Just completed Day Four so thought I would share any thoughts.. I have to keep my momentum going!
====
1. On page 36: “Although our wandering disrupts our fellowship with [God], the breech in intimacy need not last long. Thankfully God has provided for our waywardness on our Thin Within journey with the tool we call “observation and correction.” For many of us applying this principle is almost impossible. Take note of the two reactions to a perceived failure. Our society and many of the teachings we have been exposed to tell us that this is NOT something we can do. Is it hard for you to allow yourself to view your mistakes dispassionately? Why?
—-
Typically, I do struggle with this. This time, though, God has done a work in my heart or something. I really do feel dispassionate in the observation stage. When I see what I have done as sin, however, there is conviction…and it saddens my heart to know I have chosen to step off the path that God has. But I don’t beat myself up for being there. That is the good part. I have godly sorry and conviction (or I think so, anyhow! LOL!) Then I can just choose to do differently. It is so easy I almost miss it, I think. I have this tendency out of the past to feel like if I sin or go astray then I have to punish myself. God’s grace is too good for me or something. (It isn’t about how GOOD I am, of course!). In the past, I felt I had to chastise myself since God was standing there with arms open.
Now, thankfully, I am just so eager and willing to fall into those arms again. It makes this journey more stable, just as the chapter speaks of. It isn’t filled with extremes. It isn’t a roller coaster.
==============
5. How can you identify with the Path of My Performance?
—
Spouting off my mouth all over the internet can become a defect for me…it can become a means to getting back on the path of my performance. I have to walk carefully. I want to commit to chronicling this journey, to participating no matter how things are going so that it isn’t something I only do on one end of a pendulum swing. For now, I think I am ok with it…but if I have a day or two of going “off program” I hope I will continue to be just as obnoxious here. 🙂 If not, then that is a a clear indication that I am doing the club of condemnation thing, beating myself back into my hole.
==============
