New Purpose

Since I have started a separate Dr. K’s Psychobabble blog I figured I would repurpose this one to do weekly reporting for my own accountability. I’m the only one to read and view this anyway.

I think I will develop a template for documenting my week’s accomplishments and reflections.

Jordan River

Today’s Children’s service was about the Israelites crossing the Jordan River. I was just thinking about how the OT is symbolic to our own path.

So they brought for the Ark and the waters were stopped. They crossed over. What does this mean to us in our walk of obedience.

Consider the contents of the Ark. with the law, the staff, and manna.

All we need is the guidance, the support, and the nourishment of God!

Much more on this later in another post.

Mark K.

Way of the Warrior #1

I’m reading this in my Bible app. Consider this:

Depression is how your soul processes regret.

Anxiety is how your soul processes fear.

This reading is all about how to find peace. How to move from being paralyzed by depression and anxiety. Much about understanding the factors you are in control of, and even more importantly, the factors you are not.

So, what do I fear? Death? In a way. Irrelevance? Yes. I want to have made the world a better place for having been here. To fulfill the plan that God has for me.

I’ve been feeling anxiety when I wake up in the morning. It seems to go away pretty quickly as I start the day but it can be pretty intense. I have also backed out of some commitments when I feel the depression as well. Some of this is needing to focus on some important things when I’m busy. Some of this is good old depression. Some of this is being in the position I am at work and life. I can choose to do things or not.

This is cool but it is also dangerous as I can become lazy and complacent in the absence of accountability.

Out of this same reading plan came the discussion of perceptions of God as a God of War. The OT certainly seems to support this.

Yet, He is not. He is the God of Peace. I have felt that presence and feel it nearly every day. For me it needs to extend into more areas.

But about the reputation of God as a God of War. The war thatIS going on is a war for our souls. Perhaps in all the wars and battles and details in the OT we are confronted with symbols of our own inner battle since creation: to bridge the gap between us and God.

Jesus does this for us. Prior to Jesus we had little hope for making that connection. Jesus’ death to bear our sins released us from that chasm and we connect directly with God again. So what is the use of the OT now? Berg ape it is allegorical to our struggle not to connect but to live in obedience. The wars inside of us are wars of obedience.

Mark K.

For our Good

God’s ways are mysterious. Of course they are! We are but nothing in comparison to His awesome power and wisdom. Yet, He is close and bids us to have a life together f obedience.

How simple this is, in principle. We have the wisdom of God to draw upon and we can trust that he will lead us down the right path. All things will happen for his plan and our good. Yet we resist. We like to drive our own car.

Is this really the greatest game f sins, to assume we know better than God but n how to lead our lives? It seems so silly to think this way but we do it all the time.

Jest let Him lead!

Mark K.

The Double (Book of Mysteries – Day 29)

We hear the story of Jesus presented to the people and the people choose to set Barrabas free. This is akin to the two goats presented. The Jewish Day if Atonement where one is killed and the other is set free.

When there is to be an atoning sacrifice, it needs to be between equal choices. According to the book, Barrabas actually meant “Son of the Father”. When Jesus does to atone for us, he became like us in every way. He became flesh and blood.

It is a real mystery that the notion is f sacrifice and atonement are built into the fabric of the universe, but it seems to apply to our creation and nature.

Given the choice to walk with God, mankind chose to build a gulf between himself and God. Out of free will we rejected God. It is hard to understand the absolutes if a parent who sets the ultimatum of the “rules of the house” and lives by them.

His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

Mark K.

The Mission – Live today as one sentenced to judgement, but who has instead been set free and given a second chance at life, because of the live and sacrifice of Him

The Masada Mystery (Book of Mysteries – Day 28)

Ezekiel’s vision of dried bones rising to life to build an army demonstrates the power that God has over the universe. Literally nothing is impossible, even to remake history.

Our hope lies in this faith in God’s supreme and unlimited power.

Our lives are like a pile of dried bones, lacking the everlasting water of Christ. Once we have Christ in us, our bodies and minds become new. They are still dry and brittle compared to the new bodies we will get at the end of time, but they are alive and raised fro (spiritual) death.

Ask and you shall receive.

Mark K

The Mission – Bring your most hopeless situations and issues to God. Believe God for the impossible. Live and move in the power of the impossible.

We are being watched…

This, to me, is the great commission. To act like we are children of God so that others might see how god has filled our lives and transformed us.

Because we are Christians, and often under attack, our behavior is important because the entire faith may be judged through you. It may not be fair but it does identify individual responsibility.

Through our actions the Holy Spirit will lead people to us who will ask, and we will tell…

Mark K

Exercise

1 Timothy 4:8

“for bodily exercise is profitable for a little; but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come.”

‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭ASV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/12/1ti.4.8.asv

I don’t think I have encountered a part of the Bible that specifically addressed exercise!

In this same section Timothy addresses that some people will fall away from the faith, not marry, and stop eating meat. (Which God has created for us to eat).

This is interesting advice about the will of God in these matters. He does want us to take care of our bodies, but he reiterates that this is not as important as godliness.

Mark K

Emmanuel

“God is with us”

Think of this a moment. The God and creator of the universe is sitting next to you right now. Interested in you and waiting for you to accept his leadership. He already knows what is going to happen so he waits.

We don’t know what is going to happen though. Our decisions, all the thousands of decisions we make every day, are in front of us.

But we have the supreme guide right next to us! If only we would hear his voice. If we quiet our own voice we can hear the words and commands of God inside of us.

I pray that I can move myself out of the way of your will. To hear your voice in the the whole day. Let me not fill my own ears with my own noise.

Mark K

Faith

Oh how I long for the faith of a mustard seed. I have some mountains I would like to make be!

So, how much faith is there in a mustard seed? The seed has no thought or distractions, it simply is. Was this the mindset of us before the fall? As connected to the reality and presence of God as we might be to the chair we are sitting on?

There would be no difference between my perceptions and thoughts. All would be real. Doubt would not exist. To have this faith is to empty oneself to be like the mustard seed.

Faith is something that is added into us but we have to get the other stuff out of that space that defines reality for us. The barriers for faith are not the restrictions of the gift from God, but our resistance to letting go of the faiths we already have.

This said we are also going to gifted a measure of faith. Just like all our other gifts. Our measure of faith is all we need but it may seem less or more than others. This is the mastery of God’s work in us. To give us what we need, to ensure the inner battle and the quest to be the very example of faith he desires.

Mark K