Plagued by Doubt

[For the record, I have enjoyed my time away from my blog. That's pretty serious because I'm having thoughts about cashing in my blog for more spare time at home. I don't even know if I still have readers left out there. So all this could be such a big waste of time. But I will probably continue with it until I run out of the devotionals I've already written. Notice I said "probably." With me you can never be sure. I always have great plans. It's the execution of those plans that becomes the problem. My computer was down for most of the time I was away and I thought I was out of the blog business for reasons not left up to me. But it's working now (obviously) so I am committed to sending out a blog since it is Monday and I said I would be back on Monday the 7th.

Don't forget to check out http://womanoffaith.blogspot.com because it's interesting. It's always interesting. (If I had a digital camera and knew how to do it, I would include photos too.) But, alas, all things are different at my blogsite. Anyway, check out her blog. I guarantee you will enjoy what you find! We had a big, big storm while I was away with lots of rain and wind. The wind wasn't too bad here (did a lot of damage other places especially down in the Valley) but we were lucky and didn't have it that bad. But we got over 3" of rain one day and then another 1.25" the next day. Yes, indeed, it literally poured off the roof at times. We did get a call from our daughter-in-law after we had gone to bed telling us that it was snowing outside. Being the weather nuts we are, we both got up out of bed and went outside to watch it snow for a little while. A very little while as it was cold and wet and we had just slipped out of a nice snugly warm bed.

I wanted to tell you ... I should have said this earlier in the message when I was talking about my computer, duh ... if I suddenly stop writing without saying that I've quit or am taking some days off, that will mean I've got computer problems again. My entire computer set up has been put together with cannibalized parts from other old systems whose previous owners have gone on to bigger and better systems. So, I don't exactly have the best there is to work with. Don't get me wrong, though, I am thrilled to have what I have and I enjoy it like the blessing it is.) I have a busy week this week. Meetings Tues., Wed., and Thurs. nights. And then a 6-hour womens' ministries come Saturday. Busy, busy, busy. I love it when I'm busy but then I get a little scared thinking I'll forget something or I'll go to something and get terribly bored because I can't hear what's going on around me. The last Women's Ministries I went to was that way. I only heard like every 12th word so I sat there for an hour and a half not having the slightest idea what was going on. That kills me!! Literally, I just fall over dead. (I wish!) Also our small group will pick up again next week I believe and that should be fun again. And on the 20th I have a Heart to Heart luncheon after church to go to. Meetings that follow our church services are difficult for me because it never fails but that I just want to go home and I end up getting all weird because I have to stay longer. I usually enjoy it, it's just hard for me to make myself stay longer. For some reason I just always want to go straight home and relax. Okay, I think I've gotten caught up with you so I'll get on to my devotional. But wait, do my devotionals seem boring to you? It seems like I have begun trying to "teach" instead of just sharing ideas and thoughts with you. Humm. I may have to analyze things and see what I come up with. I don't want my devotionals to end up just being a study lesson. I want them to be fresh and creative. But I'm beginning to think that over time I've kinda switched gears. Maybe gotten a bit lazy? Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. That's it; off to my devotional for the day!]

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What we do with our guilty feelings has a lot to do with what we believe about our guilt. The word "guilt" refers to a sense of wrongdoing ... an emotional condition arising from second thoughts about a particular action or event or even about a thought. The biblical remedy for such a situation and such feelings is called repentance.

However, some of us are plagued by guilt that is not actually rooted in sin. Such false guilt develops in several ways:
1. A church or group fellowship caught up in LEGALISM can breed this unhealthy feeling. Members may not be doing enough of what is "required" (such as praying, Bible reading, and witnessing). Or they may do something that the church or group categorize as wrong, even though there's no Scriptural basis for their opinion.
2. Painful MEMORIES OF ABUSE in childhood often lead an adult to believe she's somehow responsible for the sins that have been committed against her.
3. HEARING BELIEVERS' CRITICISMS of others can lead to low self-esteem within ourselves. Without clear discernment, we may get the feeling we can't measure up to God's standards.

Genuine, biblically-based guilt is an anxiety in the spirit over a definite, willful sin. The various causes of false guilt all have one thing in common: they are not the result of sinful conduct. Such feelings are Satan's tools for harassing God's people.

When we understand that true guilt is the Holy Spirit's loving pressure on our spirits to correct specific wrongs, we can reject Satan's attempts to distract us with lies. Whatever the cause of false guilt, it must be rooted out of the believer's lives.

