Tom Branch - Roads of Faith

Everyweek I try to ponder my sufferings and trials in life. Yet there are others in less fortunate situations. But this is an entirely differrent subject. It has been on my mind for the last few days. There have been talks but no action, unless I don't see it. Still another topic for another day.

Yet where I have been these last few days is in a good space. Ihave had several days off and have gotten much done and got to have a social life for a few days. Tomorrow is the last day of the freedom. Yet I am thankful for what I was given.

I have had time to get back in the bible and time for some reflection. And here I am seeing areas in life that I could use some more caution, after seeing things in contrast these last few days. I have felt human and connected to others. And I am starting to see things...well just see really.

I am thankful for what God has given me. Yet I see from Psalms 32:4-6 that I do not confess rather I groan all day long. Sounds like complaining. In fact that sums up my behavior towards my job.

Now this is only the beginning of it all. I know that while I am there I am complaining and I am sure it comes out more than I would like for it to. That and then things I do is taken that way often times when it is not. My focus is all over the board while there. I am not a good steward of work, I mean while I am there. I do not and cannot focus in half the time. I get lost in my own world looking up stuff. I am not there serving my employers as I should be and therefore we could say in an ungodly way. Unfocused, unstructured and undisciplined.

Now God's discipline as was referred in the above verse, is not a punative discipline. I am so saddened how many words have such a negative connotation that it is hard for us to redeem it into a usable word. Discipline I have a hard time with as it is often associated with punishment yet it is also meant as a set of structure and rules that one follows or routines that yeild results.....reading bible every day, running a mile daily, etc. This is how this verse came across to me.

Doing God's will or his discipline is hard to do. Seems down right a large burden at times. So while I am there at work the faith or focus and discipline I have evaporate like water in the summer heat. And this is when I do not confess it.

This is not the only sin that I do not seek God on. We all have them in one way or another in some varying degree. This has been happening for some time as well as told in Isiah 64:7 We sin over and over and not seek him in any part of the process. So we are turned over to our sins and they run amok and even we come to serve them. Our own sins that we used to serve us we give ourselves up to and serve them. We don't stop with these sins. Even I going to bed thinking and reflecting after the sins have come to surface (in a conviction) and think it away. I do not(rare when I do it seems) seek god and confess it.

So this may be why thse sins and unfocused energies get to me when I am at work and life in general. I have seen this week in contrast to the many that I have spent time with where the good ol' Tom that I love for all to come to know...that it may not be the best that I do. I see times where meekness could come into play more often and really focus in on others.

My quest as of late has focused in on the man God is calling me to become. Yet I see now that is not the case. In order to become the man (or woman) he is calling us to be, we must become a child.

We must become his children and not living like orphans. And the focus of growing up and into Christ...we may have overlooked the runway and missed the target. We are his children not his men and women.

Now even tongiht while watching Ice Age 2, there was a theme that goes along with my friend Lorie's blog entry. Ok well it was a generic while her entry was a bit more detailed. Now the hardest thing to do is to let go of anything we hold dear or are enslaved to (sins, addictions, the past), yet we know there comes a point we must.

For me it is the past. In the movie it was said "you have to let go of your past so you can have a future." Which hits home and themes along with the forgivness and repentance being called lately in my reading and meditation times. In sermon this last Sunday it was said something along to the tune of if God is flowing through us we are to forgive as it s God forgiving and not ourselves. This hit me. I know I have much I need to forgive myself for over and over again. Yet even the forgiving my mother now has taken a new turn.

As I stated in an earlier blog An unforgiving spirit is a spirit in bondage. And this even holds back intimacy in relationships. Not jsut the typical male/female, but everyday relationships with God and with others, even our own selves.

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