I just finished reading the Karen Kingsbury book entitled, "Learning". I'm going to put a rather long excerpt from the book that I really liked and thought was a good explanation of what sins are worst. The scene is a Bible study that some performers on Broadway are attending, led by the lead character in the book, Bailey.

"...People talk about whether gay is okay or not." She gave Bailey a pointed look. "What do you think?"
Bailey knew she was being tested, but she was no longer afraid. She would let the Bible talk, and with a deep breath she searched out a few verses on homosexuality. She read them, trying not to wince at the harsh way they probably sounded to the dancers seated in the circle. The test was intense, but God was with her.
"This is what the Bible says in First Timothy..." She read the section of Scripture that dealt with groups of people who were considered lawbreakers and rebels... ungodly, unholy and irreligious. "People who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the sexually immoral, those practicing homosexuality, slave traders, liars and perjurers...and for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine..."
The list felt exhausting, and as Bailey reached the end of the verse she caught the defeat on Gerald's face. "So gay people are listed right there with murderers?"
"And liars." The answer came too quickly for Bailey to take credit for it. "See, Gerald...God doesn't have something against people who struggle with homosexuality. We all struggle with one of those sins, and no sin struggle is worse than another. All God asks is that we keep struggling-especially since Jesus died to set us free from our sin struggles. Whatever the sin."
Anger flashed in Gerald's eyes. "But I was born this way, Bailey...don't tell me God would make me this way and then doom me to a life of sinning."
Bailey didn't blink, didn't look away. "We're all born with some kind of bent toward sin." Her words were kind, her response slow and even. They were listening...when they might've gotten up and walked away, they were definitely listening. "I fight against pride...wanting everyone to like me and ignoring God's voice over my own."
She turned to another section of scripture and read from Proverbs 8. "See, here God says He hates pride. He hates it." She lowered the Bible to her lap. "That means I need to ask God's help every day so I don't let my own pride win. Every day."
The circle was quiet, her castmates taking in this possibility. Bailey pressed on, her tone gentle and kind. "God doesn't want me to say, 'Oh well ... I'm prideful. I was born this way, and I'm going to stay this way.' "
Gerald hugged his knees to his chest, his eyes less defensive than before. "Same with liars ... or murderers?"
"Exactly." Bailey felt like she was on a tightrope. One wrong word or tone or glance and the group would leave and never come back. But God was holding her up, and so she continued. "The person who kills isn't supposed to say,'I'm a killer ... God made me this way, so therefore it's okay if I kill.' And the liar isn't supposed to say, 'I struggle with lying, so I'm going to stop struggling and go ahead and lie. I'm a liar ... God made me this way.' " She paused, and in their eyes she could see that what she was saying made sense. She pressed on. "It's the same for people who sleep together and aren't married. That kind of sexual sin is in the same category. We're all going to struggle with one of these ... but we're not supposed to give up and say the fight is over. Does that make sense?" She hesitated, letting the thought sink in. "See ... God loves all of us, whatever our struggles. He knows life is hard for us ... so He promises to be with us, and asks us to come together like this. To encourage each other and keep fighting against whatever sin has a hold on us."
For a long time none of them said anything. Bailey noticed that tears had fallen from Gerald's eyes. He used his shoulder to wipe at them and after a while he nodded. "Thanks ... I guess ... I never looked at it that way."
"Christians haven't done a great job with the topic." Bailey understood this better now than ever before. "We've either been judgemental and critical, like homosexual sin is the worst sin ... or we've been too complacent. Using the banner of love as a way to excuse sin - when God clearly has an opinion about it. We fear we'll offend, so we veer from the truth."
"Wow ..." Gerald lowered his legs. He looked at the girls and then at Bailey. "That makes complete sense." He looked lost in thought for a moment. "I might struggle with this all my life ... but the point is I have to keep fighting. Like the liar or alcoholic or whatever."
"Exactly." Bailey felt her heart rate return to normal. She took a deep breath. "There's hope for all people ... whatever they battle."

Taken from "Learning" by Karen Kingbury, pgs.234-236

"Into the Deep" by Robert Rogers

I read a book recently that I really enjoyed in spite of the story it was telling. It's not a happy story, it's a very sad yet uplifting and in the end, joyous story. The little blurb on the front of the book says it's one man's story of how tragedy took his family but could not take his faith. That's basically the story in a nutshell. I'm going to give a few quotes from the book that were meaningful to me, but I recommend you read the book yourselves.

