Worth the Fight… Extending Inner Quietness

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abiding in Christ, abundance of life, discerning the spirits, encouragement, entering his rest, experience, eyes of the heart, faith, God, Jesus Christ, joy, mind, pain, peace, prayer, rest, suffering, thought life

Last week I felt a strong nudge to get closer to God and to let go of more and more, partly self-imposed, duties. As a woman, you might know how difficult it is to get rid of old habits and of letting go to care for others (more than they really need it) in order to meet EVERY expectation perfectly. I have also been used to care for my body daily and I sensed that my exhausting workouts tend to make my life more and more burdened. However, I could not get rid of swimming ‘the English Channel’, so to speak. 😉 I do know that I am no longer twenty or thirty and therefore I had begun to take at least one break during the day some years ago. Mostly after dinner I spend time in bed praying. Admittedly, sometimes I fall asleep because of exhaustion. 😉

What a strange way to get inspired…

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dying to self, inspiration, Life and Death, suffering, T.A. Sparks, the old self, trials, wilderness

Rosenheim/Inn 

April 30^th, 2017

Basically, I wanted to go to bed early. However, before I checked the internet as I sometimes do and there I read in the news that someone had died today. Not knowing who this man would be, I felt nudged to read more about him. Wikipedia told me that he was a Swiss man who passed away at the age of only forty years in the exercise of his favorite occupation which had been rock climbing and mountaineering. As I checked out his website, I clicked on some beautiful pictures I really marveled at. Not completely sure which photo I liked the most, I eventually chose one of them for my blog and began to write on here. Only a few minutes later I returned to this man’s website in order to insert this and, perhaps, another picture into my blog article, as I wondered again. Good pictures, yes. Even very good pictures, taken by a professional, no doubt about this. But where was this very first amazement I had felt? This awe and wonder, this joy about I-do-not-know-what-it-is as John of the Cross once called it (am paraphrasing him here). They were completely gone! I was no longer interested in these pictures that seemed to be normal, even ‘dead’ to me now and I decided to delete what I had just written, all at once. Well, God’s leading, you know, is truly a strange thing at times…

Sharpening our conscience

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blessings, commandments, curses, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, faith, God's love, God's voice, heart, love, obedience, T.A. Sparks

“For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” (Is 44:3 ESV)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

Do we want to get to know God better? Do we want to receive a deep(er) revelation of Christ’s intimate love for us? I do not know about you, but as for me, I know I want these things. If we find ourselves somehow stuck in our spiritual situation, it might be that we have failed to see the most obvious things by ignoring God’s still small voice of warning regarding those matters that are really important to Him. So, what is important to God? If we carefully read chapter 28 in the Book of Deuteronomy, we might see to what extent obedience to God’s commandments is blessed and how far disobedience is cursed. I only chose to take the two respective verses of introduction so that we can see the consequences of our (un)readiness to listen to and to finally follow our Shepherd’s voice. We read,

HE knows I’m bad and I know it, too (wink wink)

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freedom, God's love, humor, inspiration, joy, pain, self-knowledge, the new self, the old self, wretchedness

Nothing But Snowflakes…
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

Yes, it’s no coincidence that my headline might remind you, not only a bit, of Michael Jackson’s song “Bad”.

Meanwhile I really KNOW that our God is funny despite all the pain His presence has caused my old self which dies hard (oh – another allusion).  😉 The pain of being deeper and deeper exposed in His light as a true “nothingness” in God’s and in my own eyes (cf. Romans 7), finally means the beginning of real freedom. The freedom to admit every bad thought at once – and you might be surprised, but there are ONLY bad thoughts springing from the old self. The freedom I experience today is so different from anything I knew before that I thought I should share it with you.

All Good Things Come From Above

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divine inspiration, empty mind, experience, following Jesus, fruit of the Spirit, God, God's love, inspiration, Jesus Christ, peace, spirit, thought life

Blessed by Divine Inspiration
(Source https://500px.com/photo/3328126/hunting-by-sasi-smit)

Here’s another lesson regarding divine inspiration for me.
Even the day before yesterday I wanted to write a new blog article and yesterday it dawned on me that there might be a topic on which God perhaps wants me to write. So I was waiting for more information from His Spirit. However, another day passed and God remained silent.

God’s Gentle Guidance vs. Satan’s Subtle Seduction

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experience, feeling, God, God's love, heart, inspiration, Martin Luther, peace, rest, Satan, thought life

Which Way?
(Photo credits http://mark-hartshorn.co.uk/spiritualguidance.html)

The Lord Will Be Gracious

18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
19 For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.
20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.
21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Is 30:18-21 ESV)

How Our Thoughts Can Be Carried Captive

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experience, inspiration, John Gill, knowledge of God, meditation, peace, positive thinking, rest, spiritual power, the new self, thought life

Mind-Battlefield (Picture from http://buddymartin.net/blog/how-to-get-in-your-right-mind/)

I admit that I struggled a bit when I browsed different Bible Commentaries, searching for someone who witnessed what I have been experiencing lately. Yet all I found seemed to be so much more concerned with the idea of people falling away from faith through disobedience toward Christ that I thought I could address the issue on how to take our thoughts captive on a way lower level. That means, I will first share my recent experience and then post an excerpt of a Bible Commentary which was the closest regarding my own lesson learned.
As a starter, here’s the scripture I am referring to.

On Receiving (More of) the Holy Spirit

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, experience, Gerhard Tersteegen, Holy Spirit, light, prayer, spiritual power

Light over Limp Leaves (Photo taken by Susanne Schuberth)

Here’s the empty-minded blogger again. If I had enough time, I could write day and night. However, I never know about what to write. That is somehow funny, isn’t it…
In fact, I was just reminded of those situations in the past when I was sitting for an exam, in front of me some blank sheets of paper and a big brown envelope with still unknown questions or some conceptual formulations in it. How uneasy I always felt until the envelope was open! And how anxious until I had read what I had to do, fearing there could have been a challenge I was not able to cope with.

But today the situation is different. If there was such a brown envelope, it would be empty. No question for me. No conceptual formulation, no task but to write. And there will be no one who will give me bad marks if I fail or high marks if the article turns out to be readable. Honestly, that is relieving. 🙂

“Do Not Worry” – A Poem and Some Quotes

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Albert Einstein, encouragement, inspiration, Jesus Christ, Leo Buscaglia, Martin Luther, Paul the Apostle, poems, quotes, rest

Rev 21:5 ESV
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
(Picture taken by Susanne Schuberth)

Having the Mind of Christ

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inspiration, Meister Eckhart, negative theology, poor in spirit, the mind of Christ, the new self

Meister Eckhart Quote (Picture taken from http://www.truthunity.net)

This is the first time I write an article with NO thoughts about anything in particular on my mind. What I sense is simply that God tenderly nudges me to write – whatever. Many times before I had different thoughts about certain topics in mind, but usually all thoughts were gone when I really started writing an article, a poem, or a comment. That was the way I have been used to be inspired by God for exactly six years now. Tcha…but today it’s a bit different. A completely empty mind, even before I began to type. 🙄