Musings with PWC

  Listening to God's voice and walking in the Spirit. This is a journey.  It is not a one-time act of surrender. Therefore, you will make mistakes. You will misinterpret God's voice from time to time.  There is now no level of perfection!  No one hears perfectly. And so you can learn from your mistakes.  Don’t quit.  Ask Holy Spirit to help you. And, as soon as you hear from Holy Spirit—obey!  Do what He says! This is a journey by definition.  So don’t be hard on yourself.  Give yourself a break!  Relax.  Enjoy the journey.   Listen, obey, learn, repent if needed, and try again…that is the order.

   John 5:13-15 (NLT) 13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.   Lord give me grace, power, and effort to maintain a resilience against sin.  Sin is ALWAYS a dark path. It ALWAYS pays wages.  The wage of sin is death.  Sin will always hurt, always destroy, always wound—you, relationships, stuff, goals, etc.  It is a killer.  It is a wound-er.  It is a consumer of all that is healthy, strong, good, and perfect. Learn to hate sin. Learn to fear sin. Learn to run as fast as you can away from sin. Search deeply for hidden sin. Be disgusted with your sin.  Repent, repent, repent daily for your sin. Be afraid of your sin. Be petrified of your sin. Be worried ab...

  “Be still and know that I am God:   Ps 46:11 Silence What a pile of noise! Noise—Noise—Noise. Noise in my head. Noise in my ears. Noise in my eyes. Noise—Noise—Noise. Are you crying out for silence? His presence manifests itself, not in fire or wind or thunder, but in a still small voice.  Only in this quietness does he give us the certainty of his presence.  We usually cannot hear this because we are making so much inner noise… The word from the Word is often something like “Grow up!”  I suddenly see the far more important things are at stake than my feelings…We do not always get specific answers, even when we invoke his name, but we always get the Answerer! … Peter Kreeft- Payer for Beginners Silence is not just silence or emptiness or nothingness but…the best preparation there is because then there is no obstacle.  And God’s love—since it is no pervasive—just comes in, like the weather, and like it fills any empty spaces. …Thomas Ke...

  Have we turned into a bunch of wusses?   Character Testing: You can moan and groan at your circumstances or you can grow and develop.   Genesis 39 (NLT)  22 Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison.            Joseph received a vision of his future when he was only 17 years old.  He would be a ruler and his brothers would bow before him.  He made the mistake of telling his brothers about this and ended up being sold into slavery.  But because of his character the Lord was with him during these years. These years were years of development and refinement preparing Joseph for his calling.  Joseph was 17 when he received his calling (Gen 37:2FF).  This was fulfilled when Joseph was 39 years old when his brothers bowed before him. (Gen 40:46 he became ruler, 7 years of plenty, and 2 years ...

      Dumb Mistakes   Why do Christians, pastors, leaders, ushers, —everyday Christians— make real dumb mistakes.  Now I am talking about real dumb moral mistakes—lying, cheating, immorality, thievery—-like why? Christine Pohl warns us as follows: “By compartmentalizing aspects of our actions or thoughts, we are able to ignore major inconsistencies and wrongdoing.” Ever heard yourself asking this question: ‘What was he thinking when he did that?’   You think of moral failure or just plain —dumb decisions—and you ask that question!   How does that happen?  What were they ‘thinking?’  Well, Pohl suggest “he wasn’t thinking he had stopped thinking and reflecting.  Instead, the person deliberately excluded a part of his or her life from spiritual and moral scrutiny.”   So now a word of help!  Do the daily examen!  (See.  https://pwcusick.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-examen.htm...

How to make sense of life. How to make sense of eternity Revelation 11:15-18 (NLT) 15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: “The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.” 16 The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell with their faces to the ground and worshiped him. 17 And they said, “We give thanks to you, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who always was, for now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign. 18 The nations were filled with wrath, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets, as well as your holy people, and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest. It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.” One of two things are coming for you: 1.  Judgment Everyone Rebels The unbeliever The fake The ...