Joyce Meyer Conference

I've been up to a lot lately.

Last weekend I went to a Joyce Meyer conference, and it was good. She always has a lot of good things to digest (and I mean digest) that we all just need to hear. This weekend was on the theme of Religion vs. Friendship. To sum it up, it took a closer look at our personal walk with God versus the regular same old la-te-da of going to church on Sundays. How to intergrate Jesus into our lives and not suppress the urge to include Him in other areas in our lives as well. Thank goodness she did not just do a do/don't list, (some preachers do this) she outlined how Christianity can become legalistic and ritualistic when Jesus plainly tells us to step out of the religious box.

Does this sound like a film rating or what?

I give it 4 1/2 stars.

I'm not a fanatic about speaking in tongues. Some people believe in this heavily, but personally I think it's every man for himself. If it helps your walk with God to speak in tongues, I'm all for it. Maybe I'm just too comfortable sitting in my box labeled "Walk with God" to venture out and pray to speak in tongues. But I see no reason to do it on a regular basis. The Holy Spirit is connected to God, they are one. Why would the Spirit need a way to communicate to God, if he is so tied? I really haven't studied it in the bible, so take this with a grain of salt.

A lot of times I see it as distracting, I have a hard enough time trying to focus on what I'm doing, let alone having people around me speak in other languages that I don't understand. I find that I try to understand their languages, instead of focusing on what's important... praising and worshiping God. Maybe that's why I don't even bother trying, simply because God wants me to worship Him, which I don't do enough of to begin with. I don't let myself.

These are all things to consider that I really don't want to get into at this time in my life.

The point was that during the conference she asked everyone to stand and try to speak in tongues. So in the 15 thousand people, I found myself silent in a stadium full of people talking in unintelligible languages, watching people around me like it was some weird B-rated movie. Besides being that it was an awkward feeling, it was interesting to think; How many think they are Christians because they believe they can speak in tongues? Is my walk barren because the things I believe are boxing me in? Is it that I am not open to the fact that there could possibly be more to my walk with God?

What is God looking for? What does He really yearn for in our relationship with Him? What makes Him decide to use us?

There's is only one way to answer these questions which thankfully Joyce hit at the end of the conference. Which happen to be the simplest three words I've heard in a long time. Read the Word. For all those Christians who believe they are christians because they speak in tongues, read the Word. For any one who is searching for those eternal answers that seem to have no end, read the Word. And for people like me, who can't seem to understand the point of believing in God without a why (but somehow still do) - who wants to have God use them in some way and know it is God who is using them (and not the devil) - who wants to be real to believers and non-believers about Christ, and there will be no question when they look at me that they'll think, 'yeah she's the good kind of Christian, the kind of Christian I want to be.'

(meekly said)...maybe we should read the Word too.