My Pilgrims Journey

For those of you that don't know, I started on a journey last August. The journey will take me where this world can't take me. This journey deals with things that are not of this world. Its the path of living on unseen things. Living on unseen things is the official theme for our one28 student ministries.

I am so excited about this journey, and at the same time unsure of what will come out of it. I get excited about my progress in the Christian faith. Some days I dream of being an old man so that I can look back on my Christian journey and see all that the Lord's providence brought my way. I trust my Jesus to do BIG things in the hearts of our staff and also in our students. It really doesn't get any better then this.

So to help me in my journey in living on unseen things, I want to do a few new disciplines to help me look back after my year long travel and praise God because of all that He did in my heart and life. These disciplines will add more to my day to day routine, but I think it will only help me focus on living on unseen things, and it will only give me encouragement to look back next staff meeting and see all that happened!

Here is what I hope to learn to do more as the next year goes by.

- I really don't fast even though Jesus taught us and fasted Himself. I plan to include a fast in my week to week schedule. When I fast my purpose is to use it to strengthen my prayer life, to seek God's guidance, to express grief over sin, to seek deliverance and protection, to express repentance and keep my focus on God, to humble myself before God, to express concern for the work of God, to minister to the needs of others, to overcome temptation and dedicate myself to God, to express love and worship to God. I have been readying "Spiritual Disciplines For The Christian Life by Donald Whitney" and he gave these as suggestions, and also said it doesn't end there either. But I think just working these will be a good start. Its a learning process and I need to start somewhere, and why not here?

- I also want to work into my schedule the practice of "silence and solitude". As Donald Whitney suggests, this discipline will help with me following Jesus' example, to hear the voice of God better, to express worship to God, to express faith in God, to seek the salvation of the Lord, to be physically and spiritually restored, to regain a spiritual perspective, to seek the will of God, to learn control of the tongue. And it doesn't end here either. I have never practiced "silence and solitude." As I learn this discipline it will only make me stronger in my Christian walk.

- The last item I want to work into my schedule is the practice of journaling. This discipline will help me in self-understanding and evaluation, help in meditation, help in expressing thoughts and feelings to the Lord, help in remembering the Lord's works, help in creating and preserving a spiritual heritage, help in clarifying and articulating insights and impressions, help in monitoring goals and priorities, help in maintaining the other spiritual disciplines. And as I learn this it will only make me stronger in Christ as it will encourage me to be able to look back and see God's hand in my life and where I had victory and where I would be able to see growth.

Above all these disciplines are really for the purpose of godliness in my life. I desire to grow in Christlikeness daily....to practice such disciplines will help me reach that goal and purpose in my life. Please pray for me, and may God help me become a man after His own heart!