Heart At Peace

Our whole life can be thrown out of balance by the lack of “a heart at peace.” That, of course, is exactly what the devil wants. He pursues his evil goals in four ways: he makes accusations, stirs up animosity, floods us with anxiety, and pollutes our minds with garbage. But with God’s help, we can reclaim peace.~Jim Cymbala

Think about those four things. Did any of those things happen yesterday? Fight to reclaim that peace. Talk to the Lord today while you are reading your bible. 

I want wide open spacious!

“Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”
2 Corinthians 6:11-13 MSG

This is what I feel like when I am walking in obedience...living expansively and openly. When we let everything be about us and always want to be "comfortable" and eat what WE want because we feel IIke it, we feel small and fenced in. Because when we eat a bowlful of chips or bag of cookies or three slices of pizza, we will have put ourselves in the small, cramped space.

A spacious life comes when we are willing to deny ourselves certain things for our own good. There is no wrong food. We all realize that. But for our own good, there are healthier choices. Taking the healthy choice is a means to enter a wide-open, spacious life. For me, today doesn't need to include 3 spoonfuls of peanut butter:).

An undisciplined, self-willed life is puny; an obedient, God-willed life is spacious. (Proverbs 15:32 MSG)

So much is said in this short verse. Undisciplined is what I am at times and my life starts closing in. Put the discipline back in and life does seem to be more spacious.

To be obedient to God requires discipline. We don't wait until we feel a rush of emotional desire to spend time drinking in his wisdom, spending time in prayer. To wait for the emotional feeling to be obedient means we are living an undisplined and self-willed life. 

ACE(quote from Mark) acting cures everything. When we begin acting in obedience, the feelings follow.