Through some of my recent readings and growth, I had an experience yesterday morning in church of all places. Having been a pastor, it has always been somewhat difficult going to church. My mind is always in critique mode. But, hopefully that is changing with two new gifts I’ve been given, tools in my toolbox for living.

First, I will share the gifts and then the experience. The first gift is the ability to surrender my entire self, what I know about me and what I don’t know yet about me. I’ve been given the gift of surrender. To pray not my will but Your will be done. Previously, there has always been a sliver of the pie I have not been willing to surrender completely; a sliver of the pie of my life I thought I could manage better than God.

The other gift is acceptance. I have read and embraced “Acceptance is the answer to ALL MY problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation, some fact of my life – unacceptable to me. I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.” When I can accept that God is God and I am not, that I don’t have to have an opinion on everything and that the world doesn’t run to my order, acceptance may finally become part of my life.

The experience I had yesterday and actually again this morning in my quiet contemplative time was the deepest sense of PEACE I have ever experienced in my entire life. That inner state is hard to explain. I have no real words for it. It was a peace that passes all human understanding. All I know is I want to live in that oasis.

Blessings,

Scott