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[Well that sure seemed to be a short devotional, even for me. Actually it is very difficult to keep my devotionals short ... usually ... I didn't seem to have had that problem for this particular devotional. Oh well, maybe it's best to have a short one on the first day back. I forgot to tell you that while sitting in church yesterday I made kind of a New Year's resolution (I know it's a week late and I don't ever make resolutions, but I thought I'd give one a try.) A handout was available to pick up that would take you through the Bible in one year using a daily reading plan. It wasn't that long ago, I know, when I went through most of the "big books" in the Old Testament. But there are all those minor prophets that I tend to peter out on. And I read through the New Testament fairly regularly. But I thought it might be fun to start a new tradition. The reading plan is set up for a couple chapters of the OT and a few verses of the NT for every day of the year. So I thought it might be fun, every night just before going to bed, to turn off the TV and sit quietly and read my couple chapters. I will skip the reading for the NT altogether. (I think most of the NT should be read by reading each book all the way through at one sitting (especially the epistles since these were meant to be read that way). So I'll do the NT differently throughout the year. I'll see how it goes. But I thought it might be fun to have that daily reading time just before going to bed. (I don't want to read it in bed because when I read in bed, I get too sleepy and the next day I can't even remember what I read.) I may not carry this plan out but I thought it would be fun and beneficial to give it a try. Of course when our Ladies' Bible Study started up this past summer I went for the first few weeks and all we were doing was taking turns reading the Bible and I quickly grew tired of that. I could never remember what I read from week to week so it was genuinely wasted time for me. This will be every day so maybe I'll be able to remember what I read and it will be beneficial for me. I'll make it into one of my evening chores maybe. This week, being National Week of Prayer, I have a daily devotional, Scripture passage, and prayer guide to go through and then Tuesday night the entire church is invited to join together in the Sanctuary for a time of prayer. As I said, this is only for this week.
Speaking of chores, you know what? I got so excited about getting on my computer that I forgot to do my morning chores. My bed is still unmade and my face hasn't even been washed. Oops! Guess I'll settle back down after awhile and will remember to do all my morning chores BEFORE going to my computer.

My daytime project has been to read through One Minute After You Die and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I'm on my second read through (it's a small book). I will probably read it one or two more times before I get to the point where I feel I have learned all I'm going to learn. I struggle with my short attention span. When you're mostly deaf like I am, you tend to just let your mind drift constantly rather than struggle to hear and make sense of things. So you really do sort of establish a habit of "drifting" in your brain. It's an awful habit that developed unnoticed until one day it suddenly dawned on me that I had "read" entire paragraphs while day dreaming about something else, altogether. And, much to my chagrin, I have discovered it's an extremely difficult habit to break. But I'm working at it.

I also spent a couple of my days off writing a 9-page dissertation of what I believe about death and dying. It was a difficult thing to do. Try it sometime. Just sit down with pencil and paper and write out everything you believe about death and dying. You'll find it's not easy to do. I spent most of two days doing mine. Now I need to back up what I believe with Scripture but that's so much boring work I may skip it for the time being. All I wanted to do was to articulate what I believe happens when we die. What makes "us" us and what happens to that "us?" I intend to do the same thing with what I believe about heaven. You know it's so easy to say, "I believe in heaven and hell" but what do we mean by that? What is heaven going to be like? What will be do in heaven? Will we know our families and friends? Will we miss people on earth who haven't died yet? What about our bodies? What happens to them? These are very difficult tasks, writing everything out, as you'll discover if you decide to try it yourself. So I've got two more projects to do but I'm not sure what order I will do them. I just keep plugging away because there is so much to learn. And the only way we can know what we believe (which gives us the bonus of being able to tell others if they ask) is by writing it all out. Just how much of what we learn actually gets internalized and becomes our personal information? I challenge you to just do this yourself, at your own pace and see if you can't surprise yourself with what you know and don't know. I mean, if someone came up to you today and said, "can you tell me what happens when a person dies?" would you be able to effectively communicate your beliefs to that person? Could you back them up? It's time well spent so give it a try.

It's a beautiful day outside this morning. We have a chance for some showers today (there are patches of dark clouds casting shadows around sunny spots) but the air is clear and fresh. And everything is so clean looking! I should be doing outside things today. The sun is really a shock since we haven't had sunshine for nearly a week. Guess this will do it for Monday morning. Remember that I said our small group may be starting up next week so that will mean, if it does, I won't be writing my Monday blog until later in the day or I may even end up skipping Mondays entirely for awhile. We'll see how things go. But my chores await me now so until tomorrow...]