Feeling like a beginner everyday!? (self truth! and question?)

   It may continue to shock people when I say I don't believe in the god I used to believe in, and when I encourage others to clean out the falsehoods and cultural garbage that has accumulated in their own ideas of God. It may still shake up my friends and fellow believers when I admit that following Jesus makes me feel like a beginner everyday and a failure most days (or maybe it won't shake up anybody). But these honest admissions/confessions lead towards the essentials of discipleship and genuine relationships with real Jesus- followers.

Take a quick ride with me.

Imagine that you are traveling with a group of tourists in a bus. The shades of the bus are pulled down and no one can hear or see or touch or smell anything from this exotic country that you are passing through, while all the while the guide is talking non-stop, giving you what he thinks is a vivid description of the smells and sounds and sights of the world outside.....(think on this for a few minutes before you read on)....
The only things you will experience are the images that his words create in your mind. Now, after a long day of travel, the bus stops and you get out. You will no longer be free to experience the one-to-one that God had desired for you and His creation, but your mind will now be filled with formulas of what you have been told to think and experience. It will be contaminated, conditioned, and distorted by those formulas and you will perceive not the reality itself, but the reality as filtered through the voice of the guide. In our case, this could be the pastor or a teacher or some other type of authority.
                                               adapted from Fr. Anthony DeMello, The Way to Love


                                                                                   
                                                                                           2 Corinthians 3:17,                                                                                                   "And where the spirit                                                                                               of the Lord is, there is                                                                                             freedom."






Every day that we come to Jesus and every day that we journey with His friends and followers we're starting over with great grace. What a gift!

"At whatever table you preside always include the excluded."
                                              Micheal Spenser, Mere Churchianityy 


Peace everybody,
Bob