Frodo and struggling with sin

As Richard J. Foster said in his book, sin is something that is with us all the time and we have lived with it during all the days of our lives. It is like doing a normal and daily work while we’re doing it.

In the movie The Lord of The Rings we know that Frodo is a very good and faithful boy, but at the end of the story when he wants to throw the ring in the fire he doesn’t, and wants to keep it for himself. Then Golum comes and actually save him by biting his finger. After destroying the ring Frodo understands what he’d done.

This goes back to the part that Foster says sin is always with us and it never leaves us, and we do it each day without even thinking about it. Even though we are very good and faithful people we still are capable of sinning. The only way that we can stand against temptation is by god’s grace.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a very famous poet, once wrote,
“Earth's crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God:But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.”

Spiritual discipline requires one to be able to turn aside at any moment and focus your attention on God. Every moment of your life is an opprotunity to draw closer to God. Spiritual disipline in some ways is like viewing the world through the eyes of Jesus. It requires us to lay down our complaints and small mindedness. It requires us to turn aside from our daily preoccupations. Browing was saying in her poem that the world is full of good things. It is us that fail to see all the good things. We are too busy complaining about our circumstnces to turn aside. Our eyes are blinded and we refuse to take off the blinders because we are more comfortable with complaining, which seems wacko to me because complaining just gets on every one elses nerves and makes the person complaining moody and iritable. Why do we complain anyway? Let us endevor to see the extraordinary in the ordinary things. Let us see circumstances through Heavens eyes. Let us find time to turn aside.

Question of the Month

This semester, our class is doing a study on spiritual disciplines. We want to get some feedback, to know what other people think about what we talk about in class. Each month we will post a new question that relates to what we are discussing in class. Here's the first one: What are some instances in your life where spiritual disciplines have helped with your relationship with God or with any other aspect of your life?
click on comments to let us know what you think