Having Heart In A Sometimes Heartless World


Day 63 - Week At A Glance

Scripture focus: "He(Christ) took our sicknesses, and bore our diseases," (so that we could go free) Matthew 8:17 Living Bible

As we turn from an eight week study on suffering, we're going to refocus our attention on the nature of passion. For many, this is a natural progression. Suffering and passion - suffering and obsession - suffering and cravings - suffering and lust - suffering sometimes is greatest in the moment when we are pursuing those things that we believe we cannot live without. Who can forget the times we've suffered collateral damage as a result of someone else's passionate pursuits?

According to McManus, our bottomless pit of need is part of the human condition - we are not unique. Two quotes we don't want to forget from his book, Soul Cravings:

"All of us long to become something more than we are. We are driven to achieve, moved to accomplish, fueled by ambition. We're all searching for our unique purpose, our divine destiny, or simply a sense of significance or some measure of success. We may disagree violently about what success is; we may even change our own minds about what makes our lives actually significant. But all of us are united in our desperate attempt to make a future for ourselves. We all desperately want to achieve something, to accomplish something; we just don't know what. Worse than that, we don't even understand why. Yet that doesn't stop us from searching." Soul Cravings, Destiny, entry 1, by Erwin McManus

"There are cravings within me, though, that pull on me like an addiction. They have always been with me and have even at times tormented me. They go far deeper than any physical addiction ever could. Beyond my flesh, beyond my mind, beyond my heart, there seems to be a place where my deepest and most powerful cravings lie. And they do not lie silently. My soul, it seems, always desires and demands, and no matter how I try to satisfy it, it always craves more. No, not more, but something I can't seem to understand. My soul craves, but for what I don't know." Soul Cravings, Erwin McManus

This completes the first sixty three steps of your 365 step journey; I pray you are nearer to God as a result of the steps you've taken this week.

Recommended reading: Leviticus 27 in the morning; Mark 11 and Psalm 46 in the evening

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23 TNIV


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