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Name: Larry Brother
Country: United States
State: Massachusetts
Metro: Boston
Gender: Male
Interests: a living huge God, seeing God move, Passion, friends, love
Occupation: Marketing
Industry: Software
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
3/18/2006
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| The way to peaceIn the 1946 movie 'The Razor's Edge' (based on the novel by W Somerset Maugham) the Shri Ganesha, an Indian spiritual leader, says "...there are three roads that lead God: good works performed for the love of God; Faith and worship; and a third path that leads through knowledge to wisdom...but the three paths are but one path. It is written that the wise man lives from within himself, which is from God...from within his own heart. This is the way to ... everlasting peace."
John 14 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. I am going there [my Father's house] to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life."
Each of us either search for meaning and understanding in the string of moments that comprise a life or become certain in what can not be known with certainty...only by faith. In what am I certain...in what do I place my faith? ...and what do I seek?
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations. --Elton Trueblood
"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason." - Plotinus
It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.-- Fyodor Dostoyevski
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. --Paul Tillich Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. – Voltaire Man is what he believes.—Anton Chekhov Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message. --Edward Schillebeeckx The farther we go, the more the ultimate explanation recedes from us, and all we have left is faith. --Vaclav Hlavatz | | |
| InjusticePs 64 Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint; protect my life from the threat of the enemy. Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from that noisy crowd of evildoers. They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their words like deadly arrows. They shoot from ambush at the innocent man; they shoot at him suddenly, without fear. They encourage each other in evil plans, they talk about hiding their snares; they say, "Who will see them?" They plot injustice and say, "We have devised a perfect plan!" Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning. But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be struck down. He will turn their own tongues against them and bring them to ruin; all who see them will shake their heads in scorn. All mankind will fear; they will proclaim the works of God and ponder what he has done. Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD and take refuge in him; let all the upright in heart praise him!
I experienced injustice today and suspect I'm part of a people group that are oppressed. Honestly I've not experienced it before in such a profound way. Not getting the promotion I thought I deserved or being judged at fault for an auto accident I didn't cause...all feels hard and are unjust, but experiencing injustice b/c I belong to a people group is new for me.
As I prayed about it today, I realize I've not really been able to identify with those who are oppressed. I've almost subconsciously suspected that somehow they brought it on themselves. And perhaps in someway their progenitors may have through unhelpful behavior paved the way to stereotype that's led to persecution, but I realize its unhelpful, lacks grace, reveals my ignorance about the people group, and is unjust to think that way. We are each individual and not defined by the limitations inherent in stereotypes.
God is all about ending injustice...and He somehow uses us to help. For example, donating money to Love146 to end child sex trafficking is one way or like William Wilberforce to pour out one's entire life to follow a divine call is another. In Wilberforce's case it was two causes: ending the slave trade and encouraging the spread of 'manners' throughout England.
I'm realizing one first has to feel the very real pain of injustice in someway before one can glimpse God's heart toward injustice. I'm feeling pain tonight...and see the merest slivers of dawn's early light burning beyond the horizon...it hurts!
Praise the living God, who loves me and longs to see the earth transformed (Rom 8)...and He is calling me to fill the place He's ordained for me. | | |
| Heroic LeadershipJust listened to this speech by Cherith Fee-Nordling at the recent Vineyard Leadership Conference...I cried through half of it. [Warning its 86 mins long].
Vineyard Leadership Conference - Heroic Leadership
I sense God inviting me to die...with an offer of resurrection. I don't want to die, but I want all that He seems to offer. It is what it is...without death there can be no resurrection.
So I choose to say Yes to Yahweh! Its not clear where this will lead...or what will be the outcome...but I say yes! Praise the living God!
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| Choosing Life...instead of fear!There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
- 1 Jn 4:18
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
- Spanish proverb
Fear not that your life will someday end. Fear only that you do nothing with it.
- Unknown
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled
potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
- Pope John XXIII
A Coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man dies but one.
- Shaekespeare's Julius Ceaser
God continues to reveal the fears that I carry...and encourages me to walk directly into them with only clarity on a single outcome...freedom to face my fear. I've prayed that events unfold in my favor, but I don't have clarity on the specifics of how things may turn out. Even as I write this I sense how distant I am from my own heart...and yet appreciate that I know myself more than ever before. Yet I can be tempted to manage my desires and assess outcomes and make 'reasonable' decisions based on the facts. This last year I've chosen to pursue the desires of my heart and yet I walk in fear desperate for the outcome to go my way...and prove that God is good and that I'm hearing God accurately.
Oddly (at least to me) I've sensed God chuckling when I bring this concern to Him. I sense Him saying that a life fully lived is messy...period. Its just not predictable, but is passionate, joyful and free! I (and I think all of us) are attracted to a person pursuing their heart / passion / destiny! So God has been reminding me of my passions over the last year...and yet, I've moved toward my passions with one hand on the brake. I'm discovering what's slowing me is fear. God is revealing the face of festering fear roiling inside me.
I've clung to Him over the last years as I've faced deep fear after deep fear. Always asking Him what to do...and He has been merciful to advise me and I've been amazed at the positive outcome. Jn 15:15 "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you." I now sense Him telling me that I am His friend. As friend I can seek Him, seek to know myself in pursuit of my desires and lay down my fear as I experience His perfect love.
So I now say thank you, Lord, for who I am...the passionate man you've shown me to be. I say yes, Father, to what is offered each day...as a good gift...and choose to lay down my fear, without foreknowledge, but only faith. I say yes, Jesus, to speak radical truth...I choose to trust you!
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| Play Discover GrowIts been just over a year since I left my last corporate job behind. I continue to be invited into a joyful life by a living God. As I walk out that life I discover more about myself, the world and God. Then I realize that I've grown...and the image I carry of God has grown too.
I see little successes in each area of my life in which I'm choosing to follow where I sense God leading. And He's leading me to pursue my heart in many different endeavors. Each are exciting and I'm now learning how to hold the outcome of each loosely...and just be with Yahweh each day, each moment. I can be distracted in planning or fantasy of outcomes, but I'm sensing these endeavors are intended for my joy and I can trust God with them. So in previous years when I had no plans, but only had God, I found it easier to just 'be' with God. Now in this season, I'm trying to understand what's my part and what's God's part in pursuing the desires in my heart toward specific outcomes.
Praise the living God...that He continues to pursue my heart!!
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