HOPE floats...

Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing; God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who possesses God lacks nothing:
God alone suffices. St. Therese

A Barren Environment

Philippians 4:8-14
Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you're again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don't mean that your help didn't mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.

Is there a crack in your façade of, ‘my life is perfect’?

Choose to live a powerfully authentic life rather than projecting the typical “my-life-is-perfect” Christian façade.

Sometimes our our past invades our present. We get 'stuck and unrelational'.

This is how Fil Anderson described his own journey,

"To the casual onlooker, my life appeared quite good. But something was wrong inside me. My life had become a ghostly journey, as I maintained a deadly course with an incapacitated soul. I was obsessed with helping others have the kind of relationship with God that I had never known… My life was filled with doing things for God rather than pursuing intimacy with God...

I have been ripped apart by the relentlessly competing demands of my job and home, wife and children, friends and family who persistently ask for more than I’ve ever felt capable of giving. My hopes for the future have been haunted by the blunders in my past. My desperate longing to get my life right has been dogged by the nagging fear that it will never, ever happen, given the obvious fact that I am hopelessly flawed."

Mike Yaconelli addressed how the church can help us deal with our own failed realities,

"The church ought to be the one place where I'm so anxious to get there because I can stop the pretending. When you ask, "Mike, how are you?" I don't go "Praise the Lord," I say, "I'm in bad shape." And you go, "Okay, great. Tell me about it."

Pretending is the grease of non-relationships. Pretending is how you and I get through the day without ever having to know each other. When I walk in the room, you say to me, "How are you?" Well, you don't want to know. And, frankly, I don't want to tell you. So I just say "fine," and you go "fine." And off we go."

Ask God for courage to face your own failings and shortcomings. Give God permission to lead you to a group of people who will be there for you as you walk the journey out.

I will always have HOPE...

Psalm 71:14
As for me, I will always have HOPE...
I will praise you more and more.

Jesus has provided for us so that you & I can face the harsh realities of life in this broken world with hope and courage. It is not enough to believe in life after death, we believe & can know real hope of life before death. I believe in real hope of personal growth and change.

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be truly free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to cling onto old pain. When we hang onto the past it holds you back from a new and abundant life.

Is there anything in your life that you need to let go of?

God has given you a new identity - Whitestone.

"It is absolutely essential to our growth into the 'mind' of Jesus that we accept the 'trials' of ordinary existence as the place where we are to experience and find the reign of God-with-us as actual reality. We are not to try to get in a position to avoid trials. And we are not to 'catastrophize' and declare the 'end of the world' when things happen.

The 'trials of ordinary existence' are the divine curricula for spiritual maturity. These are the laser beams God uses to put our old self with its misappropriated desires to death, and then resurrect a new self with new desires focused on a more lasting joy. When assailed by trials, little or great, we are invited to respond with the mind of Jesus in the garden. We may confess to God the impulses of our immediate desire, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.' But we should not forget that the Spirit of Christ also lives within us, the one who prays, 'nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.'" Dallas Willard

Revelation 2:17
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

System anxiety...

... spreads like wildfire through nervous conduits like you & me if we'll let it. The only solution is God's presence to overcome it, His peace to quell it & His love to banish it.

It's like growing a 'thick skin & having a tender heart' rather than being 'thin-skinned with a heart of stone'.

In the midst of trials Peter writes,

1 Peter 1:2, 4:8
Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

What's holding you back...

...from saying, 'YES' to God?

Life in the kingdom of God is not a balancing act between working hard and waiting on God to do His part. Life in the Kingdom of God is simply about abiding with Jesus. If we’re abiding with Jesus and staying close to His heart, we never have to worry about getting ‘out of balance’. Jamal Jivanjee

Romans 14:17-18
God's kingdom isn't a matter of what you put in your stomach, for goodness' sake. It's what God does with your life as he sets it right, puts it together, and completes it with joy. Your task is to single-mindedly serve Christ. Do that and you'll kill two birds with one stone: pleasing the God above you and proving your worth to the people around you.