Shawn Stutz

This has been a great week participating in Generation 18 of the Journey.  Here are a few great insights I’ve gleaned.  If you want more explanations of these statements, email me or let’s do coffee (your treat right?).

1. A major component of spiritual direction is addressing our image of God.
2. All the saints of the early church regarded themselves as great sinners, but not necessarily great God listeners.
3. Discipline is the art of remembering what our souls truly want
4. Snow is an amazing metaphor of Jesus.  (a) The unique snowflakes fall from above, they cover the ground with white, and then they eventually melt and flow away.  (b) Jesus descended to earth via the incarnation [a unique God design], He covered us with His sacrifice and love making us white as snow, and even at His departure we are nurtured by the Holy Spirit; sent to water us daily with streams of grace.  Isaiah 1:17-19 themed.
5. “It’s not good to learn faster than you can live.” – Chinese Evangelist
6. “It is not uncommon to give the worst of our time to God, and the best to His work.” – Reginald Somerset Ward
7. “Structures that act like LORD, demanding more or other than the LORD, need to submit and surrender to the LORD.” – Paul Jensen
8. The rod and the staff of Psalm 23 are a form of “disguised grace”
9. The key word in Psalm 23:4 is “through“.  He leads me through trials in His time.  And time isn’t quite the demand on God as it is to us.
10. Psalm 23:6 – “Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” … but will I follow Goodness and Mercy all of my days?
11. When I remember the friendship I have with the Savior, performance quickly gives way to relationship.
12. “I’m not asking you to carry the weight and pain of my story, but I am saying ‘Don’t carry your weight alone.’” Community in the body of Christ is extremely important element of our faith.
13. God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them.  What a special relational privilege granted by God to the man; he who was to work and care for the Garden.
14. Blood was shed to cover Adam and Eve… to reconnect them God in a way (Genesis 3).  Jesus Christ was killed to cover us and re-create holy community with us (Ephesians 2).
15. “Pain slows time, Healing takes time.” – Paul Jensen
16. “Jesus invited people (to follow Him) that needed rest for their souls.  Can you relate to that?” - Chuck Miller
17. “We often help people ‘know things’ but not always ‘do’ them” … Chuck speaking of spiritual shepherding
18. If you read all of these, I think I owe you coffee.
19. “My heart is set on a pilgrimage …” from within the context of Psalm 84.

This has been a very refreshing trip!

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 6:46 AM and is filed under spiritual formation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.