  Our self-confidence can blind us to the fact that we are going the wrong way!  If, however, we exercise faith as our father Abraham did, we will--really and truly-- never be lost.  Faith brings us to Christ, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Faith

The strength of our faith is inversely proportional to the extent of our pride.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Thought for the Day

Love is the skin of knowing.   
                   From The Shack, William P. Young