“THE PROCESS IS THE END. FOR IT IS THE PROCESS THAT IS GLORIFYING TO GOD.” --Oswald Chambers

"This life therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed." --Martin Luther

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Every once in awhile I just get this “whatever” for myself, for others, for whomever and whatever, to understand/remind what our blog is about. And I see that some of the other bloggers I regularly read do it too, so I don’t feel so bad when I do!

Sometimes our blog is completely personal-sharing our griefs and losses, our frustrations, our growth in knowledge on something, our questions, our “things that make you go hmmm”…most often it is just speaking what the Lord is laying on our hearts or firing up our souls about. A lot of times it is a thought that strikes us, and more often than not it is questions we have that we don’t know how to answer. Sometimes a situation or circumstance happens and we just want to rant and rave! It is then that I most often pray for discernment. Do you want me to say this in public Lord? Is this for anyone else but us? Is this for now, is this for later? We will often write something and then sit on it. We sit and hope that the situation will change for the better so we don’t have to post it, but really, deep down-we know it is going up sooner or later.
I mean, everyone likes being liked. And sometimes we say things that someone might find offensive. There is this line of discernment and the fear of man. It’s easy to say “you can’t make everyone happy all the time” or “you can’t make everyone like you”, but then when you feel led to say and act on something that may make someone unhappy or not like you or they would consider offensive, then it’s a little harder to put out there.

Once I put something like this on my facebook page:
“When you tell the truth, you are usually the one who is ostracized.”

I got many insightful comments back. Things like:
-Jesus said it would happen, but it doesn’t make it any easier!
-The truth sets you FREE.
-The reality is others are mad at the truth, it isn’t necessarily you.
Seems like many people could identify and agree with where we were coming from!

So here’s some more truth-you don’t ever have to read what we write. Really, I haven’t discovered the magnetic pull on the World Wide Web to draw everyone to our site. (And I don’t want to!) No matter what we say (or don’t say), someone out there is going to read more (or less) into what we are saying-they are going to wonder what we know that they don’t, or what kind of dots we are trying to connect that they don’t see, or that it was written about them, or this situation or…etc. etc. I just commented to someone that maybe she didn’t want to do something so she wouldn’t have to “police” the comments that she got so there is no offense. But then I said it’s not like we can really prevent it anyway!

Someone once told us we have way more influence than we know. Yeah, right I think. But really, WE ALL DO. Our words and our lives impact way more people and situations than we could ever know-really-YOURS DOES; ours is just a little more public. When I look on my some of our analysis and see where in the world people have come to our blog from and the search words that get them there, I think Wow-God can use people, what they say, WORDS- in amazing ways. When someone enters a word or phrase or question in the “Google,” it may catch a word of ours and send them to our site. They could read and be touched by something they weren’t planning on finding. And I don’t say that in a prideful way, because I think a responsibility comes with that; at the same time we do write hoping that our faith journey will have an impact, somehow-some way on others.

The point of what we say is (usually) to make you think just as it has us. We don’t seek to bring condemnation by any means, but sometimes we do feel called by God to be used, along with His Holy Spirit, to bring about conviction. All we are doing is giving opportunity for you to read, discern and pray (or leave if you want!). If there is condemnation, that is neither of God nor what we seek-so throw out the devil’s lies or they will destroy you! If there is conviction, seek out the Holy Spirit and hear and do what God is calling you to. And if you are not sure, throw us back a comment so we can hear your thoughts, ask more questions or help answer some.
Sometimes the words just flow and we go back and say whoa—sometimes we struggle with what we are to post because we are convicted ourselves and we know in the flesh that someone isn’t going to like reading it. We fear man’s reaction (rejection?). But we are even more fearful of GOD and the consequences when we don’t follow after His leading.

So this blog is about our personal journey. Lately we have been put into situations and circumstances and been connected with people whose journey is paralleling ours, or what we have already been through. As we journey, we invite you to see where God is working in us and where He might have our journey work in and through you, and we’d love to be able to see where your journey is taking you!

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