I’ve been feeding on the doctrine/theology of my beloved Calvinist tradition.
My brain is well fed.
My heart is starving.
#Next3Decades

{This is a re-post from November 11, 2013.}

 

I posted these words on my Facebook page Sunday morning before leaving for the morning church service. It stirred up an interesting collection of comments.

If you are wondering about the last line, #Next3Decades, I’m using this phrase for the next few months at the end of Facebook and Twitter posts. I may use it all through 2014. It is intended to remind me, and maybe you, that change is possible. A friend of mine used it when I posted something about the last 30 years of my life. It grabbed me. I need to let go of the last 3 decades. I need to look to the #Next3Decades.

And that is the reason I posted the first three lines.

I haven’t posted here in about four weeks. At first I wasn’t 100% sure why. I had plenty of material available to post and promote. It would have led to some great discussions. But, I wasn’t happy with it. (I’ll post it at a later date. I still like it. It will promote conversation.)

In my heart I knew I needed to look for something else. I needed different content for my current frame of mind.

I found it.

Now back to the first three lines of the Sunday post.

The question that continually came to mind over the last few weeks related to something that was missing.

I was missing something. Something big.

What was I missing?

Grace and forgiveness.

My head is full of wonderful doctrine and theology. I collect it. I study it. I look for it in everything I read. I listen for it in every sermon.

During a counseling session I suddenly realized it wasn’t enough.

I had the head knowledge. I knew the words describing grace and forgiveness.

I knew Jesus had died on the cross for me. I knew that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit loved me.

I knew it in my head.

How did I miss the part about my heart?

Don’t get me wrong, please. I’m not upset or disappointed with my Calvinism. I’m not upset with my upbringing and education. I will always love and spend time with doctrine/theology. And, I have no intentions of “falling off the wagon” so to speak. But, in the last six months my eyes and heart have been opened to what I was missing.

It was being offered to me from the pulpit, in my reading, through my music, in person by great friends, etc.

My defective brain didn’t let my heart see it or feel it.

I have hundreds of pages of journal notes about grace and love over law. But recent events have “cracked my heart open”.

Now it is time for me to allow grace and love to pour into me and over me.

 

Please join the conversation. Return to my blog every Monday and Thursday. I’ll do my best to make it worth your time.

 

Have you ever been stuck on the law? Have you ever been stuck on the love?