This page is about the word ‘why.’
Why this blog on this topic? Why am I writing it? Why do I think anything here that I might write is important?
In the more than 30 years I invested working in the Kingdom of Jesus as a youth minister, church planter, Senior Pastor, and denominational leader, I found a few things increasingly troubling about what I saw going on all around me.
First, I noticed some things about many of the sincere and dedicated people around me. They were often people who loved God deeply and were determined to follow him and serve him in their everyday lives. But they were also people who seemed to have a very tenuous grasp on how to do what they were trying to do.
Second, I noticed that very often the preachers preaching, and the teachers teaching, and the people being preached to and taught at were all more or less feeding and being fed a very narrow and hyper-focused menu of spiritual truth and biblical application. And to make it worse, over time the ‘hot topic’ would shift from this to that, and then to something else. This life with God was a moving target.
I had a pretty clear view of this because I spent many years doing just this very thing. We/I spent an enormous amount of time filling the air with words describing God, speculating on prophecy, telling stories about amazing things that had happened, analyzing the background of ancient peoples, languages and cultures who first heard the bible, etc.
We spent very little time teaching and training people in the practicum of ‘doing greater things.’ As a result, too many people have a too rudimentary idea about how this life with God actually works, what drives it, what powers it, what our part is in it, what the moving parts are and how do they connect and interact together so that at the end of the day we ‘live life and that more abundantly’ being ‘transformed into the image of the Son’…
A conviction grew that something more was needed; like they say about building tall buildings, it’s all about the foundations. To change the metaphor, what we needed was a clear and simple curriculum of Discipleship (a la, Dallas Willard), or even better, a Path from here (where we are) to there (where God is calling us to go as we follow him).
So, I began to ask for help and to think back over 30+ years of bible study, teaching, pastoral care and living life in the day-to-day trenches with God. I asked for me. I needed more clarity about the ‘main and the plain’ truth from the bible about living life with God, about what was really important, about how this life was actually supposed to work.
This blog is about what I’ve learned and experienced and can, in a limited way, describe about the path God has marked out for us. I found it there at the beginning in Genesis and see it weaving all through the rest of the bible, Old and New Testament. It has revolutionized my life with God. It has connected the dots and pulled all the pieces together for me. It has made sense of the good times and the bad. It has given me what I need to fill my days and focus my energies.
This blog is NOT the final word on anything; it’s just notes on the journey by someone who has spent enough time on the road to have some idea about a few things. Read, think, reply, experience, travel on farther in this great adventure with the Creator and King of all things!
If you find anything helpful here, then I am grateful for the chance to share the grace and mercy that sustains us.
Yours for His Kingdom Purposes,
Ron Ford
Carlsbad, CA
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