God Is Always There!

By Eric Hutchinson, Fellowship Bible Church Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Training Coach 3/18/20

Last November my daughter and I took a 3 day trip to Colorado to climb a mountain. 
That’s right a mountain!! HA! My daughter had come to me 2 months prior and asked
me if we could climb a mountain and I thought she just meant hiking around Northwest Arkansas or somewhere relatively close. She was quick to correct my thinking as she relayed that she meant a “real” mountain! Long story short, we climbed the highest mountain peak in Colorado which was Mount Elbert. We almost made it to the summit but not quite. Still, it was an incredible experience with my youngest daughter that I will never forget. 

 While up there on the mountain we felt like we could see the presence of God. The views were among the best I’ve ever seen and the crisp, cold, thin air just added to the surrealism we were feeling. There is a song that I have been listening to over the past 6 months called “Highlands (song of ascent).” In the first verse of this song, it describes how I would climb a mountain, scale valleys, or chase rivers and basically stop at nothing to find God. However, the song goes on, “your just not that hard to find.” Wow! If I knew God was somewhere difficult to reach, I would do anything to find him. The truth is he is right here with me, all the time! There have been some hard times in my life that I felt like God was not there. I couldn’t hear his voice and I couldn’t see evidence of him in my life. However, that was because I had either stepped out of his shadow or He was teaching me or leading me somewhere I needed to go; I just couldn’t see it. Hindsight is truly 20/20, but whatever you may be struggling with this week my friend let me assure you God is right there with you! 

 Reach out to him, he is just not that hard to find. I hope this email finds you in a good place, but if not, let these verses be of encouragement to you.
“The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, 
and I will give you rest.” 
Exodus 33:14 NIV

“Where can I go from your Spirit? 
Where can I flee from your presence?”  
Psalm 139:7 NIV
Click HERE to listen to "Highlands (Song of Ascent)" by Hillsong 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do we introduce ourselves?

One of the things that might confuse a newcomer coming into this great ministry is the way we introduce our self and do so every time we meet in a Step Group and/or Open discussion group. The question that often comes up is; “Why in the world would we have to introduce our self every time we come together? I mean, we all know each other don’t we? We all know what the other is struggling with right? So why should I have to state my main issue I am dealing with? These are all logical questions and I think the below content from Tina at Saddleback might help shed some light on this. As you may already know, in our small groups we ask our Leaders to introduce themselves with this statement: “Hi my name is _______; I am a believer who struggles with________.” We ask our leaders to keep it short; to stick to one or two primary areas of recovery. We ask them not to state a host of recovery issues and character defects, etc… especially because we do not run recovery specific groups for cha...
Read more

12 Days Of CR Christmas

Image
One of our great leader Monica rewrote the lyrics to this old Christmas song to tie into the 12 steps. We had a lot of fun singing it and love that it keeps the focus on the 12 steps thru Christmas. Great job Monica! On the first day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the notion it’s not about me; On the second day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the third day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fourth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my inventory, will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fifth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me On the sixth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, desire to be humble, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the ...
Read more

Guidelines are there for a reason

Anyone who has participated in a Step Study or a small group through Celebrate Recovery has heard the five small-group guidelines. They’re supposed to be read aloud before each meeting starts, just to remind everyone or to inform any newcomers. Most of the guidelines are obvious and make perfect sense on the first reading. Anonymity is vital and as people who are submitting to God as our Higher Power, we should realize that we are in no more a position to “fix” each other than we are to “fix” ourselves. There’s one guideline that puzzled and even annoyed me at first, that pesky no. 2. “There is NO cross talk. Cross talk is when two individuals engage in conversation excluding all others. Each person is free to express his or her feelings without interruptions.” At first I really didn’t understand the guideline. “Did they seriously need to tell us not to talk to each other while someone was sharing?,” was my thought. But as the guideline was explained further, I better understood. We ar...
Read more