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Heidi – thought you might like that one:)

I think this was the cover picture you saw on day 1.

Same picture – less dramatic.?? 🙂

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“Abiding in Christ” has been quite the catch phrase in these woods lately.?? Trying to plunge the depths and discover exactly what that means is no easy task though.?? Mom told me when I got it all figured out to make sure and let her know hee hee.??

I certainely DO NOT have it all figured out but a thought did come to me this weekend that is helping me work through it.

In the book He Loves Me, the author mentioned something that I had never contemplated.?? He said that most sin in our lives stems from a mistrust of God…not really truly believing in His goodness.?? I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks analyzing that statement and have discovered, that at least in my life, that turns out to be very accurate – especially when you dive deep into our hidden agendas and motivations.?? Anxiety issues??? Now that is a slam dunk isn’t it??? Issues of pride??? Pride and insecurity go hand in hand.?? Pride is often masked insecurity and insecurity is often masked pride – humility is true confidence.?? Even sins like gossip boil down to mistrust of God.?? Do we ever share a “tidbit” of sin or misfortune in someone else’s life that we too are guilty of or do we tend to shy away from those things and share something that won’t also make us look bad at the moment??? And why do we do it??? Anytime we step on someone else, we are under the illusion of elevation.?? If we really believe we are loved and that God is good, we have no agenda to engage in this type of competition.?? There is a lot more to that one – I’ll get to that another day.

To look at this very simply – if a distrust for God??is what leads to sin in my life – the answer is not to strive for obedience first – it is to first BELIEVE.