Quote #1 which is from an interview he was giving. "Let me start by saying that 'God is God and I am not.' The biggest question we have right now is 'Why?' We don't have an answer, but we have faith and trust in the sovereignty of God."

Quote #2. "I heard so many times from so many people, God never gives you more than you can handle. I eventually came to believe that God will always give you more than you can bear alone, because He doesn't want you to bear it without Him. Alone, this cross was unbearable. But with God, it was possible."

Quote #3. "I don't understand fully how God's sovereignty and our free will blend together and I never will until I get to heaven. But I do believe that our pain is sacred and that God has somehow ordained my suffering as something to shape me and transform me more into His image. Every ounce of suffering has a purpose that God can use for good, if we only let Him.

But, ultimately, I have to choose. I choose my attitude. On many mornings it can be difficult. Yet I choose to be a victor, not a victim. I choose to be better, not bitter. I select life over death. I pick blessings over brokenness."

Robert Rogers total dependence on God to get him through something that is every person's nightmare, was very inspiring to me.

Being Sarah's Daughter

In a book I read recently, the main character was being counseled by an older missionary woman. The main character didn't know what to do and was afraid that whatever she did could turn out wrong. She asked her whether she had ever been afraid and if she had trouble deciding what was the right thing to do. The older woman (a missionary to Guatemala) told her that, of course she had been afraid and that she used to worry about what to do. Then she learned to remind herself that she is Sarah's daughter and deciding what to do became easier, even though carrying out the decisions was still hard sometimes. She referred the main character to a passage in 1 Peter 3:6, the last part of the verse. I don't know what translation she used in the novel, but I liked what it said, "You are her (Sarah's) daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear." That ended up being the motto of the main character throughout the rest of the book and I thought it was a good motto. "Do what is right. Do not give way to fear." (The book was "Betrayed" by J. M. Windle)

Book Quote - #2

Another quote I liked. This was said by a mother after the funeral of her son who died in WW2, in the fictional book, "A Woman's Place" by Lynn Austin.

"Trust in God doesn't mean that He won't ever let anything bad happen," Ma told her. "It means that if we know Him, no matter what happens we can still trust His love."

"I belive that God has the power to protect my children from all harm. I have faith that He hears my prayers when I pray. But when He doesn't answer them the way I'd like, I still have faith in God's love. He knows far more than I ever will and I can trust His purposes, even though I can't understand them. Jesus had more faith than any man or woman who ever lived, but His prayer 'Let this cup pass from me,' wasn't answered. He was God's own Son, yet He died a horrible death. But Jesus' death had a purpose that no one could have foreseen at the time, even those closest to Him. I have faith in God's love. He knows how it feels to lose a beloved Son.

"When tragedies like this happen," Ma said, "we can either draw closer to Jesus, who was 'a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' or we can turn away from Him and stop loving so we'll never be hurt again.

Quote from Francine Rivers

Something I do from time to time is write down sections of books that have impressed me in some way. It can be a few sentences or a couple of pages, just enough, so I can remember what was important to me. I have these things written by hand in a notebook and have thought about putting them on the computer, when I had time. Andrea mentioned a book series that she really liked by Francine Rivers in her blog today, and since I had written a section from the first book in that series that I really liked, I thought I'd go ahead and put it down here. This is one of the lengthier sections, but it addresses the fear issue I had talked about in an much earlier blog.

