Courageous 2nd Entry

A little about the movie 

Courageous is a film about God, family, marriage, career and leadership. It reveals a real life portrayal of the challenges that come with multiple responsibilities and wants in our modern day culture.

Courageous the movie is a powerful and entertaining take-action message that is full of quotes that apply to lives of men and women everywhere. The quotes can be used to stimulate meaningful conversations with friends and family, or from the pulpit to provoke life changing thoughts.

Setting the Standard for Fatherhood
Adam Mitchell: "I don't want to be a good enough father. We have a few short years to influence our kids. Whatever patterns we set for them in life will be used for their kids, and the generation after that. We have the responsibility to mold a life. And I don't think that should be done casually. Half the fathers in this country are already failing, and I don't want to be one of them. I'm talking about setting the standards that they need to aim for in life."

Consoling the Grieving
Pastor: "At a moment like this, silence seems to be the only emotion that fits. What can we, as mere men say to a grieving shattered heart? We speak today because we have a living hope. Death is no respecter of persons. Death is no respecter of youth. Death is a painful intruder and a pernicious reminder of our human condition. But I stand before you today to declare that we have a living hope and that causes us to rejoice greatly. If your hope today is found in the fact Jesus is no longer entombed... Because He lives, the grieving broken heart has hope, and reason to rejoice."

This week in our Sunday School Class .....

We learned about forgiveness. The question posed was. Do you need God in order to forgive?

The lesson went on to talk about the need to forgive and that forgiveness is not for the ones who have wronged us. It is for us. It is a command by God and we must do it for ourselves and for our relationship with the Lord. 

Matthew 18:21-35

Col.3:13

Romans 12:17-21

2 Corinthians 7:10

A little snip it out of the Bible Study Book this week.

"God calls each of us to lay down our pride,face our fears, and take responsibility for our past. We too have the Holy Spirit and other believers to support us in this courageous journey"

Forgiveness 

I think Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we have to do in life. We have to make a conscious choice to do it weather the person who has wronged us deserves it or not. Weather or not they ask is irrelevant.

We need to make sure that we are not just coping with past hurts but truly forgiving the people who have wronged us. The past will continue to haunt you and you bring it into every relationship you have. The emotional baggage that you bring with you everywhere would be so much light with forgiveness in your heart. 

All of this sounds great but IT'S NOT EASY! I have been hurt allot and I have tried to forgive only to have the same thing happen over and over and over again. How do you forgive then? How do you move past it ? These are questions I am still working on the answers too. I also got a dose of reality when it was explained that we don't deserve forgiveness from God it is a gift he has given to us and yet we continually hurt Him over and over again. So we do the very things that we say are nearly impossible to forgive to the Lord almost daily.

I have to work on my forgiveness for others and also going to people that I may have wronged and making things right. Going to ask someone for forgiveness is not an easy thing to do but if I can't do that then how will I teach my children how too? I will be really working on these things in the coming weeks. I know it will be hard. There are some major things in my life that require Gods intervention to fix them. 

The Resolution is the book I am reading to go along with the bible study and I admit I have not read it as much as I should I think because its all so overwhelming I mean the 1st two chapters seem to have so many things for me to work on so I am taking it slow to make sure I don't just read it for the sake of saying I did it. I want to soak it in and really change some things.

Update from the last post 

I have been really trying to enjoy every moment and drink in every day like the blessing that it is. It is very hard to break a habit like being numb to certain things. Feeling sometimes hurts. It requires more than just feeling the good. It requires fully experiencing Joy and Pain. It is a huge work in progress and I am sure that if I was graded I would be failing miserably but I am trying.

I hope that these posts are an encouragement to somebody out there that may have my same struggles. I will continue to stay in this study as ling as it take and I will update as to my progress again soon.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment with anything you may want to share.