Declarations and Admonitions

• God always answers prayer, so pray always.

• God always has a "plan b", if "plan a" does not work (and a plan c, d, e, f, g....).

• Our call is always to love first; not to judge, to evaluate, or to teach.

• The primary marker of the Christian is love, which is radical and generous.

• The reason why the Bible does not explain why people suffer, is because the Bible's authors assumed suffering as the norm, in a fallen, broken world.

• God has intervened in this world, and walks with us through suffering.

Picture: Pixabay

• God will redeem our suffering, if we let him.

• We continually must choose life, choose obedience, and choose God.

• The believer's time is taken up with God alone and God with others.

• There is play time, work time, ministry time, and rest time.

• Families do all the times together and apart.

• Busyness or distractedness does not equate to life in Christ.

• Millions of good things are distractions and busy things, time fillers and wasters, that end up making us shallow, stressed out, and unloving.

• The radical love which all Christians are called to live in a 'agape love', which means sacrificial love, a love that gives for others.

• Our lives are meant to be consumed by God's love for us and a sharing of that love towards others.

• The love goes from secret to public.

• The love is something you live out of: life by, live from, and live to.

• When we find ourselves 'not nice', unhappy, selfish, or in discontent; there is a love problem in our lives.  We need more love, because the life is lived out of the love of God and if we do not have that love, we are unable to live the life.

• Rest is a key component of the Christian life.  In Christ, less is more.  We eliminate and concentrate.  Eliminate the distracting, busy things; and focus on the main things.

• Many Christians are angry people.  We live in anger or the depression of repressed anger, because we have not grieved our losses.

• When we suffer a loss, anger may be a temporary reaction; but we must not live there.

• Sustained anger blocks healing and the new beginnings of redemption.

• Rather than cultivating an angry life of blaming and criticizing, we need to feel and process our losses, our pain, and our grief.

• We need to express our painful feelings to God, to our selves, and one another, for healing.

• Every loss and every memory can be healed, if we will face it and share it and let God touch it.