Patrick O'Connell

Four Places to Find Confirmation

A friend is in a season of discernment. He is trying to hear from God about specific steps they believe God is calling him to take.

"How will I know this is God's will for me," he asked?

I suggested he get confirmation in ALL four of these areas:

1. Scripture: Unless you are spending time reading scripture every day it will be diffiuclt for you to hear from God.
2. Community: The communuity around you should both confirm and affirm what God is telling you.
3. Prayer: You should be spending lots of time in prayer and being honest with God about knowing His will.
4. Circumstances: The circumstances around will confirm that this is the right next step for you.

If you are only hearing from God in one or two areas, I suggest you wait. Be patient until you are hearning Him in all four areas.

 

Lent Begins Today

Lent begins today. It's one of the six seasons of the church calendar. Lent is an opportunity for the Christian to prepare his/her heard for Easter with reflection, repentance and prayer. During Lent Christians focus on human sin and God's grace as a solution. It's a somber season, one of devotion and introspection.

This Lent I am going to fast from television. I want to recapture some of my time and use it in more creative endeavors.

Jesus has done so much for me. I am not missing the opportunity.

Read the Bible for Story

A quick reminder: read the Bible for story. 

I am leading a small group this term and together we are reading through the New Testament in 90 days. I am finding many people struggle to read because they are focused on the chapters and verses in their Bibles. Many people don't know that those were added much later to the Biblical texts. They also have a way of cutting the stories and natural narrative flow into artificial chunks that confuse newer readers.While most chapters in the Gospels and Acts begin a narrative chunk, many in the epistles do not. Of course, the section headings are added by publishers, they do conform to the natural flow of the text better than the chapter divisions. 

I am finding that when people focus on the story/narrative flow they engage deeper with the text.

If you struggle reading the  Bible may I advise you to read according to the section headings and not the chapters. 

Spiritual Retreat

We all need to hit the pause button from time to time. The fact is that life is relentless and there is much clutter to distract us from God.

I love the idea of retreating from the world for a time to regroup and refocus. To do this well I suggest you do a little planning to make your time rewarding. Here are some insights I hope will help:

What is a spiritual retreat?

Christians have been 'retreating' from the world to focus on God for centuries. It's a time to get away from the distractions of life and focus on God. The key is to simply your time by reducing distractions and focusing on God.

Why take a retreat?

• Focus on God and get closer to Him.
• Refocus on life and what's important.
• Take a break.
• Relax and rest.
• Review the past; examen the present; plan for the future.

Where should you take your retreat?

• The key is to find a place where you aren't going to be distracted by stuff in your life. Going away somewhere makes sense but I also know of a guy who would spend the day in his closet and call it a retreat. (Whatever works right?)

When should you retreat?

Most of the advice I have been given and what I've found in my research is to take a day at least once a quarter.

Who should you take a retreat with?

While groups of people can retreat together, I have always preferred a solo retreat. I am around people all of the time and while I love this fact, truth is we all need a break on occassion.

How should you take a retreat?

What you do during your retreat is really up to you. But the idea is to focus on God. I know some people who create a schedule for their retreat. This doesn't work for me. My goal is to get to a place where I can focus. That's why the following are part of my retreat day:

• Prayer
• Meditation
• Journaling
• Read books
• Bible reading
• Reflecting
• Planning
• Walking
• Ask some deep questions about yourself and your relationship with God and others.
• Wait on God to speak to you. 

If you've never taken a retreat, may I encourage you to take one soon. We all need time alone with God. The world is ruthless in this way. If you don't create the boundary of a retreat in your life, it will always have it's way with you.

I hope these tips and suggestions help you grow closer to God.

Wholly Surrendered Today

I ask the same question everyday. "Am I going to live a wholly surrendered life today?" Yep--same question everyday.

As I see it, I have choices to make everyday about how I will live my life.

• Will I holdback parts of my life from God this day?
• Am I willing to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit? 
• Am I willing to place myself in a posture of dependency on the Spirit.

Jesus lived his life dependent on the Holy Spirit. This inspires me. One time he told his disciples:

He (the Holy Spirit) will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16:14).

Saying yes to surrendering my life to the Holy Spirit is to say yes to His power and presence in my life. It means I am saying yes to glorifying God in the person of Jesus. I want these things.

But some days I don't want to surrender to the Holy Spirit. Some days I want to hold on to all of the little bits of my life. Maybe I am selfish or afraid or both.

I know that whatever I don't surrender will become a burden to me. It will take my focus. It might even become a barrier between me and God. But some days it's just hard.

So tomorrow I will have the choice to make all over again. I am planning on saying yes once again to those questions, yes once again the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in my life.

On Selflessness

Selflessness will change the world around you. Jesus knew it. That's why I am interested in it. 

Selflessness is something many of us want more of in our lives. Yet, we find it hard.

Seth Godin offers some helpful insight here.

Grow(ing)

So I've been thinking quite a bit about spiritual growth within the context of community. Here are some things I've heard that have helped/confused this issue for me:

• The hard part of doing community is that some people aren't ready to grow with the community.
• Pain is a megaphone to change a hurt and dying world.
• We are often times put on the position of being the catalyst for people to grow and some will resist it, and ultimately refuse it.
• Community is messy and sometimes ugly.
• People who you think are the most unlikely to be willing to grow will surprise you when they say yes.

Nobody said this stuff would be easy.

Do you preach the Gospel to yourself?

Do you preach the Gospel to yourself everyday?

This is something I've been contending with in my life since reading Jerry Bridges' book, The Discipline of Grace. Bridges devotes all of chapter three to this topic. His thesis is simple: a majority of confessing Christians don't really understand the Gospel because we have a tendency to believe it's only for sinners. Bridges takes it much farther than this but his point has made an impact with me. He advocates that Christians get to know Romans 3:19-31. He calls this 'The heart of the gospel.' Those of us who follow Jesus must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday lest we forget God's gift of grace. According to Bridges, this is essential to our spiritual growth.

Here, I've copied the ESV version of the passage below. Time permitting, I'll try to write more about this in the future.

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law,so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

27Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

How do you Hear from God?

How do you hear from God? What kind of answer would you give to an unbeliever?

I ask because we're covering this in our small group curriculum. During a recent discussion we  focused on how we as Christ-followers can claim to hear from God.

So, what would you say? I think it's one of those questions that drive your spiritual direction really.

Here's my list

• Bible
• Prayer
• Meditation
• Music
• Journaling
• Small group
• Serving

What about you? How do you hear from God?

Our Blossoming Small Group

I think our small group is beginning to blossom. Up until this evening there have been four of us. Tonight we were joined by another couple. Next week yet another couple is going to join our group. And there are at least two other couples (and a couple of individuals) we've invited who may yet say yes. And this is all before the official launch of Restore.

Last week I was wondering if anyone would ever come to our group. Tonight, i am convinced that we are going to need to start thinking reproducing our group much sooner than we anticipated.

Was I really expecting anything different? I have been in a small group for most of my spiritual journey. In fact, joining a small group was a huge factor in my spiritual growth. Had I not joined a small group soon after I said yes to Jesus, I would not be writing to you as a church planter today. I get all gigged about small groups. And now that I am church planter I understand how essential they are in helping people find their way back to God.