Searching for Truth

The cultural norm of our society is busyness, action, hurriedness, and often chaos. In fact, our society is so bent toward a fast-paced, hectic, rushed lifestyle that being incessantly busy has almost become a status symbol that people sometimes boast about. Solitude and silence breaks the power of stress, anxiety, and haste over our lives. In being alone with God we find meaningful, experiential interaction with Him. Many people are often uncomfortable with being alone. They ask, “What do I do in solitude?” The answer is “Nothing!” Just be alone with God. A life filled with chaos, worry, and hurry seldom takes time to listen to God. When we tune out God, we ignore His teachings and become disobedient children. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means to listen. In solitude and silence, we get away from our hectic paced lifestyles, slow down, and allow our spirit to meet with God. Solitude has many rewards. Peace, focus, reorientation of purpose and goals, self-e...

While Jesus walked on this earth, being with Him was simply a matter of literally following Him, observing Him, and listening to Him. Jesus prepared His followers for the time when He would not be with them in bodily human form. In John 14 He explained that He would no longer be with them in the same way He had been with them to that point in time, but He had made provision to be with them nonetheless. He promised them that He would send “another comforter” or strengthener, i.e., One who would be alongside them to help them. He also told them that the world could not have this abiding Presence alongside them as His followers could. In fulfillment of His promise, the Holy Spirit came to the disciples in Acts 2 on Pentecost day. They were immersed or engulfed by the Spirit. These Christians came to understand that Christ continued to abide with them through His Spirit. Life in God’s kingdom is, in fact, a matter of experiencing the practical reality of the presence of Jesus in our lives....

I'm sure many people who are interested in becoming more like Jesus are to some degree concerned about where they are on their spiritual journey toward being transformed into Christlikeness. I have recently become aware of a new program that is still being designed actually, that is a kind of a spiritual formation assessment or diagnostic tool. I have completed the assessment and am awaiting the results. The idea of the program is to provide for each person their own individual program with various recommendations. Perhaps the best thing is just for me to give you the link, and you can check it out for yourself. www.monvee.com Go to the link and click on the "videos" tab and learn about the program and how you can participate.

I hope he doesn't mind, but I have copied and reposted a comment from mp that I hope will generate further discussion: I find that we like to talk about the disciplines & we are fascinated by their effects to some degree, but our practice often collapses into compulsion. Our practice of the disciplines often becomes just another compulsive category of our lives—we desire compulsively, we eat compulsively, we work compulsively, and, when we come to the disciplines, we find that they too can be another fuel to keep our compulsive engines running. Feeling down? Eat. Feeling worthless? Work. Feeling dry? Fantasize. Feeling bored? Watch a movie. Feeling “not good enough”? Pray, Read, Fast, Serve… What would life look like without compulsion? What if we could live from a different source? What if “fountains of living water” from the Spirit is a reality we can enjoy? If so, it must involve escaping the cycles of compulsion—the roller coaster of our lives. Living from another Source im...