Thankful Thursdays – Conviction

Doing daily devotions has never been easy for me to continually do. I’ll start doing them faithfully for a week or two and then I get “busy.”

“If your too busy to spend time with God then your too busy!”

Well this past week I was once again too busy until Tuesday. I worked at our churches day care to fill in for a lady that was out sick. One of the teens from our youth group came in and excitedly told me that her and her friend had done their devotions for two days now and were going to help each other remember to do them on a regular basis. I was excited for their progress but felt about 1 inch tall at the same time. That night I was at the RU meeting and in the Challenge Group section of our evening Mrs. Judy, the ladies Group Leader, talked about reading her Bible and doing the RU challenges. She said,

 “I can’t expect you all to do what I’m not already doing.”

Ouch! I’m constantly asking the teens if they’ve done their devotions. Then the final blow, the message at the end of the night. What was the message about? Prayer and Faithfulness… Now down to 1/8 inch tall I went home and asked the Lord for help in this area of my life.

With the Lords help I am starting again but this time with a plan. I finished the Proverbs 31 study, I had started on ROH, yesterday, and today I started a study on the book of James. The book is a Teen study guide that Kenny recommended. I’m also asking different Ladies, who are spiritual giants to me, to help keep me accountable in this area.

The thankful part of this post is that God is still working on me! I think it is always neat to see what God uses, or brings into my life, to direct me back to Him.

* I’ve had different people ask me why I blog about my “personal, spiritual issues.” the answer is that I want others to know that I’m not perfect, I have things that I struggle with and God is constantly working on me. I blog about these things because maybe someone else is “too busy” or has stumbled for another reason. My prayer is that they might be encouraged by my experience and that they don’t give up in their walk with God.

So what have you been doing in your devotions recently?

RU Sunday

Our church has had an RU program (Reformers Unanimous, Drug Addictions program) for one year now. Yesterday we had an RU Celebration Sunday, this is just a full Sunday devoted to those in our RU program and the things they have overcome through Jesus Christ. One thing I really like about the program is that it doesn’t focus on the addict or the addiction and how to overcome, but rather, it focuses on the addict and their relationship with God and how He is the only one that can break the chains of addiction in a Believer’s life.

“Its not about Sobriety, its about the Changed Life.”

One of the first things we did were cardboard testimonies. I’ve included a link to a video on youtube that was made by Reformers Unanimous about Card Board Testimonies.

Here are some pictures of us preparing on Tuesday night for our own cardboard testimonies.

 

 

Here is Preacher looking in dismay at the piece of cardboard he had messed up on.

 

 

 

Several Ladies asked me to write their sign for them.

 

 

 

 

Brock and Jon-Jon Coming up with what to write on their signs.

 

 

 

 

Brother Keith still thinking of what to write on his sign.

 

 

 

The special speaker for the day was Dr. George Crabb, he is a Dr. who specializes in addiction medication. He spoke for all three services and showed in scripture where drug abuse – even of prescription drugs – is Biblically wrong. God uses pain and suffering in our lives to help us grow spiritually and be able to sympathize with others who, in the future, will experience what we are going through. During the evening service he had a question and answer time where anyone could ask any question about medications, drug abuse, and what the Bible says.

It was a great day and we had a good turn out and several people said that they received help from what Dr. Crabb talked about.

Cindy, our Pastor’s wife took pictures during the service so when I get those from her I’ll post those for you all to see.