So often in life we begin something with the best intentions…as time goes by we try to push ahead on our own…”I can do this”…”I know what I am doing”…it is based on ‘I’ and any of us can only do so much alone.  We have to learn that our obsessive focus on ‘I’ eventually leads to sadness, helplessness and loneliness.

One of the hardest things I have ever done is admit that my life is not about ‘me’, ‘myself’ and ‘I’…we are not controlling every single aspect of our daily life.  The loss of a young friend to suicide sealed it for me.  That was the last event in a series of lessons that made it very clear to me there is so much more in life than what ‘I’ was focusing my attention on.  The world and Satan are not encouraging us to surrender to Jesus and that makes it even harder to see and understand but when we commit to spending time with God and we surrender our belief that we our in charge…we begin to understand a whole new level and perspective of love, joy, peace, mercy and grace.  This is not an easy commitment and like anything worth doing it takes perseverance but once you start God provides strength and best of all he gives all of us courage to over come our greatest fears…

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”

2 Timothy 1:7

(This photo was taken in the summer of 2013 in Badlands National Park in South Dakota)