Monday, August 6, 2007

H-E-A-R-T


In Romans 12:3 Paul says this:

I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

This pretty much sums up what God has been teaching me lately. Grace and more grace; being accepted and loved by God without earning a bit of it; and not trying to "do" things for Him but to enjoy life and listen to what He says to do. It's all about Him and not about me.

In our Celebrate Recovery class we talked about relapse the other night. There were several questions we can use to evaluate ourselves......Hurting? Exhausted? Angry? Resentful? Tense?

If you take the first letter of each of these they spell "HEART." I can use these to discern if I need to take action. Just yesterday I was getting annoyed over a situation and letting it control my emotions. I thought of the T question: Tense?? Yes, yes, and yes~! I realized it wasn't worth getting tense and angry over so I chilled out. I averted a potentially dangerous situation that could have stolen my joy and damaged a relationship. I pray I can be alert and recognize what happens and how to deal with it. It really made a HUGE difference.

When we started the Celebrate Recovery class in our church I really didn't think I had a great need for it, but wanted to help and support it. I mean I have problems, but not great big ones. Boy was I wrong~! I believe if we are able to breathe we have some hurt, habit, or hangup that we need help with.

Temptation isn't the sin.......following through with it is. Temptation is a call to battle~! (note to self from class)


No comments: