Joel 1 - 3; 2 Timothy 1

Re/Intimacy with God: from a question posed to EP re: spirituality
This promise of intimacy is both right and wrong. There is an intimacy with God, but it's like any other intimacy; it's part of the fabric of your life. In marriage you don't feel intimate most of the time. Nor with a friend. Intimacy isn't primarily a mystical emotion. It's a way of life, a life of openness, honesty, a certain transparency. Eugene Peterson

I keep reading the above quote and reveling I guess you could say in the truth of it. I don’t know why but I love the quote and just wanted to pass it on…..openness, honesty and a certain transparency…….
And 57% of evangelical Christians believe there is more than one way to the Father.... and they say they’re judgemental….how can you judge when you have Christ?? I guess that comes down to the question. As one of the 43% remaining my belief in the way of the Cross, in the person Jesus, the Son of my God……I am becoming soft. In the softness is less judgementalism (although it is and probably always will be my more ‘natural’ bent), but less in that I see it for the wrong it is. Now, I battle, is it discernment or judgementalism….I am in that battle now so I don’t know…..and in the I don’t know I HAVE to go to Him and in Him is GRACE and in that GRACE I more and more want the softness that lets me see it as what it is…….
There is though an urgency that comes with being in such a small number……the way of Jesus is about LOVE, not necessarily tolerance but TRUE LOVE. A love coming from my own deep dependence on Him who saves, a love that creates an urgency (??) nonetheless that keeps me here deep in Your word and praying.
I am not an end-times kind of girl but an urgency does come up in reading a book like Joel……so to live in an urgency, not under my own but with You guiding and ….guiding me into living this life of softness, honesty, openness and a certain transparency…..??

2 Timothy 1: 7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
So…………in the ‘be still and know’……..is all this.