keep hope alive

With accolades to Jesse Jackson, i do like that phrase and its meaning. I am in a maze right now it seems. So much that I have been taking in and being able to assimilate into myself. So much that still needs to be worked on and through. I have a lot of praise and gratitude to God for helping me to meet some wonderful people via blogging who have really been great helps. Many others are amazing helps even though we may never make contact, just by their own journeys being expressed.

I really feel even now more than ever before the tug of war between law and grace and how they fight each other. Law is absolute,no gray, has to be a certain way and that's it. Grace allows for freedom,growth,change,falling down and getting back up. I see tensions which I always have stirring deep inside but leak out more and more . On one hand we know following Christ is not about performance and trying to be *good enough* It is a love relationship. However, Jesus tells parables where the servants who accomplished something, who were *good performers*, recieved reward and the one who didnt was rejected. Jesus tells His followers if you love Him you will obey Him and keep His commandments. Faith is said to be a verb and not a noun, requiring action.

Then there is the parable of the workers, all recieved the same wage,regardless how much work they did in relation to each other. The thief on the cross is forgiven and told He will be with Jesus in Paradise, no actions done or performance just His acceptance of who Jesus was. I hope i am making my dichotomy and the tension of it clear. Legalism prevails so much around the world, and especially in the Church here in the USA. Lots of times it happens and the ones caught in it dont even realize or comprehend it. So many people share how they grew up caught in the web of legalism, obviously it has been an entrenched dysfunction for quite sometime.

Freedom IS scary. Isn't it??? To know you have the power to be all you were designed to be,to reach out and take on anything and everything that comes at you. The Israelites sure were scared by it. They had God use Moses to lead them out of slavery in egypt and into the Promised Land, even walking through the red sea to do it!!!! They ended up making an idol of a golden calf and wanting to go back to egypt!!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS???? Yes they were!!!! Freedom is a scary thing, but it is a breathtaking,wonderful, beyond ability to express kind of thing as well. For me I have deep emotional struggles with realizing freedom and grace and hope. The roots were set inside from several sources, both hereditary, environment and relational things that are involved. It feels silly to sit here and write about having such a lifelong struggle with fear of death and ability to accept grace and love myself, knowing I realize all this in my mind and live my life or have sought to live my life in accordance with knowing God who He says He is and Jesus gives me eternal life and seals it by the Holy Spirit in me. Love God with all of me, love my neighbor as myself. I mean how more clearcut can it get???? Funny how all through history every person who has ever lived seems to have had a problem with it. I hope this is clear here my struggle. I DO have hope and faith and i have love for myself and that wants to burst forth and be expressed openly like water in a fountain........ I just need to find the way to get out of His way and let Him lead me as He talks about in Psalm 23!!!!!! Can I get a witness from the congregation????? AMEN