Last Night's Small Group

When I got home last night I was 'feeling down' again completely out of the blue, and so I talked to my friend Liz for the umpteenth time this week. I would have no clue what I'd do without her this week. She has really just helped me out more than I can express. It's weird that I feel like my emotions have been on a rollar coaster lately. I'm up, I'm down, I'm up, I'm down. There's not really much in between that, other than being tired. Even my sleep has been wierd, I couldn't sleep one night, but was awake and ready for the next day. Last night I slept like a baby, but was exhausted today. Who knows what is going on with me. It's craziness I tell you.

Last night I went to Bible study, as I have been doing every Wednesday now since it started a whole 3 weeks ago. We basically discussed Ephesians Chapter 1:3-14. I'm not going to divulge the entire study, but somehow our conversation hit two gigantic controversies in one night. The first was predestination. Calvinists for example believe that people are specifically chosen as God's people, and that is the only way to Him. Others (myself included) believe that you have the choice to follow Christ; but because God is all-knowing, he knows who is going to choose to follow him. In the study, one of the leaders' father is a pastor. He described it like this: Think of sending an evite to everyone in the world (say it was to a party). You come to the party, but you did not choose to rsvp as requested. The host opens the door, and says "Hey good to see you!" You say something like "Well, I forgot to rsvp, can I still come in?" Host: "You didn't rsvp?" You: "No." Host: "Well then you can't come in." Most of us there agreed that we feel, all of the world is invited to choose Christ as their personal Savior, to be redeemed from their sins through his sacrifice of blood on the cross. Basically, it is your choice to decide to accept His sacrifice; become dead to your 'old', sinful self and begin your life anew through Him. We also talked about 'the end of the world.' But my brain doesn't remember what controversy we were discussing then. Point is, we don't 'deserve'anything from God, but He loves us so much that God sent His only Son, Jesus, to die so that we might be saved. It is for His pleasure that we were created, and He wants us to have a spiritual relationship with Him.

After our discussion, we split off into prayer groups. I had a wonderful conversation with two other members (after discussing requests) about our relationship with God, what's going on in our lives, and how we came to get to the point we are today in our walks with Christ. It was soo awesome to have soo much in common with people I basically had just met (as in didn't know that well). I left feeling energized, peaceful, full. I love how God can take a day where I am feeling down, and just turn it around. It's almost like He's saying, when you are with me, I am with you. I will fill you so that you no longer thirst. You no longer feel that 'big whole' that's missing in your life, for you are filled with love through the Holy Spirit. God is awesome!