Recap of week 3 for BF

~*~

What a difference a week can make!

Things have gone from good to OH MY STARS LORD

and unfortunately, I'm not talking about it taking a turn for the better either.

Everyone has their requests from time to time to ask of their bloggy friends for different things and this week it's mine to humbly ask if you feel led, to please join me in praying for my relatives who are going through life changing circumstances and need God's covenant prayers over them as they walk through this. I thank you so much!

To Recap week 3 of our Breaking Free study..

So last week we learned about five primary benefits from our relationship with God. This week we learned about obstacles in our path to freedom and those were Unbelief, Pride, Idols, Prayerlessness and Legalism. The biggest impact for me this week was Idols and I’m not talking about the ones in the Old Testament.

I want to share with you that I did all my homework in 1-day last Saturday, the timing presented itself that I had about 6 hours to myself and I did a marathon run thinking, cool – this is great! However, I DO NOT recommend it! Ha ha

Yes I did get the homework done in 1 day but when I was done I felt like a train wreck and just wanted to lay on my face because I was learning about all these obstacles and how I am affected by each of them. Not good…. not good to Break Free in 6 hours because you literally can’t digest everything. For several days afterward, I had to review my answers again and make some revisions because then I had time to process it and “not just give an answer to get my homework done.” And Ladies, we aren’t going to Break Free from anything if that’s all were doing… striving to meet a deadline to get our homework done. We need to really take each question slowly, listening to what God is telling us when Beth instructs us to write down reasons why we have issues with our obstacles. Those revelation answers are going to set us free when we choose to commit ourselves to changing our behavior.

We learned an idol is any person, object or activity you give a higher priority in your life than a relationship with God. An idol can be your home, your job, a vehicle, a relationship, or even your family. An idol can be a pet, a computer, or what you look at on that computer. An idol can be any sin. An idol can be the work you do for the Lord that consumes all your energy and time. God says He’s a jealous God. He wants our time and attention.

I spend nearly 6 hours a day on a computer at work, followed by another hour or more at home and that’s not even my PC computer, it’s my iPhone – best little hand held computer around. I’m reading the news because I don’t get a newspaper, I rarely watch television news and I’m also checking email and my blog. If you’re someone who does Facebook or Twitter a lot you can probably relate. We email instead of talk. We Facebook instead of talk. We Twitter instead of talk. We leave updates about what we are doing but the point is that MY time spent on the Internet interferes with quiet time I should be having on a daily basis with Jesus.

Another revelation was that not only am I not spending nearly enough time with Him but I’m also having more electronic relationships instead of face-to-face conversations. And I NEED my girlfriends! I NEED my Women’s Ministry! I NEED you Ladies! I NEED my tea parties!

Now I’m not pointing my finger, I’m as guilty as anyone is. But if you can relate to any of that and recall what Beth said our very first week of being accountable to our friends when they get in our business… Ladies, I need to be accountable to YOU in that I am going to deal with my idol! So get in my business and ask me how I’m am doing each week, okay!?

UPDATE!! Today was a day off from work (Yahoo to have a Friday!) so I spent the morning in study for you ladies and then spent hours with a dear old friend enjoying lunch together and then... surprised my kids by picking them up early from school! They were sugared up from their Valentine parties - oh the memories that take me back to exchanging valentines and eating conversation hearts! So all that to say... I got to do what I set out to do this week and that was have face-to-face conversation and it was wonderful to see expressions instead of imagining them!

Willing to admit any idols you have?

~*~