Back to “Experiencing God Around the Kitchen Table” with Marilyn Blackaby! Every third Wednesday of the month my Wednesday night women’s group has been using Ms. Blackaby’s book to discuss different aspects of our faith walk while incorporating a complementary interactive component that has been both fun and informative. In essence we’ve been sharing our own tips around the “kitchen table” while discussing “Experiencing God Around the Kitchen Table”.
In chapter three, which is titled, “Walking One Day at a Time” Ms. Blackaby focuses on the discipline of daily obedience-a great lesson for us any day! It’s in this chapter Ms. Blackaby shares how through obedience she was able to agree with her husband, Henry, to leave Saskatoon, Canada (where two of their children were at university) to accept another position that would ultimately lead them to the next position where Henry would be encouraged by his co-workers to write one of the most prolific books in Christendom, “Experiencing God”.
“We knew that if we moved to Vancouver at this point, we would have to leave our two oldest children in Saskatoon to finish university. This was hard for me! As I was talking to the Lord, He clearly asked me if I would rather stay with what I knew or if I would rather go with what He wanted to give me. This ended the discussion, because I knew I would rather go with what God had in store for me than settle for what was comfortable” (Excerpt from Experiencing God Around the Kitchen Table).
What I loved about Ms. Blackaby’s story is that it demonstrates how our simple daily steps of obedience are leading us to a grand destiny. We are prone to be so short-sighted, and can erroneously fear that God is leading us to a dead end. We may not say it, but I do believe we definitely think it subconsciously when we are resistant to Him. We may not understand what God is doing or why He is leading us in a certain direction, but we must know this-He absolutely does have a plan, and if we want to experience everything He has planned for us, we must be obedient to His leading. I hope you feel as challenged and renewed in your faith as we did when we discussed this section.
“Obey My voice and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.” Jeremiah 7:23.
This was our focus scripture for our lesson that night. In turn, for our interactive piece, we shared some of our favorite exercise tips with one another. It is an understatement to say the least that it takes discipline to exercise regularly! If we can submit to an exercise plan, we can experience a fuller life (I’m preaching a little to myself here).
Here are some of the things we shared:
1) Six Weeks to Sleeveless by JJ Virgin.
2) Stretching for Energy – Oldie, but Goodie from the 80’s!
3) Fit Club featuring Insanity & P90x, which meets at our church on Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m.
Feel free to try any or all of these suggestions! Do you have any exercises or programs that work for you? We would like to hear about them.
If you want to catch up with this series, start here.
For subsequent posts for “Experiencing God Around the Kitchen Table”, click on these links:
The Purpose of Life and a Food Tasting
The Key to Success & Cost Savings Ideas
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Click here to visit other blogs where I will be linking up to this week.
Gina Duke is the Director of Women’s Ministry at her church where she has implemented a Women’s Involvement Ministry, called “Joppa”. Gina is an organizational leader imparting biblical and practical solutions for authentic Christian Living. She is the founder and president of Churchtown Ministries, and author of “Organizing Your Prayer Closet” (Abingdon Press). For more posts like these, go to GinaDuke.com or follow her board, “Joppa” on Pinterest – Gina Duke/ChurchtownMinistries. You can also follow her on Instagram and Twitter @TheGinaDuke
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