The new "I"

We are packing up the car again . We leave tomorrow for Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain for niece Anna's wedding on Saturday. We are looking forward to being with Joyce's family and having a fun meaningful time. We'll stay overnight tomorrow night in Bowling Green KY. Last week we spent three days in Wisconsin at Sheboygan with seminary classmate friends where we had a good time. We stayed overnight with Sarah and Joel on the way home. Summer is rapidly disappearing. Joyce and I enjoyed a picnic last night at the state park and the "big lake". It was very comfortable there while it was warm and humid in town. I didn't realize there would be such a difference.

The Spiritual Formation Bible relating to a Psalm of judgment offers the following: "We encounter God's sifting, purifying love in our experience of spiritual transformation. Spiritual writers refer to this as the "death of the ego" or the "dark night of the soul." In order for God's life to grow in us, our old attitudes, prejudices, and self-preoccupation must perish. In what ways have you experienced the "dark night"? How would you describe the process of "dying" to your old self and of finding new life in Jesus Christ? In what area do you see new life? How is God still leading you to let go of your old self?"

Tilden Edwards along this same thought pattern is quoted in A Guide To Prayer For All God's People:
"Saint Paul called us to live in the mind of Christ so fully that we can say with him, "Not I, but Christ, lives in me." The "I" that no longer lives then is the one that sees itself as an ultimately self-willed, self-centered being. The new "I" is one that lives moment by moment in the awareness that we are an intimate and unique expression of God's joy and compassion, living freely by grace, called to reverberate the joy and compassion, utterly interdependent with Creator and creation... Without spiritual discipline we become easier prey to the old "I" that is full of possessiveness, fear, greed, anxiety, violence, indolence, untrustworthiness, willfulness, confusion, and all other marks of life disconnected from our true being in God."

So it is that we recognize our great need for God's grace and help in becoming the beautiful people God created us to be. So thankful the Christian experience is about salvation as a gift followed by a life of gratitude. Now that should resonate with some of you about the outline of Heidelberg.
I do pray God's grace and peace for all of you for without them we are lost in misery.