Done!

I have finished the Journey Into Intimacy manuscript. I'm happy to have it completed and feel like it's going to meet a real need in people's lives. I used some content from A Divine Invitation, some content from The Godward Gaze and a lot of new material that I wrote for this book. I feel good about it.

Next project: 101 Lies Taught In Church Every Sunday Of course, it will be a book based on the online videos I've had on this blog. I've gotten a lot of response from the videos, some positive and some negative. I hope I can finish the book on 101 Lies in the next couple of months.

Here's an excerpt from what I've written this week:

Don't beat yourself up if you aren't moving through your personal crisis in the best possible way. Many great Christians have gone through trials without keeping their head held high and their feelings staying strong all the way.

Look at what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:8-9 about how he went through the trials he faced when he was in Macedonia:

"We don't want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it. We felt like we'd been sent to death row, that it was all over for us." (The Message)

Does it sound like he was sailing through his troubles with a conscious sense of victory? Pretend you are writing Paul a note while he was going through that situation. What would you say to him?

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What about Job? Have you read that book of the Bible? It seems like Job spent most of the book mourning and complaining about his troubles -- not that he didn't have a right to feel that way. If you had written Job a short note to encourage him, what would you have said?

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Look at what you would have said to both of these men. Was your advice to them to give up faith? To shame them for thinking and feeling like they did? I suspect that your answer to them was to show them grace, to encourage them by reminding them that it would all be okay in the end. You wouldn't put them down for having normal human emotions in the circumstances they had to face.

Now, here is a big step that you can take to help yourself. Treat yourself the same way. That's right -- show yourself the same grace you would show to somebody else. It's amazing how gracious we can be with other people when they go through hard times and express negative thoughts or feelings. Then we turn right around and don't cut ourselves one ounce of slack when we are in similar situations. Don't do that to yourself.

Your Father is a gracious God to all His children. It's okay if you don't handle your situation perfectly at every instant. Job really did spend considerable time talking about how life stinks, how he wished he had never been born, etc. On and on he went, but do you know what the Bible says about him? Here's the Bible's verdict:

"In all this did not Job sin with his lips" (Job 2:10)

The grace of God really is amazing. He knows we are human and is gentle and understanding with us. Psalm 103:14 says, "He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust." Don't expect yourself to be Superhuman. Yes, you are a Christian, but you are one who lives with all the normal feelings and tendencies of a normal human being. So don't beat yourself up over that!

It's okay that you don't react at every second in the way you want to respond. When you fail, just shake it off and keep going in faith. God isn't keeping score to see how your behavior is as you move through your crisis. He is interested in your heart. When you blow it, He still knows your heart and isn't rattled because you didn't act perfectly.

Life is a process of constant growth. There are no experts when it comes to moving through the hard times of life. We cling to Christ, show ourselves grace and wait it out as we trust Him to lead us in how we act. Even the Apostle Paul didn't claim to have it down pat. He wrote in Philippians 3:13, "Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward -- to Jesus."

That's it. Just keep your eyes on Jesus. Once you've done that, you've done the most anybody can do in times of personal crisis.