Friends Care – Guard your marriage – Lead Me – Soul Water – Gibberish

I week ago, I decided I was working too much and needed to reduce my stress levels. This week I worked just as much, but the stress levels were way down. I have put together a few ideas over the course of time and may have found a way to effectively reduce the stress in my life even more. Its an odd one, but if everything were normal, we would all be loony.

One morning after I read my daily guide my only thought was Gibberish. I wonder if the author is making stuff up when he does not “hear” from God or maybe the lesson those days is for someone else and not me at all. As you may remember, sometimes it has to be really clear for me to know what God is calling me to change.

Lead Me equates to a plea from me to God for direction whenever it crosses my mind. I feel that I am in the proper humble state when I can sit and do so. My days always go better when I start there. If only I had enough discipline to start there before I did anything else everyday.

As is the purpose with this method, I do not recall the details behind “Soul Water”, but I know that my soul is nourished by spending time in God’s word and in prayer. I have seen, heard, and read multiple sources refer to eating three times a day as fundamental to what we are to do. I have moved beyond eating three meals every day and I know my health is better because of it. Not that my eating habits should be anyone’s example, but the outcome is that my nourishment is not a formula of praying so often, reading, so much, or anything so prescriptive. Our relationship with God is an ebb and flow that follows best His call on us to listen and obey. We need air, we need water, we need a whole host of things. But the quantities and methods are secondary to the submitting to fill our soul.

Friends care is fundamental to the concept of friendship. If they don’t care, they aren’t friends. One of the members of our bible study team had to rearrange his schedule to accommodate work and we missed him. We changed our schedule to accommodate him and figured out we could not use bible study to replace our accountability. The two are separate and we need accountability to allow us to care for the smaller group.

Guard your marriage. I have many friends that have been divorced and have had relationships changed beyond recognition because of it. My parents divorced and I was adamant that I would not enter marriage with divorce as an option. I have since learned it takes effort, every day to even approach the ideal that I had. Not that I am perfect, but my wife still is of utmost importance to me and part of my calling by God is to love her.

One of my friends who divorced was Catholic and followed their process to be in a position to remarry. His discussion of it as having to face his own shortcomings and recognize that everything starts with his personal relationship to Jesus was inspiring. I am blessed everyday by my wife and thank God for her as much today as the day we got married. Our marriage has to be based on our personal relationships with Christ and with each other. God describes it as living as one flesh.

I pray that as I seek to follow God through the gibberish around me that I can nourish my soul, care for my friends, and guard my marriage.