* Recognize that God is with you. * Acknowledge God knows what He's doing. * Search for God's will: the path He desires you to take in life. * Consider what God did for you when He sent Jesus to die on the cross (forgiveness and righteousness)

Shame--what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down.

The trouble with our ideals is that if we live up to all of them, we become impossible to live with.

The life of Jesus suggests that to be like Abba is to show compassion. Donald Gray expresses this: "Jesus reveals in an exceptionally human life what it is to live a divine life, a compassionate life.

When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit.

At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.

We are enveloped in peace, whether or not we feel ourselves to be at peace. By that I mean the peace that passes understanding is not a subjective sensation of peace; if we are in Christ, we are in peace even when we feel no peace.