Home.

"when you come home and stay home, you will find find the love that will bring rest to your heart."

Dear Reader,
When Nouwen speaks about a home here, he doesn't mean the house in which you live in - although it may very well be your home. You've probably heard it before "home is where the heart is" (I have no idea where that is from) but just think about how true it really is.  If a place isn't where I want to be, then my heart definitely cant wait to get out of there. You home needs to have unity and peace.

Another food for thought is your heart is a home, home of the Holy Spirit. It is a home which you definitely don't want to leave a mess. I'm very much guilty of following my thoughts, feelings and emotions which often leaves the home in disarray. And then when I try to follow God, I find myself having a hard time and often struggling with myself. We need to have unity, unity of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions with our spirituality. This will lead to a peaceful home where we find freedom. Freedom to love, be the person God created us to be and live the life He called us to live.

My house is constantly a work in progress, as there's always maintenance/cleaning work to be done and renovations to do when things are neglected and bad weather blows by.

May God be at the centre of your homes.

Guten Tag Readers

Solid.

Always Come Back to the Solid Place
"You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God's love even when you do not feel it."

Nouwen reminds us here to return to that rock, that foundation which is the love of God. I've asked myself before, "can I really stand firm in my faith?"; doubt would use to creep in because of the bad things that go on in life. Then the answer comes out of no where in another question: "ok if you can't trust in God then who can you trust, where will you go?"   I would try to answer this question but I always find myself answering it like Peter "Lord, to whom shall we go?"John 6:68. You try answering that question and see what you can come up with, let me know if you can come up with someone/something other than God.

I attended a youth event once and the speaker said that he tried to believe that God did not exist, I actually tried it too, and after a couple of minutes, the attempt was a failure. Just like the speaker, I couldn't do it, because that's how solid God is. He is the truth and that's why if you make Him your foundation, your rock, you will always be able to get back up when you fall.  You will be able to withstand hardship and persevere on.

Dear reader, I pray that you can renew or find your peace in Christ, that you may turn to Him and rely on Him to stand up when your down. "Truly he is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will  not be shaken" Ps 62:6.









*I've decided to just post the journal entries which really stand out to me. Going through all of them would take me more than 40 days.

Trying To Fill a Void

Greetings friends,
Here are the first three of Nouwen's entries (when a few of the entries go together, I will be posting them together).

1) Work Around Your Abyss
We have a hole like an abyss in our being that we can never seem to fill because our "needs are inexhaustible".  We must be focused, because the abyss can be a daunting thing to face, and gradually work around it so that it will gradually close, gradually heal.

2) Cling to the Promise
"God is faithful to God's promises." We need to cling to that promise in faith for that is what will heal us.

3) Stop Being a Pleaser
God is the only one we need to please. "Stop being a please and reclaim your identity as a free self"

You may or may not share this thought with me but I think that at one time (or multiple times) in everyone's lives there is a feeling of something missing. It's hard to explain but you just feel like your looking for something. I know what your thinking, he's going to say, "what your searching for is God". And yes in the end He is the answer to everything since He created everything.  To be a bit more 'everyday applicable' though I think the message from this three is putting in the time.

The first says that we must 'work around' our abyss - what in the world does that mean? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's allowing God to build us up and therefore each day we'll be able to close/fill that hole that we have. By taking action and acknowledging that we do have gaps in our lives that we need to work on, we are taking the first step to fixing them.

Well what if that's too much for us, we think to ourselves 'I can't handle it', well look at the second entry.

And lastly, perhaps the reason there is some kind of emptiness in our lives is because sometimes we don't live as the person God made us to be. The (insert your name here) that God wanted (insert your name again here) to be. One might think that 'living for yourself' is a selfish secular thing to be doing but if that 'self' is a 'self' offered to God, then maybe you should live your life.

40 Day Blogging

Hello,
As some of you may know, the 40 days before Easter has begun and many Christians are observing this time of preparation in different ways - some do things with their family or church while others do things individually.  This preparation is usually a time of prayer, fasting and alms giving which may take on different forms. The main focus though is to be ready for the resurrection of Christ.

My dad has this book by Henri Nouwen titled The Inner Voice of Love.  What it is is basically a journal containing spiritual imperatives which Nouwen wrote during a time of hardship in his life.

Part of my 40 day preparation will be to share his imperatives, along with some of my own reflections, which I hope will be of some use to you. It won't be a one per day as there are more than 40 journal entries but I'll be putting ones I think can be good to share.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." - Matthew 6:33