God

I tend to be somewhat private about my spiritual faith. In part because I don't like to offend. In part because my faith is so tender, so dear, so not black and white, so not filled with quick and easy answers or solutions to the world and its people. People with simplistic, formulaic, or difinitive religious statements put me off immediately. They sort of frighten me the way a kool-aid dispensing Jim Jones prophet would.

My blog isn't one of those places where every post wraps up with a testament to my faith. Or where every bump along life's way gets summed up like a nice object lesson fit for a church basement.

But.
My faith runs deep, stubborn, and eternal. It's questions and assurances circulate in my head on a daily basis. I have heard the still small voice of God and I trust Him.

This morning before church, I dipped into the links on someone else's blog and found a lengthy quote by Charles Spurgeon. It spoke clearly to the question of defining personal value.

"It is the Holy Spirit's role to always turn our eyes to Jesus and away from
ourselves, but Satan's role is exactly the opposite, for he is constantly trying
to make us think of ourselves rather than Christ. Satan insinuates, "Your sins
are too many to be forgiven, you have no faith, you don't repent enough, you
will never be able to endure to the end, you don't have the joy of God's
children, and your grasp on Jesus is weak and wavering." All these thoughts are
about self, yet we will never find comfort or assurance by looking inside
ourselves. The Holy Spirit turns our eyes away from self, telling us we are
nothing - but that Christ is our "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28)...

Don't
look at your faith - look to Jesus, "author and perfecter of our faith" (Heb.
12:2). We will never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our work, or our
feelings. It is who Jesus is that gives rest to our soul - not who we are.
Quickly overcoming Satan and finding peace with God comes only by "fixing our
eyes on Jesus." Fix your eyes only on Him. Keep His death, His suffering, His
work, His worthiness, His glory, and His intercession foremost in your mind."

Now, personally, I find the word "satan" frightening and full of culturally appointed images. I tend to replace it with "evil" or even "distraction". But that's just me. I do these things to encourage my own faith to be based and rooted in Love and not fear. The point of copying the quote here is to remind myself of the truth of real confidence. Confidence not in myself so much as in the One who created the self. Knowing that authenticity comes out of recognizing the creator, and finding freedom in that allows one to simply be. (Well, it sounds simple, but it's not always that way.)

I'm embarking on a bit of an intentional spiritual journey these days. I don't know how much of it I'll be sharing here, if at all. I don't want to chance sullying it. But I will say this. Having decided that today, Sunday, was "start date"; my day has been filled with whispers, shouts, and affirmations of God's positive intentions.

And that's just sweet enough to share.