Lamentations 3 -5; Revelation 15

from a book we're reading called Small Group Tightrope and it's good and filled w/ applicable stuff to not only the tension of Small Groups but the tension of the journey...Vanier aptly describes, “A loving community is attractive. And a community which is attractive is by definition welcoming. Life brings new life….Love can never be static. A human heart is either progressing or regressing. If it is not becoming more open, it is closing and withering spiritually. A community which refuses to welcome – whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors – is dying spiritually.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why is that?
Would you say your heart is progressing or regressing recently? Why is that? Is your group as a whole progressing or regressing? How do you determine that?

Would have loved to spend alot more time on this question this morning...those that got to answer were honest and open about a feeling of regressing....I wonder tho in the last few weeks reading Jeremiah and Ezekiel about how frightening it is to BE dependent on a God who does things so far beyond our understanding and if when we don't understand.... if we don't in that think we're not close to Him and what if in those moments we are closest....???

To have that understanding of You.....that in the surrender is protection....in the insufficiency is Your power....like I'm discovering something new here and it's said over and over in our weakness YOU get stronger....but dang the whole becoming weak...surrender is just so foreign to us....and that breaks Your heart...You who created us to be in community w/You seek to become independent all the time.....seek to become our own gods when You desire to BE OUR ABBA....our everything.....so I guess my answer is as painful as it is, as scary as it is, as risky as it feels I guess my heart is progressing......please Abba help me to surrender and not just quit....help me to in that surrender become softer and softer...more and more naked and vulnerable and honest....more and more curious...more and more about You and others ....help me to surrender ......

Lamentations 3: It's a Good Thing to Hope for Help from God
19-21 I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.I remember it all—
oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
22-24 God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.
25-27 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
to stick it out through the hard times.
28-30 When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear. Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The "worst" is never the worst.
31-33 Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
in throwing roadblocks in the way:

To surrender yes, to quit no......
Abba I pray to live in surrender.....