Loving our new life/ cell group.... yet also running off at the mouth....

November 14, 2002

Thank You, Lord. This is the journey/ path/ adventure You have been taking me on! Preparing me for Your purpose! Teaching me to choose You and to walk in the Spirit (but oh how far I still have to go, Lord… It’s “scary” … I can’t take even one tiny faltering baby step with out You holding my hand and helping me stand….

Pastor ___ came over to return a video and he said something really profound that has been nagging at me ever since about redemption and about real change/ turning and how it’s a process, gradual… and it hit me that I expect people to change their behavior so fast and I am judgmental… and that it is God’s process and purpose and plan and timing..

Pastor ___ phoned right after school on Tuesday and thanked me for the papers I handed him on Sunday, and asked me to take charge of the “worship” (ie music ministry) at the new life group! Wow! So I can be doing Abundant Life ministry – in my own community! And he asked me to pray for the church and people! And I can do that right here!

Dec 3 2002

Oh, dear Lord, it was so great last night at life group to sing songs of worship together. I did lead out in the singing, and Lord, next time I’d like to take my guitar (Your will be done). At the beginning of life group last night, I was assigned to read James 3: 1-7. then I spent the rest of the evening “running off at the mouth” … and I couldn’t seem to stop myself, though I kept feeling worse and worse about it. Oh dear God, it is so true, as I have been reading from Your Word just a few days ago, that “the things that proceed out of the man are what defile the man” (Luke 7:15, 18), and at the beginning of life group, “the tongue is a fire…” (James 3:5).