God's grace when we flip out

                         Holding Every Thought Captive

I have been involved with a group of Christian men in a small group for about a year now. We meet online via Zoom once a week. The reason I got involved is that as a traveler I really could not build good relationships with other Christian men and any of you that really know me know that walking the straight an narrow for me is like a drunk staggering down a path. Sometimes I am falling in the bushes, other times I might be on the path but it quickly turns into a dance gauntlet like we see a weddings. Sometimes I stumble and skin my nose on the pavement. At others I get totally lost for a while and angrily thrash through the bushes cussing and fuming until I stop and actually look for the signs finding that if I had just looked and listened the path is clearly marked. It has signs, flashing lights, and beepers so that I could find the path again. The entire time I am still moving in the same direction except when I fall in my stupor and roll back down a hill.

The small group helps because I really needed the fellowship in a place where a group of men could talk about our struggles and get encouragement to keep going. Being connected with Christians in this way is taking advantage of the trail marks like I mentioned above. The Bible instructs us to confess our sins one to another. Of course we have largely stopped doing this because it's patently not safe to do that in the church culture of today. I mean if anyone really knew the things you struggle with they'd tell your wife or everyone at the office. They would gossip at no end. It's a sad state of affairs, pretending to be a nice moral person when you may not be that at all.

Very recently in my group we have been focusing on the idea of holding every thought captive. Today for some reason I thought of the very first words I remember reading in the Bible.

These first words I ever remember reading in the Bible I read when I was maybe 5 years old. I was sitting in church next to my mother looking for pictures or maps as bored children in worship often do. Obviously, at five years old I could not read very much, so it was a big deal that I found something in the Bible on my own that I read and understood.

John 1:39 Jesus said, "Come and see"...

This has lead to a lifetime of looking deeper and deeper. If you read further in the passage you will "see" that the men that went and saw changed their lives and the world with it.

If you just come and see.
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Tomorrow I hope to be better...probably will skin my nose again though.