Being Alone...with Bonhoeffer

"Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are diven to seek the compnay of other people. There are Christians too, who cannot endure being alone, who have had some bad experiences with themselves, who hope they will gain some help in association with others. They are generally disappointed. Then they blame the fellowship for what is really their own fault. The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium. The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual this diversion may appear. He is really not seeking community at all, but only distraction which will allow him to forget his loneliness for a brief time, the very alienation that creates the deadly isolation of man."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 76.

The Painful Awareness of Place

I am becoming painfully aware of my place. This sounds like a bad thing, but it is a blessing that I have utmost thanks for. My awareness is that I am loved, that I am a child of the living God, and I am His.

This is the journey that I am on. It can be painful, but it is in this pain that I am comforted. It is in this place where I am intimately meeting with my Love, with my Lord.

First Call....

I feel called to minister to others...how quickly I seem to forget that my first calling is to be ministered to by God. My first call, and the primary one in my life, must be to be with God. This can be through others around me, or through the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to be a disciple.

I would rather sit at His feet
Than stand in front and preach