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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
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I've decided that instead of trying to play "catch up" and get bits and pieces from my Beth Moore studies, I need to start both at the beginning. I started late, and I'll get less out of them just trying to keep up with the group. So I'm starting at the beginning, and if I feel like doing several homeworks in a day I will. This is easy with Believing God because I can listen to the presentations online. I haven't figured out how I'll do it with A Heart Like His. Fortunately that group is moving more slowly, so I may really be able to catch up.
I keep feeling that there is a reason I am doing these studies at this time. Something needs to happen in me before I can enter my promised land. (This is a note to study a bit about Moses and why God did not allow him to enter the Promised Land.) I am not prohibited from entering my promised land, but something needs to happen before I am able to go on. I need to consecrate myself, repent from my dead works. Ironically, this is where I left off with Foundation Stones: at the place between section 1 on repentance from dead works and section 2 on faith toward God. I keep feeling that there is a reason I am not to go on yet--in fact, was all but prevented from going on--and it is the same reason that I am in this place right now. I did not work dilligently on Foundation Stones, and I need to fully grasp these concepts if I am to go on to be a different person from the one who started the study. I have now have two studies to reinforce the concepts: one that will help me to consecrate myself and one that will help me to enter my promised land.
In the first presentation for Believing God, Beth talks about leaders being called to a deeper place of faith. God would part the sea for the Israelites, but the leaders were to take a step of faith and stand in the water ahead of everyone else. God has been revealing to me a gift of teaching and leading. What water am I to stand in so that someone else will have courage to enter the promised land? I'm thinking about Duane Miller talking about the pit. He stood in the water, and God parted that sea!
Beth also points out that the concept of the Promised Land has earthly applications in our lives. It's not ONLY about heaven. I have to look toward heaven as the ultimate goal; but God is not distant from me during my life on earth, and He supplies what I need here so that I can continue running the race for the prize of heaven. My head is sort of spinning and I'm not having a very easy time putting this in words. I don't like that because it's an important point for me. There is a balance between thinking of God as a servant to me and thinking of my earthly life as something that doesn't matter to God. It can be very difficult to find that balance, and I tend to gravitate toward thinking that my earthly life and needs don't matter to God.
The enemy is standing on my promised land in defiance; and I must go forward and take the land. I think I'm having a hard time with this concept. What, exactly, IS my promised land? It's the place where my theology and reality meet. But what does that mean in my life? I'm having a hard time with the abstract concept.
Hmm... This is from my notes: "Our promised lands are places where God is willing to work untold miracles, but He desires two critical preparations from us: faith and sanctification." What do I need to do to sanctify myself?
This study is based on a five-statement "pledge of faith."
These are foundational issues for me. I wonder how this overlaps with The Foundation Stones.
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