Leading from a God-Centered Place: Trouble will Come

Introduction

Hi and Welcome...

Some pointers and tips as you navigate this blog. You have come here seeking to lead your life from a God-Centered Place, or perhaps because you clicked the wrong google link. But regardless if you plan on sticking around this is an overview of how things work here. This blog is interspersed with images and texts for you to read. The purpose of the images are for you to pause and reflect, possibly pray. Perhaps something is stirred in your spirit, or maybe you just think they're pretty. The texts are where the "meat" of the material is located. You will want to spend time reading, digesting, pondering there. The "work" of the course is contained in the texts, your processing and application of them. However, the images are there for you to go back to quite intentionally. Occasionally our brains become overloaded with information and we need time to process what we are learning. The images are there to give your brain that needed break and because quite often God will speak through beauty. If I could take you into nature and have you read and digest on a mountaintop I would but this is my attempt to bring the beauty to you. You will also notice icons being used as images. They are not something commonly used within Western cultures; try to keep an open mind and see if they speak to your spirit.

Thank you so much for reading.

Shalom

It is a beautiful undertaking that you have embarked upon. The desire to live from a place that is rooted in God and not relying on your own strength is a mark of incredible strength and humility. Life will not cease and there will be trials that try to throw you off your center as you embark on this journey but even in the depths of struggle there can be beauty if you dare to open yourself to seeing it. I am going to be leaving you with a poem by respected old dead guy, Symeon the New Theologian, to ponder as well as some icons to gaze on prayerfully. I pray they will aid you on your journey toward a God-Centered Life.

In the midst of that night, in my darkness

by Symeon the New Theologian

In the midst of that night, in my darkness,

I saw the awesome sight of Christ

opening the heavens for me.

And he bent down to me and showed himself to me

with the Father and the Holy Spirit

in the thrice holy light --

a single light in three, and a threefold light in one,

for they are altogether light,

and the three are but one light,.

And he illumined my soul

more radiantly than the sun,

and he lit up my mind,

which had until then been in darkness.

Never before had my mind seen such things.

I was blind, you should know it, and I saw nothing.

That was why this strange wonder

was so astonishing to me,

when Christ, as it were, opened the eye of my mind,

when he gave me sight, as it were,

and it was him that I saw.

He is Light within Light, who appears

to those who contemplate him,

and contemplatives see him in light --

see him, that is, in the light of the Spirit...

And now, as if from far off,

I still see that unseeable beauty,

that unapproachable light, that unbearable glory.

My mind is completely astounded.

I tremble with fear.

Is this a small taste from the abyss,

which like a drop of water

serves to make all water known

in all its qualities and aspects?...

I found him, the One whom I had seen from afar,

the one whom Stephen saw

when the heavens opened,

and later whose vision blinded Paul.

Truly, he was as a fire in the center of my heart.

I was outside myself, broken down, lost to myself,

and unable to bear the unendurable brightness of that glory.

And so, I turned
and fled into the night of the senses.

Release yourself from striving. Live in Peace.

Leading from a God-Centered Place

What is the Way

Introduction

Hi and Welcome...

Trouble will Come

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