Never Alone - Part 4

My fellow blogger left this comment regarding "Never Alone - Part 3":
"I feel your pain. And you are not the only pastor to struggle with control. You know that God is God and you are not. Maybe a little contemplative time will reinforce that for you. Our boundary lines are drawn in pleasant places. Trust is tough, especially when you carry battle scars.

"But you know someone with deeper scars..."

This is certainly some good advice. One of our problems is that we rely on ourselves more than we do on God. Rather than "In God We Trust," it is "In Ourselves We Trust."

The last paragraph of "Conversation Four" of Never Alone reads:

"The more we desire to be completely Christlike and the more we long to be undivided in our love for God and for other people, the more we find ourselves becoming dependent upon God's grace!"

So, it really is a matter of Christlikeness. The more time we spend in contemplation (devotional time for the old-schoolers), as my friend advises, the more Christlike we become. That means we rely on him more. That means we are relying on God's grace more, as Brother Lawrence says we should do.

Failing to trust God is really a spiritual matter that is taken care of when we take time with him, pray to him, meditate on him and scripture, do acts of justice and mercy, and other spiritual disciplines.