Wednesday, April 6, 2011

March/April 2011

Please note changes in our contact info:

Website: www.freshwaterministries.blogspot.com

Email: freshwaterministriesinc@gmail.com

Abandoned?

When we abandoned the truth about how God thinks about us, we were truly lost, not knowing how to regain a true perspective of ourselves. The result of this action leaves us feeling completely alone with a sense of hopelessness and abandonment; as if someone has completely left our presence. The truth in this is that when we leave the truth, lies (or partial truths) are the only thing we have left to look at.

1. Abandoning truth leaves us with a false sense of being completely abandoned.

Many people we counsel are lost in this lie. God is not absent from our struggles. In fact, he came to reconcile us in our struggles so that we could live and walk free from accusation and lies.

2. He has answered this identity struggle by adopting us as His children into His family.

3. This is God at work reconciling the broken relationship caused by sin and our abandonment of truth.

Our main objective or responsibility to maintain a healthy identity is returning to and rehearsing the truth about what God has said and done for us, namely, how He is reconciling the world to Himself.

There are 4 areas broken by sins deceitfulness.

1. How we see and understand God

2. What we believe about ourselves

3. What we believe about others

4. What we believe about the systems of the world and whether God is present in them or not

If we believe that God is in charge and reconciling the world, then we are not abandoned. If we believe we are abandoned, then we struggle in all four areas and feel lost in our ability to find our way back to the truth.

But if we believe God is present and we seek the truth, then our chances of helping ourselves find this great reconciliation raise greatly.

Let’s review…

Sins deceitfulness causes a false sense of being completely abandoned.

God answers by instituting adoption, thus reconciling the world to himself.

Therefore, since God is reconciling the world to himself through adopting us as family, our false sense of abandonment is destroyed along with sin’s deceitfulness.

FreshWater continues to maintain a busy schedule. With your help, in the last few months we have ministered to a Hispanic woman, with the aid of a translator, helping her find confidence and hope; an angry teenage boy, lost in his identity; families grieving the loss of a loved one; marriages that are struggling; teens that have literally been abandoned and neglected; as well as individual personal struggles. God is at work and has an answer for every problem we face as humans. He is not far from the hurting. He is close. And we are privileged to be a part of the work He is doing here in Adair County.

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Helping people find significance and confidence in their lives.

We are a non-profit organization, operating solely on the generosity of individuals who desire to partner with us as we strive to help all people find significance and identity in their lives. Please consider partnering with us.


Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." - John 4:13-14

What is Spiritual Direction?


We define Christian spiritual direction as help given by one Christian to another which enables that person to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship. (William A. Barry, SJ and William J. Connolly, SJ, Center for Religious Development, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)

Is it the same as counseling?
Although very similar, spiritual direction provides a place to deal with issues that remain hidden and dark within a person’s soul, many times issues that have been suppressed for so long that the person doesn’t fully realize how much it is affecting them. Counseling’s primary focus is on a plan of action to deal with the effects of woundedness within a person’s life. We will sometimes refer to a counselor when a more clinical, psychological approach would be more beneficial. Spiritual direction’s primary focus is to teach people how to let God accompany them through all of their life, including their past pain. By companioning people in their pain, they will gain confidence from His presence and power.