Comments for What God Wants For Your Life

Comment on Dreamwork by fwschmidt

fwschmidt — Thu, 29 May 2014 16:05:31 +0000

Thanks, Carol! It’s so good to hear from you.

Comment on Dreamwork by Carol Lawson

Carol Lawson — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 00:42:45 +0000

Dear Fred, thank you for including me in your correspondence along with many others. It has been so long since I have received anything
of yours and it was very good to read your writing again. I agree
about dreams. The Lord has spoken to me in dreams since becoming a Christian in 1970. He doesn’t so much anymore and I miss that. I don’t know if it is medicine as I age or that my life with Jesus is not what it should be. I keep daily attempting to take up my cross and follow Him but stumble many times in a day.

I greatly miss you. So do all your beloved brothers and sisters here in Dallas. I heard from Mary that you had moved. Did you know that she and Charlie became Jesse’s godparents when he was baptized over a year ago. Jesse, my grandson, is now 7 years old and he is taller than my nose. I guess height is in his genes.

I still have my beloved Maple, Alaskan Malamute, my wonderful companion. She is truly heavenly. Tim is doing ok as well. Time just doesn’t wait for any of us!

I loved hearing your dream and your interpretation. Many people throughout the years have come to me for interpretations and I do my best with the help of the Lord who gives wisdom and to whom wisdom belong. But when people try to interpret my dreams I know when they are not seeing it clearly as I supposed most people
have that feeling. God made each of us unique and we should cherish that thought all the time that He loves each one of us forever and ever-more. His love is boundless and free. One of His angels count each time a hair on our heads is lost or gained. We cannot possibly begin to understand the love He has for us. And our loved ones gone on before us love us and forgive us easily. We are made in His image.

Oh! that the image of God would be more impressed on my heart and mind daily. Remember me in your prayers, please. I remember you – you are such a special person with immense talents.

Thank you again for including me and I pray you are well and your book will be a large success. Why shouldn’t it be? Once people get to know you they leave with much more than they came with.

With love and sincerity, Carol Lawson

Comment on Are you disillusioned or disenchanted? by John

John — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 18:50:20 +0000

“But it is to suggest that until we take ourselves out of the equation in ways that are presumptuous, we privilege our own views with a preeminence that only God’s perspective rightly deserves.”

Wow! What an opaque sentence. What’s it supposed to be saying?….

Comment on Bad Theology on Bumper Stickers by Geoffrey

Geoffrey — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:10:26 +0000

Thank you for your, loving truths!

Comment on Permission and Disclaimer by godinus45

godinus45 — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 13:04:32 +0000

That is a great point, I see many atheists just who think all smart everyone is atheists and everything dumb consumers are religious. This is obviously incorrect as possible pretty locate stupid atheists and smart Christians. What’s more, it makes the mistake about people being either stupid or smart, I’m sure essentially most people are smart about certain topics and dumb about others.

Comment on Venomous and Poisonous by Carol Lawson

Carol Lawson — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 10:49:57 +0000

Dear Fred, Happy 4th of July! I pray that you and your wife will do something that both really enjoy and that relaxes.

I loved your article – well all of them. Especially you wrapped it up for us so wonderfully “the divine is the answer”. Being in contact with Jesus; intinmate contact – the way you phrased it – is just so right. He is always in intimate contact with us and lives within us yet so often we forget that fact by forgetting Jesus our Lord because we are on our own path. I pray for His rod and staff. Keep me close. Thank you, dear Fred. With love, Carol Lawson

