DAY 2 – February 2013

Never recreate places from your memories, always imagine new places. Building a dream from your memory is the easiest way of losing your grasp on what’s real and what is a dream.  –Inception

Fasting for 40 days…Praying for revelation, relationships & revenue.  Fasting is entering into the process of dying.  Fasting creates cravings comparable to those of a woman with child.  Fasting slows down your body, mind, and life all around you.

Even after one day you recognize how dependent we are upon food to run the machine of our humanity.  It takes a while to subdue the giant of desire that masquerades as food. We think it is food that we need, but instead it is the desires & cravings that are screaming.

It is not enough to overcome the rioting mob that cries for food. We have to wait them out to regain an appetite for the deeper longings of the soul & spirit…these are voices that have been lost or silenced by the demanding desires. Hold your ground, don’t give in. Eventually the tide will turn and the still small voices will emerge and their whispers will be heard as your heart’s greatest desires and truest passions.

“I never wear a watch, because I always know it’s now — and now is when you should do it.” – former San Francisco 49ers Head Coach Steve Mariucci

“If something in your life needs changing make sure you change it…Because if God’s got to change it you ain’t going to like it” –@RayLewis

If you aren’t willing to take a risk, don’t complain about missing the reward.

Don’t get stuck somewhere you should only be passing through.  Christine Caine

Our Sunday meetings are about God — we love, want, and pray for his presence, not that the sermon goes well.

Grace is not an excuse to live a sloppy life, it’s the power not to have to.  Joyce Meyer

Solitude & Silence always awakens me to how disquieted I really am.

The architecture of the sacramental church reminds me that there is more to church than preaching.  The Table (altar), the Stations of the Cross and a Crucifix point out to me the ever present truths of why we gather together and how I am called to live.

The expense of the sacred space notifies me that this place and the time we spend here is significant. It compels me to be and bring my very best and my all while I am here.  The requirement to return to this hallowed ground serves as a guide for my life and conduct while I am away throughout the week.

“Jeremiah preached 40 years, was treated poorly, left for dead, few impacted. Jonah preached 8 words, 120,000 repent.”

Tolstoy, during his decade of deepest commitment to social justice, began each day by sweeping his room. -Elaine Scarry

If you obeyed God because you understood what he was doing and how it would benefit you, then you’d actually be stationary. – T Keller

That is what I consider a great treasure-where nothing has been prepared by labor. But everything here has been supplied by Divine Providence

“If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.”  ~ Mere Christianity

Plowing teaches you to break up hard places.  Plowing teaches you that you can’t plant seed on unbroken soil.

Jesus (at age 12) was submissive to his parents.  Luke 2:51.  Are your children the same in the Father’s house and your house?

If your faith life doesn’t work at home, then don’t export it. Who you are in Christ isn’t what you do on Sunday. Just like the tithe, bring 10% of your family faith to church and practice the other 90% at home.

You must stop dismissing the everyday and realize that it is your very subject.

“What is the basis of our security? When we start thinking about that question, we may give many answers: success, money, friends, property, popularity, family, connections, insurance, and so on. We may not always think that any of these forms the basis of our security, but our actions or feelings may tell us otherwise. When we start losing our money, our friends, or our popularity, our anxiety often reveals how deeply our sense of security is rooted in these things.

You take a lot of pressure off your leaders when you go to church to be led rather than entertained! – Christine Caine