This is a section from the end of the book, where the main character has been put in prison and is going to be facing the lions in a Roman arena the next day. Another prisioner, Atretes, asks her, "How can you pray for mercy on the one who sent you here to die?" "Because what Julia did, has given me the sweetest joy of all." Atretes searched her face. Had confinement driven her mad? She had always had a strange look of peace about her, but now there was something more. Something that surprised him. In this dark place, with a horrifying death facing her, she looked changed. Her eyes were clear and luminous - and filled with joy. "I'm free," she said. "Through Julia, the Lord has set me free." "Free?" he said bitterly and looked pointedly at the stone walls. "Yes," she said. "Fear was my constant companion, from as far back as I can remember. I'd been afraid all my life, from the time I was a small child visiting Jerusalem, right up to a few days ago. I never wanted to leave the safety of the little house where I grew up in Galilee or the friends we knew. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of losing those I loved. I was afraid of persecution and suffering. I was afraid of dying." Her eyes glistened with tears. "Most of all, I was afraid that when the time came and I was tested, I wouldn't have the courage to say the truth. And then the Lord would turn His face from me." She spread her hands. "And then it happened, the very thing I feared most... I was stood up before people who refused to believe and I was given a choice: recant or die. And the cry came from within my soul, a cry the Lord gave me through His grace. I chose God." Tears ran down her cheeks but her eyes were shining. "And the most amazing, miraculous thing happened to me in that moment. Even as I was speaking the words, proclaiming Jesus is the Christ, my fear fell away. The weight of it was gone as though it had never been." Atretes spoke, "Had you never said the words before?" "Yes among those who believed, before those who loved me. Where there was no risk, I spoke them willingly. But in that moment before Julia, before those others, I surrendered completely. He is God and there is no other. To not tell them the truth would have been impossible." And now, you'll die for it," he said grimly. "Unless we have something worth dying for, Atretes, we've nothing worth living for."

I need to read this often to help me remember God will take away our fears.

Trusting God - Chapters 2 & 3

The central idea in chapters 2&3, (which were combined in the study guide I'm using as I read the book, oh so slowly), is "God is in control. He has a purpose and a plan for you and He has the power to carry out that plan." Another key idea is that "God controls both the good and the bad, He has not looked the other way or been caught by surprise when adversity strikes us. He is in control of the adversity, directing it to His glory and our good." We have to believe that God is at work in whatever happens to us, even when we don't understand it. For example, I do believe that God was in control when my sister died. There is no way that I understand why He allowed that to happen and how it has been for our good. There may be some good that has come about that I am unaware of, but I mainly see what a hole it has left in the lives of her daughters and the rest of the family. Still, I trust God that there has been or will be some good for all of us in the family that we don't see or understand right now. We may not ever understand it while we are on this earth. Another quote I liked is,"We must learn to obey God one choice at a time; we must also learn to trust God one circumstance at a time. Trusting God is not a matter of my feelings but of my will." We need to learn to obey and learn to trust, it doesn't just happen.

Back to the Book - "Trusting God"

I have found that using a study guide along with reading a book really slows things down. I only do a couple of questions a day in the study guide, so it has taken awhile to complete, but, I finally finished the first chapter of both the book and study guide. The first chapter is titled "Can you trust God?" and I already told you the central idea in my post on June 17. (The study guide tells you what the central idea is as the first part of the lesson, and I was happy to see that it was the same as what had struck me as important.) Another couple of quotes that were important to me are: "Whatever our particular calamity or adversity may be, we may be sure that our Father has a loving purpose in it." and "God does not exercise His soveriegnty capriciously, but only in such a way as His infinite love deems best for us." Again, this is something I know in my head, it's just a matter of getting it into my heart. I also found it interesting that the author feels that it is easier to obey God than it is to trust Him. An important part of being able to trust God is to know Him, which is more than simply knowing facts about God. A question I had to ponder awhile was "What does it mean to know God, beyond knowing facts about Him?" I'd like to hear from you, how you would answer that question.

Trusting God

A sermon at church recently ended with the question, "What is standing in the way of you fully trusting in God?" A one word answer for me, immediately jumped into my mind, fear. Mainly fear of what God might do to me or my loved ones in the future, or what I might be asked to go through to stand true to Him. I know in my head that God will help me through whatever happens and I know that whatever happens is to help me become the person God wants me to be, but I'm still afraid of it. I talked to Ken about it and he asked if the church library had the book by Jerry Bridges called "Trusting God" (at the bottom of the title in smaller print it says, "even when life hurts"). I checked the book out of the library and am going to see what it has to say. The first chapter, (which is all I've read so far) says that, "It is only from the scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we recieve the grace to trust God in adversity". It also says that there are 3 truths we must believe if we are to trust Him in adversity. They are:
1. God is completely sovereign.
2. God is infinite in wisdom
3. God is perfect in love.
Or to put it another way, "God in His love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about." As I continue to read the book and find things that are meaningful to me, I'll post them on my blog. Who knows, maybe someone else has the same fears and questions that I do.