Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-10) from his book, Spirituality for the Rest of Us: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Knowing God (p. 165). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That seems like a reasonable assumption don’t you think?   Larry says, “We start looking for the lesson to be learned or the sin to be removed. If we can't find anything deserving of God's discipline, we figure that some day soon we'll see how this bad thing was really a good thing, a necessary part of our spiritual growth or future success.” He goes on, “That's why we find it so confusing when we face a major defeat or failure without any seeming connection to sin, or any possible good that we can imagine coming out of it. We begin to question God's goodness and faithfulness. Our deeply ingrained assumption that failure must mean something is spiritually wrong makes it nearly impossible to accept the idea that we can

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-10) from his book, Spirituality for the Rest of Us: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Knowing God (p. 161). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) This is an area we usually use as a test of our spiritually but it’s not a good test. Larry says, “Whether I'm succeeding or failing has little or nothing to do with whether I'm on the right path. Yet most of us tend to judge our relationship with God by how things are going. When everything goes well, we assume we're on pretty good terms. If we're on a roll, it's because he's really pleased. When the roof caves in, we wonder what we did to tick him off.   But success and failure reveal nothing about our spirituality. Even being used mightily by God is not a sure sign we're on good terms.” Go back in the Old Testament and read the stories of Job or Samson.   Larry says, “Based on the visible short-term resu

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-10) from his book, S pirituality for the Rest of Us: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Knowing God (p. 155). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Here’s Larry’s whole thought, “Each day has its own calling, a series of specific tasks carried out in the framework of a larger calling.” We can’t do everything in one day but we can do certain things.   Larry says, “Not long after I took my friend's advice and walked away from the tyranny of seeking a fully balanced life, I began work on a graduate degree. I noticed that during the pressure-packed week of final exams, my well-balanced friends would still try to jam in all the priorities of their well-balanced life. Those who couldn't pull it off felt guilty for neglecting all the important things on their list.” “As for me, I figured my God-given assignment during finals was to do well on a series of tough exams. I inte