Thursday, March 4, 2010

A time to pause

This week I attended St. Anna's Parish Mission. This was a "retreat" time for me to be with God, and to hear from the Lord. There were four nights each with a healing and encouraging theme to help us grow closer to God.

First I learned again how I am the beloved of God. To hear this was healing to my broken and wounded heart, spirit and soul! There were several illustrations of what God's love is to us using things we are all familiar with. The love of a nursing mother towards her infant fore instance. The mother tenderly caresses the child, lovingly feeds the child, cares for all the child's needs. This is the way God cares and loves us all too. Also water was another illustration to show the abundance of God's love for us. Water is everywhere around us, and readily available, just like God's love for each of us!

The second night we were reminded how God thru Jesus' death on the cross forgives our sins. The teacher encouraged us to keep our relationship with God open by frequently confessing our sins. Then we were reminded to forgive others as God forgives us so that earthly relationships are as God would have them to be.

The third night we were encouraged to serve others with the love of God flowing thru us. We learned the phrase "Be Christ to others and Let others be Christ to you". This put a new slant on serving the world as Jesus did. It is blessed to serve, but it is also a blessing to allow others to serve you. It must go both ways. To be Christ to others requires we know Christ and what He did to serve others! Studying scriptures, prayer and direction from the Holy Spirit is the key to this element.We are all called to help those who come across our path in life.

We also need to share with others what God is doing in our life. The best way we can share the gospel with people is to share our personal story of our walk with God. Then you are not offending the listener, just sharing what God does for you. Sometimes this is the door that opens the listener's heart to God, sometimes not. But our job is just to share the gospel, our story of faith in God.

I hope you will take a few minutes and reflect on these four ideas and let God speak to you too.

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