Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Retreat Recap -- Part 2

I wanted to take another blog entry to give you the highlights of Jennifer Rothschild's talk from last Saturday morning at Falls Creek. The previous post on the retreat was from Friday night. Her words on Saturday require a lot of self examination. I need to ask God to give me that free time (no errands, no social commitments, no mental distractions) to reflect back and examine myself. Life gets too busy. Her text was Matthew 25:14--Parable of the Talents and here are some of my notes from what Jennifer Rothschild spoke...

  • Are you where you want to be and if not, why? Is it because you are afraid of change?
  • Taste some of the fear and recognize God's sufficient grace.
  • What or where would I be if I didn't make the choice to live through fears?
  • Don't be dominated by fear but be dominated by Faith! (My words: Help me God!)
  • Matthew 25. The 3rd servant was a hole maker. He dug the whole & shoved the talent into the dirt.
  • Am I a hole maker, risk taker, or edge dweller?
  • Again....governed by faith, not by fear.
  • Our lives were not granted to us with shovels. It was given to take risk. Don't cling to the shovel!!
  • We cling to the shovel out of the desire to be conservative and not make mistakes.
  • Your shovel could be: control, micro managed life, bitterness, perfectionism, anger, disobedience, etc.
  • Using a shovel, we bury what could be our potential.
  • Live by faith in such a way that you have more to offer to the Master.
  • Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Not one of us has to have strong confidence, but we ARE to have strong courage.
  • Idol ends up governing you. When you are clinging to your shovel, your idol, you don't have a hand to accept/cling to God and you forfeit the grace He has for you. "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Jonah 2:8
  • God can make it well with my soul even when it is not well with my circumstances!
At the end, she sang a song that had these lines which spoke volumes to me "Heartaches you go through are often blessing in disguise." Help me God to see the blessings!
One of the ladies who went with us made the statement she isn't holding a shovel...She said she was more like a backhoe. I need to identify my shovel or shovels. Which one are you? How much are you burying or holding onto that is getting in the way of our Saviour? How big a whole digger are you?


Pray my ability to retain what I have heard will increase. Pray I am not caught up in the moment of a retreat. I don't want to have just a weekend. I want to carry what I heard this past weekend with me every day of this week and longer. But I am struggling with various thoughts and emotions even as I write this. They are crowding out the word. I feel like I'm in the middle of the thorns in Jesus's parable right now. There are things choking out the word. I MUST BE OBEDIENT TO MY CONVICTIONS. I need to cut out so much TV and idle time and make adjustments in my life. I've watched more TV the past 3 months than I have in a long time. Why not read the Word or read a Christian book instead. Please pray.

6 comments:

Kelly said...

Julie - thanks for sharing.
I agree with you. Next week I'm going to do a TV and internet (and blogs) fast. Part of it is because I think Scott wants more time with me and I'm too busy watching TV or reading blogs or surfing the internet and I want to use all that time at night to either spend time with him or spend time with God - really, truly listening to Him. I'm kind of excited to see how the week goes. (of course I'm not starting until Monday so I can make a great blog post about meeting you!) :-)

Faith said...

Julie, I hear your heart on this. I've gone away before and had "moutain top" experiences and then I get back to everyday life and it's so hard to keep focused on what God showed me, etc.
Again, I am so glad that you shared this...it gives me something to really pray about and think about what my shovels are. I don't want to forfeit anything God has for me!
Praying for you Julie!

P.S. I am a just a teensy bit jealous that you and Kelly get to meet each other! That will be so fun!

Candy said...

Thanks so much for sharing this. I'm going to copy this post and your other about the retreat, so I can have time to sit and think and read and listen to what God is telling me through these words you have shared. I love Kelly's idea about doing a tv and blog fast. Well, I don't love the idea of not reading blogs, but I know I need to put that time to better use.
OH MY, I'm so excited and jealous at the same time that you and Kelly get to meet. Can't wait to see pics of ya'll together. :)

Hillary said...

Hey Julie! Thanks for stopping by my blog! Please come again soon!
What a great post! You are so right on!

The Hickmans said...

Thank you for this post- I know it's something we all deal with! I'm praying for you right along with myself in this area!

Caroline said...

ok Julie, OUR GOD IS UP TO SOMETHING!!!!! to many of us are hearing the same thing from him!!! WHAT EVER WE NEED TO DO...LETS DO IT!!!! TO GOD BE THE GLORY! i wish i had read this yesterday!!!!!!
FASTING??????? that might be the ticket!!!!!!