Adoption

Lisa and I are looking into adopting. We have had this on our hearts for years but it never seemed to be the right time. We were living in an apartment and there was no room for another child or 2. Now we have a house and space and things seem to be moving in that direction. I am looking forward to the process and learning more about God's love for each one of us as we go through with this. The parallels between God adopting us into His family and us finding a child to bring into ours is amazing. I know there will be ups and downs through all of this but I have faith that God will see us through to completion.

Boxes

I have been thinking lately about how we try to box God into our preconceived ideas of how we want things to work. We say to God in effect that I will only accept something as coming from you if it fits into these specific parameters. We limit where God can work in our lives and in the lives of those around us by saying that you can to x, y and z but not a, b and c in our lives. God has a way of making us look outside these boxes to expand our ideas of how He can work and use us. Where have you boxed God in? Is it a career choice and you say God you can only give me a job with this amount of income and these hours? Could it be looking at a circumstance in your life and saying that God needs to do something but you have limited the options to what is acceptable to you and disregarded God's plans? In our church, could we be boxing Him in with our list of what we want to see happen, where we meet and what the facility looks like, what the name of the church is and how it came about? We come to God so many times and say do this when what He wants to do in us and through us is the complete opposite of what we want. Is following God about our desires and wants or about Him? It should be about Him but often we make it about us. Let's allow God to work for His glory through us an stop trying to box Him into our limited point of view.

King Saul

This past Sunday I spoke on one episode of King Saul's life. As I have been studying about him I have found a lot of things that have applied to my life. Take the fact that in Deuteronomy 17:18-20 God tells the king what he is supposed to do in advance of Israel even asking for a king. What he is supposed to do is keep God's commands, His authoritative prescriptions on how to live your life always before him. The king needed to be in God's word daily so that he would stay the course. Saul did not do this and it led to his downfall. Just as in any new thing we add to our lives we need to integrate a lifestyle change for it to work long term. We can't say I will just tack this on to everything else. We need to mesh it with what we do already and get rid of stuff that isn't working in our lives for it to become part of us and make a difference in our lives. We need to integrate spending time in God's word and in prayer (or dialogue) with God daily if we are to become the people He wants us to be. How can you integrate your time with God on a daily basis? What would need to change in your life for this to happen?

Buildings are not the church

I am reminded once again the the church is not about where we meet, but the people who are part of it. Just like a family is not about the house and is still a family wherever they are. Loving Grace Alliance Church is not about a building or where we meet but about the loving relationships we have with God through His grace and with one another that would go one whether we meet in a building or a tent or some other place. We are all part of God's family together. I am excited to see how God is going to work out how we gather corporately in the coming months and I await His miraculous provision for our church family. My prayer is that He gets all the glory through this process and we can stand back to see how God has moved in our midst.