{"id":382,"date":"2010-07-06T21:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T21:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/?p=382"},"modified":"2010-07-06T21:59:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-06T21:59:00","slug":"to-take-the-plunge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/?p=382","title":{"rendered":"To Take The Plunge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_It9KDpK7ADM\/TDOpLzoD0mI\/AAAAAAAAIF8\/0A51TC5p2E4\/s1600\/DSC01145b.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_It9KDpK7ADM\/TDOpLzoD0mI\/AAAAAAAAIF8\/0A51TC5p2E4\/s400\/DSC01145b.JPG\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490918390996652642\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>I became a Christian for many reasons.  One was this constant feeling,  this nudge, that there was more to it all.  After having been a Christian for many years now I again feel this nudge that there is more to it all&#8230; more to this Christian life I took up in my youth.  It is a feeling that I shouldn&#8217;t be afraid to grow and mature in the faith and move on from what is now normal or what now comes natural.  It wasn&#8217;t normal or natural for me to take the initial plunge into Jesus and yet I did it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The way I live now comes naturally.  We are normal middle class north Americans&#8230; and yet&#8230; I want to fearlessly take another plunge into living for the kingdom of Christ now and not spend all my time working on my kingdom, on forming my identity, on shaping everything around me to reflect bits of me&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>All this stuff, all I possess was given to me anyhow!  I don&#8217;t want to be like the Ezekiel 16 woman and take the gifts, specifically the gift of life and use it for my own selfish gain and walk right into my own destruction.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t sound normal&#8230; but if you take a look at <leo_highlight style=\"border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 150); background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 50%; -moz-background-size: auto auto; cursor: pointer; display: inline; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;\" leohighlights_keywords=\"c%20s%20lewis\" leohighlights_url_top=\"http%3A\/\/shortcuts.thebrowserhighlighter.com\/leonardo\/plugin\/highlights\/3_1\/tbh_highlightsTop.jsp?keywords%3Dc%2520s%2520lewis%26domain%3Dwww.blogger.com\" leohighlights_url_bottom=\"http%3A\/\/shortcuts.thebrowserhighlighter.com\/leonardo\/plugin\/highlights\/3_1\/tbh_highlightsBottom.jsp?keywords%3Dc%2520s%2520lewis%26domain%3Dwww.blogger.com\" leohighlights_underline=\"true\">C.S. Lewis<\/leo_highlight>&#8216;s &#8216;THE THREE PERSONAL GOD&#8217; you might get an idea of what I am chewing on.  As Lewis puts it &#8220;human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves- in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.&#8221;  Ah I really enjoy his mind blowing ability with simple explanations.<\/p>\n<p>Bits and pieces here, fragmented thoughts&#8230; as I said before, it is a nudge right now&#8230; however, I do have the urge to plunge in even with just a driving nudge in my heart!  No more prancing and dancing on the shore of the issue:)<a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_It9KDpK7ADM\/TDOuuWaTolI\/AAAAAAAAIGE\/Rn-xW67bXQ4\/s1600\/DSC01178edit.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_It9KDpK7ADM\/TDOuuWaTolI\/AAAAAAAAIGE\/Rn-xW67bXQ4\/s320\/DSC01178edit.JPG\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490924482007900754\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><span>TTFN<\/span><br \/><!--Session data--><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><!--Session data--><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<div style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden; display: none; width: 520px; height: 391px; z-index: 2147483647;\">        <!-- Top iFrame -->    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" name=\"leoHighlights_top_iframe\" title=\"leoHighlights_top_iframe\" src=\"about:blank\" vspace=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 520px; height: 294px; z-index: 2147483647;\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"294\" width=\"520\">    <\/iframe>        <!-- Bottom iFrame -->    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" name=\"leoHighlights_bottom_iframe\" title=\"leoHighlights_bottom_iframe\" src=\"about:blank\" vspace=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 294px; left: 96px; z-index: 2147483647;\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"\" width=\"\">    <\/iframe> <\/div>\n<p>   <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I became a Christian for many reasons. One was this constant feeling, this nudge, that there was more to it all. After having been a Christian for many years now I again feel this nudge that there is more to it all&#8230; more to this Christian life I took up in my youth. It is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}