So I am reading the book “Walking with God” by John Eldredge. The book is really cool how it is split up, it doesn’t have chapters it is split into the seasons of the year, you know Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, all you got to do is call, sorry if anyone knows James Taylor, then you are tracking with me. But that is how the book is split up, and I just finished the Summer part, so I will put it away until the Fall season. But I really enjoyed this section of the book, John is a really great writer and I love the way he views his relationship with God. Here are a few quotes that I liked and I will comment on these.
• “ You can’t possibly master enough principles and disciplines to ensure that your life works out. You weren’t meant to, and God won’t let you. For he knows that if we succeed without him, we will be infinitely further from him. We will come to believe terrible things about the universe- things like “I can make it on my own” and “only if I try harder, I can succeed”
– For me this is refreshing because I do find myself trying to figure life out and wanting to know, why? and how? to everything. God says relax I have got this life of yours figured out for you, just trust me, you don’t have to know everything.
•In the prelude section Eldredge writes about this situation where someone has done him wrong, slammed him, and he has the perfect most amazing come back to this person, but gets a check about it before he sends it, its God, telling him that he shouldn’t, and for a moment there is this inner struggle of what he should do, ultimately the urge from God wins out. He uses this to lead into the point that God is always up to something, in every situation of our lives, death, loss of a job, loss of a relationship, money troubles and in every one of these cases God is up to transform us, if we let him.
– We need to listen to those little urges, those nudges we get, I have found that if it is something that I am scared of, it has been something that I need God to help me do and it is Him wanting to transform me and mold me and possibly mold any other persons involved in the situation.
• “You do know what he is after in your own life, don’t you? Maybe that’s why we stay so busy–– to avoid knowing, so we can avoid dealing with it.” “ God isn’t just after behavior modification, He is after real and deep and lasting change. If we really want to walk with God, that requires the healing of our souls”
– Again we all hear that little voice that is telling ups what we need to be doing, we hear it day after day, and we ignore it, yet we complain about life not being the way we want it, about being unsatisfied and unfulfilled, like something is missing. Well deal what that thing God is wanting you to deal with and see what happens, he isn’t wanting you to do this thing, whatever it may be just to torture you, it is for you better and the better of His kingdom. Lets stop ignoring what we know we need to do. Then there are times where we just change a little something that we normally do, maybe we don’t do it as much, or quit for a little bit, maybe a few weeks we read more or pray more. That is not what God is after, that is not heart change, that is behavior change, God wants inner transformation. That will bring us closer to God and God closer to us. We draw closer, He draws closer. Just think about relationships (guy/girl), and i’ll just use this as an example, your girlfriend/wife/whoever wants you to stop dipping,(i know weird example) so you agree, but really you just stop doing it around her, you modify your behavior, you don’t change what you were asked to change, you are not showing love for your significant other just because you stopped doing it around her, she wants to know that you care about her enough to completely stop, this is doing no better to just not do it around her. If you were to stop like you were asked to, this shows devotion, selflessness and love, all the things that she is wanting, not just behavior modification. Hope you tracked with me.
• “Don’t let your experience with God up to this point limit what you might enjoy with him in the coming years.”
– John is talking about listening for God in your life, having conversation, and asking for guidance in every situation, no matter how big or small. He makes reference to many times where he asks God what to read, he asks God if he should go here or there, if he should go on vacation now or wait. I was and still am blown away about how personal God is to him, I want that to be the way I am with God. Where I can hear Him in situations where we don’t even think to ask His help. This quote stands out to me because we let the way our relationship with God has been in the past shape the way that it will continue to be. If we have held to the belief that God doesn’t speak to me, only to special people, then chance are we will not hear from God on certain things. We need to break those beliefs.
• “My ability to hear Gods voice on any given day does not change my position in Christ one bit”
– Just because you don’t hear from God on any given day does not mean that God is mad you, it doesn’t mean His favor isn’t on you, and it definitely doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love you.
• “God gave us a will. Learning to exercise it is a great part of maturing as a person. …..and there is nothing like spiritual warfare to teach you to exercise your will”
–Take that for what you will, I just thought it was a good quote. Most of the time we fail to recognize the spiritual warfare going on around us, or we ignore it. We need to acknowledge it and face it head on”
•This is a string of quotes in the same paragraph. “When I choose to avoid whatever it is God has brought up, something in me weakens something feels compromised. it is at least a refusal to mature. But it also feels like a refusal to sept toward God. Thankfully, the opposite is true. When I choose to face the uncertain, admit the neglect, or enter into my fears, something in me grows up a little bit. I feel strengthened, the scales tip toward a closer walk with God. There is never any “getting to it later”, we don’t do it and it just goes away, I wonder how often do we say to ourselves, I’ll get to it later, knowing that it will never happen.”
– I know that is a lot to take in, hopefully it makes sense, but basically it is saying we need to seize the moments, these opportunities to mature, to grow up, to grow closer to God, we miss them everyday, everyday we have chances, take advantage of them. We know that there isn’t a later, that is just an excuse. I feel like this has been something God has been talking about, taking the moments where I feel out of my element and do something with them, do something that timid old Adam wouldn’t normally do. Chances are He has been dealing with you in this area as well. God is always trying to transform us, from the old to the new, to grow on the next block, just think we will always have area to grow, we can never be to devoted, to mature, to knowledgeable, that is crazy so keep challenging yourself.
• “We can get so locked onto what we don’t have, what we think we want or need, that we miss the gifts God is giving”
– This speaks for its self, when you are frustrated about what you don’t have, stop, think, look around at what God has given, it may not be what you were wanting, be He knows what you need, chances are we just need to look around.
Thats is it for the summer section of this book, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. Probably more a man read though.