Comment on What do I really believe happens when we die by Carol Lawson

Carol Lawson — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:06:46 +0000

Dear Fred, As always, you have much to say to all. First of all, I appreciate your writings because they reflect you. Then they lead me to new insights. My only brother – there were just two siblings – has been in hospitals since January. He has had 5 major heart surgeries and some just within hours of each other. He is 2 years older than me. Now it seems to be his lungs that are giving away and there are blood clots. On and on….
The most amazing point of my story is that through all of these surgeries, procedures, and ordeals is that he has renewed his faith in Jesus and I believe at this point is now ready to go on to the other side should Jesus call him home.
We were raised in a very godly home with a precious Mother who knelt by the bedside with my brother on one side and me on the other and she prayed and I’m sure we prayed our childhood prayers. Everytime the church opened we were there. I remember playing the piano for the church by age 6. It was a Baptist church but rather like a full gospel church. I remember my Mother’s prayers and felt like oceans of heaven were sweeping over me even as a child. Those times are vivid to me yet my brother has no recollection of these events or many others spiritual matters.
We both left the fold. I returned at age 30 and now many years later I can say Jesus is sweeter than ever before. I can’t express the joy I feel that my brother has a relationship with Jesus now. My Mother’s last words to him were that he get his life right with God. I’m sure my parents, other relatives, the vast unknown people who live in heaven now are rejoicing over my brother. I know my husband who died almost 5 years ago is very glad. Most of all the blessed holy angels are filling heaven with their joyous praises and the Prince of Life, Jesus Christ, has kept His Word that not one person who comes to Him will He cast out.
In the meantime we each live our lives in expectancy that Jesus is coming back to set up His Kingdom forever. Our Lord is the delight of my heart and I join the great throng of heaven and earth to bless His Holy Name forever and forever.

Comment on The Issue Driven Church by Paul McKay

Paul McKay — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:55:29 +0000

Makes more sense than the comment I banged out without enough reflection. I should never email, blog, reply to somebody’s blog or anything else on the fly; much prefer to reflect on stuff a while–writing on the fly is a habit I’m trying to break, lol.

Comment on The Issue Driven Church by fwschmidt

fwschmidt — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:40:26 +0000

Paul, I certainly see your point. I think that my reaction is that the need to complement a church that is devoted at its core to the Gospel and understands that the journey inward leads to a journey outward doesn’t need another kind of church. I suspect we are talking about the same result. But when the debate over what the church should be becomes a matter of offering an alternative model instead of a deeper understanding of what church was meant to be in the first place, I think something is lost.

Make sense?

Comment on The Issue Driven Church by Paul McKay

Paul McKay — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:13:10 +0000

I get this, but I’m wondering–might the only thing worse than an “issue-driven church” be a “non-issue driven church”? I’m always most comfortable in a church home that splits the difference–that takes the middle way–and that sort of church home is actually hard to find. I want a church that looks unflinchingly and seriously at personal salvation and all that goes with that–the power of sin over our daily lives–as well as the power of love and grace to overcome our sinful nature. But I see all too many of my own United Methodist Churches where the studies and discussions in Sunday schools are about anything EXCEPT the Bible, UNLESS the study is about the Social Gospel and the Old Testament’s Social Justice stuff. And that’s always a reflection of the senior pastor’s heavy tilt toward the Social Gospel and a personally left-leaing, activist political POV. But then there are so, so many of those “Non-Issues Churches,” where a preacher may see his anti-abortion activism as the one social activism that’s OK. Otherwise, that preacher wouldn’t dare rock the boat by sermonizing in favor of an issue like, say, the full inclusion of gays in the church and society. I want a church that takes the entire Bible and all its theology seriously–the personal as well as the social, a church that’s not leaning further than the Tower of Pisa to one side or the other in its theological or political bent. But sadly, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard an ordained minister at a big church say, “I wish I could preach what I really believe sometime about (gay inclusion, peace vs war–or, even a specific, sort of “momentary issue” in the news like sexual harassment).” Some preachers are afraid to touch hot button issues for fear of making people in the pews uncomfortable to the point of revolting. But then, other preachers are afraid to touch anything BUT hot button issues, usually as seen from a left-leaning POV, for fear of people who lean left in world views not coming to church and filling the pews. They’re all about afflicting the comfortable while comforting the afflicted. ALL about it. You may not see any cross front and center in such a church–much less anything like a cross outside the church unless it’s something like the Methodist Cross and Flame insignia (the Cross and Flame is always OK for a left-leaning church and never mind that that’s out there like a corporate “brand.” So much irony to be found in a left-leaning church, but the same could be said of the other kind.) But you might very well see a giant rainbow banner that signfifies the church as oh so very welcoming to gays. I dont’ think a church has to be either-or, but in fact should be both/and–it should be about both personal salvation AND a living faith in which praxis, and even political and social activism in the streets, spring forth from an understanding of personal salvation , and from serious Bible study that encourages struggling with issues rather than flying the right banners. In the theology of Church, as in the science of politics, nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong. And God help us–we might all be wrong.