4 thoughts on “Two: Starting Fresh”

  1. Lenny Buchanan

    I listened to Transitions about eight years ago for the first time.  In that series you gave similar advise as to how to begin the journey.  The next day I started to pray as you suggested.  I stuck with it for a while, probably one week then I turned to other things that I thought would help me on this journey.  One was the God Journey.  Other things included reading various books.  The Loves Me, So you don’t to go to church and The Shack.  One of Darin Huffords books, one Joel Osteen and Wild at Heart to name a few.  Today it still feels that I am just as far away from God as I was eight years ago.  I do struggle with anxiety and depression and some of it is surrounded by the fear that I will not have the relationship with God you describe is possible and what he wants.

  2. Lenny Buchanan

    I listened to Transitions about eight years ago for the first time.  In that series you gave similar advise as to how to begin the journey.  The next day I started to pray as you suggested.  I stuck with it for a while, probably one week then I turned to other things that I thought would help me on this journey.  One was the God Journey.  Other things included reading various books.  The Loves Me, So you don’t to go to church and The Shack.  One of Darin Huffords books, one Joel Osteen and Wild at Heart to name a few.  Today it still feels that I am just as far away from God as I was eight years ago.  I do struggle with anxiety and depression and some of it is surrounded by the fear that I will not have the relationship with God you describe is possible and what he wants.

  3. waynej

     

    I’m so sorry you still feel so stuck on this journey.  Honestly my heart goes out to you.  It really isn’t this difficult unless something else is getting in the way.  It might be expectations that are unrealistic, trying to hard with your head and not connecting with your heart, or even the results of depression.  I’ll talk about this more in an upcoming Engage video.  But I do encourage people to take depression seriously and get help, either medically or through nonreligious counseling. Depression dulls our spiritual senses and makes it difficult to see how God is unfolding himself in us.  If it is caused by a chemical imbalance, it’s important to get that sorted out.  But I don’t believe for a moment God is any respecter of persons and that his life is not as available to you as it is to me.  If I didn’t know that I would share my journey so freely.  I’m not into frustrating people.  
     
    I’m surprised you only tried some of the things I’ve suggested for a week?  That tells me we’re missing something there.  These prayer are not techniques.  It is simply to invite people into a process of recognizing what God is doing in them and around them and not so much try to implement principles to get a desired outcome.  Connecting to the transcendent God of the universe is a big deal. We’re not up for that challenge, but he is.  As we open our hearts to him, he wants to reshape how we view him and how we think.  
     
    Lenny he knows you and loves you.  He knows the best way to make himself known to you and to invite you into that relationship.  You cannot do it on your own.  You need to cease from your own labors (and all the reading), to simply discover how he wants to make himself known to you.  It would really help to have an older brother walk this out with you.  It doesn’t take an expert, just someone who knows God like you want to know him and the willingness to be together as that process unfolds for you.  I suspect there is something in the way you’re thinking about his that continues to be a stumbling block.  I haven’t a clue what that might be but he does…   
     
    As best you can don’t give into the spiral of anxiety that God won’t be gracious to you.  He can be nothing but gracious.  If you’re missing that, that’s what you want to explore.  Why am I missing what God is giving me? And don’t thing about any particular sin here.  That is NOT the reason.  
     
    With love and prayers,
     
    Wayne
  4. waynej

     

    I’m so sorry you still feel so stuck on this journey.  Honestly my heart goes out to you.  It really isn’t this difficult unless something else is getting in the way.  It might be expectations that are unrealistic, trying to hard with your head and not connecting with your heart, or even the results of depression.  I’ll talk about this more in an upcoming Engage video.  But I do encourage people to take depression seriously and get help, either medically or through nonreligious counseling. Depression dulls our spiritual senses and makes it difficult to see how God is unfolding himself in us.  If it is caused by a chemical imbalance, it’s important to get that sorted out.  But I don’t believe for a moment God is any respecter of persons and that his life is not as available to you as it is to me.  If I didn’t know that I would share my journey so freely.  I’m not into frustrating people.  
     
    I’m surprised you only tried some of the things I’ve suggested for a week?  That tells me we’re missing something there.  These prayer are not techniques.  It is simply to invite people into a process of recognizing what God is doing in them and around them and not so much try to implement principles to get a desired outcome.  Connecting to the transcendent God of the universe is a big deal. We’re not up for that challenge, but he is.  As we open our hearts to him, he wants to reshape how we view him and how we think.  
     
    Lenny he knows you and loves you.  He knows the best way to make himself known to you and to invite you into that relationship.  You cannot do it on your own.  You need to cease from your own labors (and all the reading), to simply discover how he wants to make himself known to you.  It would really help to have an older brother walk this out with you.  It doesn’t take an expert, just someone who knows God like you want to know him and the willingness to be together as that process unfolds for you.  I suspect there is something in the way you’re thinking about his that continues to be a stumbling block.  I haven’t a clue what that might be but he does…   
     
    As best you can don’t give into the spiral of anxiety that God won’t be gracious to you.  He can be nothing but gracious.  If you’re missing that, that’s what you want to explore.  Why am I missing what God is giving me? And don’t thing about any particular sin here.  That is NOT the reason.  
     
    With love and prayers,
     
    Wayne

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