Backwards

I do not want to get stuck on the broken things of the past, but instead keep my eyes open to the new things God is trying to unfold for me now.

I will miss it if I am only looking backwards. Things are bing done around me and ahead of me, but I am missing every one of them because I am walking backwards.

God can make a way where there WAS no way, but I will miss it every time I am focused on the way it always WAS.

"Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder the things of the past.
Behold, I will do something new,
now it will spring forth;
will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, 
rivers in the desert."
     - Isaiah 43:18-19

Forgotten grace

The story goes there was a nun who claimed to hear from God each night. The priest, skeptical, told her to ask God to tell her all the things the priest had mentioned at his last confession.

The next time they met up he asked what God had told her. She replied, "God said, 'I forgot.'"

Hebrews 10:3 says "But in those [old] sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year."

All the the things we try to do for forgiveness only serve to remind us of sin God has forgotten. We cannot keep doing things to keep us locked up in shame and guilt.

In Jesus, God has forgotten all of our sin; past, present, and future.

I am soaking in the fact God has already forgotten all the sin I have not yet committed. The sins I will commit are already forgotten. (Heb. 10:17)

Grace will always be ridiculous to me.

Why You'll Never Know Who You Are

"These are not easy questions. Who am I? Why am I here? They're not easy questions because the human being isn't wired to function as an individual. We're wired tribally. We are wired to act as part of a group." - Stephen Pressfield [The War of Art]

"What we don't know is how to be alone. We don't know how to be free individuals."

So the question becomes: To what tribe will I connect?

2 opposing tribes are of The Artist and The Fundamentalist

"[The Artist] believes in progress and evolution. His faith is that humankind is advancing."

"[The Fundamentalist] cannot find his way into the future, so he retreats to the past."

"The difference is that while the one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen."

In 2010, which tribe do you wish to attribute your identity to?