God | Heartstone Journey

What Team Shirts Can Teach Us About Our Faith In God!

You’ve seen this scene before.

People gather together every week for one cause — clapping, singing, worshiping. They donate their hard-earned money and their time, knowing they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Heaven, they believe, surely will be something like this. Were you picturing a church? It’s actually a sports event happening in cities across America.

We have this love-affair with sports and we will pay hundreds of dollars for game tickets and sports gear with our team’s logo on it…won’t we? Without hesitation we join in an addictive rant while at games, watching games and checking on games via social media with our praise or curses concerning our teams’ play.

Now picture this. You’re a Red Sox fan and you’re visiting friends in New York and they invite you to a Yankees game (I know it’s tough, but stay with me). You’re a Patriots fan and you’re invited to an Indianapolis Colts game (even tougher to watch) with work colleagues. You so want to wear your team’s game shirt, but you’re outnumbered and want to fit in. So what do you do?

Why God’s Math Just Doesn’t Add Up

Out of my brokenness, I realized that it was time to let God step into the ruins of my life. Personally, I thought it would be awesome to have some of that supernatural strength, so I said to the Lord, “Go for it!” So I slowly started to let God have His way, but it didn’t take long before I became impatient with the process and tried to wrestle some control back. Taking inventory of my current state of affairs, I hit the pause button and thought to myself, “Wait a second!” I had lost my hope, my family, my house, many friends, my financial resources, and almost my job, and I kept crucifying myself with the regrets of my past and the fear of my future. Furthermore, I had lived in a basement, in a dreadfully hot and small apartment, and now found my existence within a single room in a friend’s home with the remainder of my stuff. I just wasn’t feeling the supernatural strength, so I got on my knees and began to have a chat with the Lord, during which I basically asked Him why this was all happening, and He simply replied, “Because I love you!” I have to be completely honest and transparent with you: I was wondering if He could love me a little less, because this was not fun!

I could not see the picture that God was painting.

Here is where the lesson in fuzzy math began for me.

Battle With Worship

Is life punching you in the face today? Are you in need of provision in some area of your life? Are you dealing with serious hardships? Have you lost your job or dealing with others struggles?

Watching the news and reading the headlines there seems to be so many things out there that threaten us. But our biggest enemy — fear — is not “out there.” The fear is in our own hearts and minds. When we let this fear tighten its grip on us, we struggle that much harder to break free.

When the heaviness of life begins to crack the support beams we’ve put in place to shelter us, sometimes the only thing left is to posture ourselves before our awesome God and worship Him!

Worship is an act of war against the enemy of our hearts!

—Holley Gerth

Psalm 73 (My Version)

God is so good, but I allowed the culture and the lies of the world to dull my senses and blind me over time so I almost missed seeing His goodness. I foolishly took my eyes off Him and became intoxicated by people in high places, envying the success of those who have made it to the top and desperately seeking this to define my own identity. I believed that these people worried about nothing, and their status and wealth provided them with the comfort of not having a care in the world.

What I couldn’t see beneath the veil was their conceit and arrogance, how selfish they were at the core, their uncaring hearts, their aggressively doing whatever it took for them to get what they wanted with no regard for others, their evil conceit that knew no limits, their being friendly to your face and mocking you to others behind your back. In their arrogance, they would threaten oppression and destroy the peace. People actually listened to them — I actually listened to them — can you believe it?

What’s going on? God, where are You? Can’t You see what’s going on down here? God, why do I suffer though I live for You? Why do those who deny You have it better than I do? Everywhere I looked I felt the sorrow and the pain of empty living. This is giving me a headache…

How I Collided With Destiny, In the Silence Of Life

Have you ever noticed how much noise there is around us?

Silence in the world we live in is a very rare commodity. There seems to always be someone or something competing for our time and our silence is invaded from every direction if we let it.

Why is this a concern for you and me? Because God does some some of His best and most powerful work in us, in the silence. Why is this difficult for us? Because we often choose to be at war with our silence and seem avoid it at all cost. Quick test: I bet that you take your smartphone/tablet into the bathroom with you — don’t you?

Somehow we have become conditioned to never unplug!

I was in a place in my life where I had lost my hope, my family, my house, many friends, my financial resources, and almost my job, and I kept crucifying myself with the regrets of my past and the fear of my future. Well, I had had enough and determined that it would be best for me to use some of my own strength, and I decided to go on a hike. I really needed to clear my thoughts and getting up on top of the mountains usually was a great remedy. What I didn’t realize is that God was smiling a bit because He had planned this. He had known about my circumstances from the very beginning.

Here is an excerpt from my book Heartstone where I had that collision with God in the silence.

What Team Shirts Can Teach Us About Our Faith In God!

Why God’s Math Just Doesn’t Add Up

Battle With Worship

Psalm 73 (My Version)

How I Collided With Destiny, In the Silence Of Life

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Cool Scripture

Never Out Of The Fight!

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