Soul Sister Time

                Why is it so hard to rest in God’s power to do the work He has given us to do?   Even when I have experienced His amazing power to do way beyond my own abilities, I still find it hard to really work on His speed.                 Matthew 11:29 spells it out for us, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls .   I am still learning His ways.   His ways never cease to amaze me.   I’m preparing for a busy season of travel and a mission trip.   I have a completely booked schedule right up until the time we leave. But when one more thing needs to be done, miraculously I discover time, creativity, and even energy that I never knew I had.                 Thomas Keating describes it this way:   Our anxious efforts to serve God and our anguished search for God cease.   Like God we labor and are at rest at the same time.   We work hard but we know by experience, even by bitter experience, that our efforts are

                My husband and I have been watching the summer TV reality show Expedition Impossible .   Outdoor-type people are sent on outrageous adventures such as riding unruly camels across a desert, repelling down cliffs, or racing stallions to find clues to the final destination.   The adventures test the endurance of individuals.   As we sit in the comfort of our air-conditioned home, we think the contestants are absolutely crazy to attempt even half of the treks they willingly undertake.                 We don’t even exercise after 8:30 a.m. due to the summer heat.   Nothing would motivate us to attempt such treacherous and tormenting adventures.   The contestants are doing it for the prize and something more.   One woman was thrown from and then stepped on by a camel.   If she were my friend I would have insisted she get an x-ray in an emergency room, but she presses forward though her little sister has bleeding ankles from hiking with no socks.   If I were on their team I wo

            The words virtue and vice are somewhat foreign to our modern culture. We rarely think of them. These words once expressed the core of spiritual growth. The notion of leaving behind vices and becoming more virtuous was once a common striving of all spiritual people.             Whether our culture today pays much attention to them or not, the fullness of life will always be experienced in the midst of discovering the beautiful virtues that only one under God’s control can possess.             In a culture so void of virtue, how could vice be virtuous? I hadn’t thought about it that way either until I read the following quote from Father Thomas Keating: With that kind of trustful dependence on the Spirit, each time we accept a new sense of our own weakness and lack of virtue there follows an inner resurrection . What a relief to a soul! What Keating is saying is that we cannot begin to realize that we are full of vice without coming closer to God. Becoming aware of our vic

As 2011 was approaching, I felt God asking me to pay better attention to Him and His work in my life.   I would say that I am someone who feels a true connection to God.   I have made every major decision of my life after careful prayer and paying special attention to what I felt God telling me to do through His Word and the peace in my heart.   It is hard to describe exactly when I know that God is directing me; it is a feeling in my spirit that doesn’t feel like it is coming from my natural desires.   In fact I had a professor tell me that the best way to know that God is directing you to do something is that you don’t want to do it.   God’s ways are not our ways.             At first I thought paying better attention would yield better communication, but what I can say that I have learned most is how little attention I pay to God.   Sure He breaks through loud and clear from time to time, but as I’ve been paying more attention, what I’m paying attention to is how often He is not in