Calm

It’s great to enjoy the calm before the storm but even better to experience it during. That’s the peace Jesus has for us, let Him bring it.

Desperately Crave

The connection, the one of a kind relationship and unconditional love that we all desperately crave, can only be found through an intimate relationship with our God, our Creator, our Heavenly Father. It’s out of the abundance of this union that we are able to be a portion of His love to those around us. The beauty of these relationships is deeper and richer than we could’ve hoped for before realizing how God truly feels about us. We can’t help but want those near us to know and experience what we’ve found. We can be the evidence that stands staunchly against the lies that we’re all confronted with each day. We can be the kind of friends and family that we only dreamed we could find.

Our son Max played a song for me yesterday by Ray LaMontagne. It’s about being the kind of friend I so very much want to be and am so thankful to have. The song’s called Let it be Me and I hope you can hear it by clicking here.

Why so Important?

Why is connecting so important? Why do people pay such a high price for even a moment of it? Why are people with everything but connection eventually confronted by their own misery? The answer to all these questions is the same: because God exists as a community of connected persons. We were fashioned by a God whose deepest joy is connection with Himself, a God who created us to enjoy the pleasure He enjoys by connecting supremely with Him but also with each other. To experience the joy of connection is life; to not experience it is death to our souls, death to our deepest desires, death to everything that makes us human. – Larry Crabb

Capacities

“The capacities that distinguish us as human beings from all other creations were given to us so we could connect with each other the way the three divine persons connect. We have the capacity to enjoy the wonder of a relationship built on grace that no angel has ever personally experienced. Combine that capacity with the capacities to think, imagine, aspire, choose and feel, and you have people built for trinity-like community.” – Larry Crabb

But too often –

“I’ve got AM, FM, XM, iPod, iPhone, Internet…and we’re all closer together, just an e-mail or a text away, but we’ve all retreated into our niches, we’ve lost our cohesiveness. We’re no longer all in it together, we’re doing our own thing. And when you take a break and look up and realize no one’s around you wonder…are we better off?” – Bob Lefsetz

Adventure

“Everyday God invites us on an adventure. It’s not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of ours to experience the richness of the world He made. And then leaning over to us, He whispers, “Let’s go do that together.”” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Yes Lord, let’s do it.

Empirical Evidence

Empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge can only be obtained from sensory experience and much weight is put on evidence derived from experiments or testing. The atheist would say that because they have not seen, heard, felt, smelled or tasted God, He doesn’t exist. This reasoning seems narrow-minded as it discounts the sensory experience of others in order to be held. The evidence of God is everywhere. The earth and the sky shout His existence or at the very least beg the sincere question, “Who made this?” God invites us to test Him. He wants more than anything to reveal Himself to us but the sincerity of our desire to know plays a huge part in what we will see, hear, feel…

Then God Blessed Them

And that is what He’s been doing ever since. Though the depth may escape us His love is not beyond our understanding. He wants us to know and experience His love in all that we encounter, it’s the very reason we exist. We just have to let Him, we get to choose.

Formula

Formulas have a way of becoming religion. Systems can become ruts. Methods replace relationship. Our life, our unique one of a kind existence requires a connection to God that can’t be fulfilled if we leave Him out. Others experiences can help but only He has the answer just right for you.