Writings
Working conclusions, written while still learning.
From prayer, Scripture, failure, recovery, and the attempt to live what I say I believe.
Where I started
Where I am now
Prayer as another control system
Intelligence placed under authority
Inner change that stays a thought
Belief visible in speech, habits, money, relationships
Faith as certainty about what is true
Faith as acting from trust before the result
Asking whether a pattern exists
Asking whether seeing it produces life
Capacity as the goal
What another person can receive
Five pieces
Open any piece for the full text.
Surrender · Psalm 46:10 · Matthew 6:10I cannot turn prayer into another control system.My default response to uncertainty is activity. That ability can become a way of refusing surrender.
My default response to uncertainty is activity. I research it, model it, explain it, build around it, or try to predict what comes next. That ability can be useful, and it can also become a way of refusing surrender.
Prayer changes the posture. I can bring the whole problem to God without requiring myself to produce the answer. The important movement is releasing my demand to control the outcome before I can obey.
Surrender is intelligence placed under authority.
Renewal · Romans 12:1-2A renewed mind still has to become a lived body.Paul puts the body offered to God beside the mind being renewed.
Romans 12 keeps correcting the way I separate inner change from outer life. Paul puts the body offered to God beside the mind being renewed. The mind matters, and renewal goes further than thought.
If a belief is becoming part of me, it should eventually appear in my speech, habits, money, relationships, work, restraint, service, and what I do under pressure.
The harder question than whether an idea is true: what would my life look like if I actually believed it?
Faith · Romans 4:18-21 · James 2:17Faith begins before I can guarantee the result.Abraham's trust becomes visible because he acts without already possessing the promised outcome.
I used to think of faith mainly as certainty about what is true. Abraham shows another dimension: trust becomes visible because he acts without already possessing the promised outcome.
That changes how I think about obedience. I can choose what is faithful, loving, honest, or right in the present moment before I control the result.
Faith is becoming the willingness to act from trust while leaving the outcome with God.
Wisdom · Proverbs 3:18 · Proverbs 16:22-24 · James 3:13-18Wisdom is less about what I can see and more about what my seeing is for.The question moved from whether patterns exist to whether the perception produces life.
I have spent years becoming good at seeing patterns. The recent Proverbs work changed the question from whether patterns exist to whether the perception produces life.
Proverbs repeatedly ties wisdom, instruction, speech, the heart, and life-giving effects together. James adds the moral test: wisdom from above has a different character from knowledge used for envy or selfish ambition.
Perception is never self-validating. The ability to see more creates a larger responsibility for what I do with what I see.
Service · 2 Peter 1:5-8 · Romans 15:1-2 · Ephesians 4:29If formation ends with me, it did not finish.Strength, wisdom, speech, gifts, endurance, and maturity keep turning outward across the New Testament.
A pattern keeps appearing across the New Testament material I have been studying: strength, wisdom, speech, gifts, endurance, and maturity keep turning outward.
That changed the objective of the older self-mastery work. Capacity, knowledge, and even recovery are stops along the way if they only return me to myself.
I measure formation by what another person can actually receive: patience, truth, protection, provision, courage, comfort, wisdom, or love.