faithrunner

Do you see it? It's right there. Behind the flowers. It's Poison Ivy. I hate the weed because I'm allergic to it, but it fades so nicely behind the scene. The beauty of the flowers in front hide the weed in the back. I have two options here: 1) leave the weed and keep it in the background, hoping no one will come in contact with it; or, 2) I can intentionally get a broad-leaf herbicide and kill it. My bad habits springing from my heart are like that poison ivy growing in my flowerbed . I think they go unnoticed because the flowers of my public behavior built on good habits masks them, but they are there. They betray my heart's deepest motives even when I think they don't. My "unseen" habits, however, do affect those who come near me whether I tell them they are there or not. People are made ill, or, at least, irritated by my selfish behaviors. Like poison ivy in the flowerbed, I have two options with my habits: 1) I can leave them alone and t...

...but he changed how I follow Jesus. Dallas Willard went Home last week at age 77 . He touched many lives ( including Richard Foster , who influenced me too) through his teaching and writing. Here are a some ways he breathed life into my stale practices as a disciple of Jesus. Willard taught me that you have to practice the disciplines in order for them to change you . I liked his analogy of thinking I could hit like a big league baseball player if I behaved exactly as my favorite baseball star does in the game . ( Spirit of the Disciplines ) No, my favorite big league hitter is good because he has been swinging a bat since childhood, and he practices, practices, practices. We who follow Jesus fail in temptation and big-league problems because we think we can just step up and look like Jesus and knock the spiritual ball out of the park while in the game . No, we too must practice the disciplines Jesus taught us daily in order to live like Jesus. We can respond as Jesus would i...