Isiah 46

A good friend of mine e-mailed some notes that someone else sent to her. They dealt with Isiah 64. (Read it if you haven't). The theme of the scripture, and the e-mail, was the idols that we place in our lives. For the Hebrews, it was idols of Bel and others. Today, it's our possessions. Our ipods, clothes, cars, cd collections, computers, even the unexpected things like our "ministries" and our "quiet times". We, or at least I, have a tendency to put these things above our walk with God. We are too busy talking to Him and giving him our list of things that we want and think we need to take the time to listen to Him. So, then, my question to myself, and to whomever may be reading this, is what are my idols? What are the things that are holding me back in my walk with God? Is my love of music? My love of film? My love of the written and spoken word? More than likely part of it is my general laziness. My lack of discipline to strive for the one thing that I say matters the most to me. My apparent slothfulness CAN be overcome. I'm convinced. It's been overcome before and is being overcome in other areas. Verse 4, God makes a statement-- "I will sustain you, and I will rescue you". My goal--to rely on God to help me identify what I put above Him so that it can be removed. Because, no matter what I face, no matter what stands in the way, God is here to hold me up and be my stronghold. I want to be like King Josiah--I want to pulverize and crush the idols in my life. Loveya'll Beth

Community

I think I'm in a weird space right now. I just finished talking to a good friend of mine and we talked a lot about community. It seems to be common theme with us. Why is it that we can hang out together, eat at Sonny's or Applebees and talk about things that are fun and be silly. We say that we want to have deep, meaningful relationships. And yet, we run as far away as possible when it comes to committing to those relationships. I'm not just talking about male-female, but having an accountability partner(s). A person or people that keep us accountable to the things we do and say. I ordered a book tonight called Returning to Holiness. It's about becoming humble before God and using prayer and evangelism to become the people that He wants us to be.