Still On The Journey... Part Two

So now we come to the major life changes in my pursuit of a renewal of my spiritual relationship with God and an effort to feed this hunger that was beginning to consume me, at the same time as I was ending my time wasting efforts on politics.

We were not directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2020 lock down, in so far as our jobs remained in tact, and neither Cindi nor myself got sick from this virus. (Although I did get cellulitis around Memorial Day during that time, and thought it was COVID related until a rash developed which led us to seek medical help which diagnosed the cellulitis and several weeks of treatment)

Other than that it was doing our jobs everyday, and now the effort of me trying to find something to fill in my time while driving, rather than listening to FOX news. So I found several CD's of sermon messages that I had not listened to in years, and began to play them on the drive, but it does not take long to hear many CD'S during 40 plus hours of driving in a week. 

I then found the collection of the Bible on CD that Cindi bought me many years ago, and I began a regimen of listening to first the Psalms, then Proverbs, then from the beginning of In the beginning God created.... all through the whole bible, then Psalms and Proverbs again, and several New Testament books again, repeating chapters etc. mixing it with more CD messages etc. This went on for many weeks!

At the same time, I began to read much more when I was home instead of watching TV, except for some sitcoms, or other shows not related to any political news! It is like a healing in my spiritual mind was taking place! Some of the books that I read, I hadn't read in decades, and many of them seemed to speak to me in very personal ways. I had 3 books by Malcolm Smith I read in the 70's that I re read which brought me to tears. I also ordered some other books, and happened to order another book based on a suggestion of other titles on Amazon called "Sinners In The Hands Of A Loving God" by Brian Zahnd because it was a new way of looking at the old sermon by Jonathan Edwards, called "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God",  which I had read before while studying Church History.

And while the order of things are somewhat blurry in my memory, I did enjoy the book by Brian very much, and was reminded that I had heard an interview between him and Paul Young who is the author of "The Shack" (another book and movie I enjoyed very much) I have also listened to hours of Paul's story on different interviews and video messages. Wow.

Cindi was of a great help to me at this time, because she showed me how to  download podcasts, and how I was able to play them on the radio in the truck, (which was ALL new to me!) And one of those podcasts was by Brian Zahnd who is the pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph Missouri. I started from the beginning messages in 2017, and listened to sometimes 3 or 4 messages every day on my drive to Ohio and back. I am now caught up to the present sermons.  I also listened to other podcasts including Wayne Jacobsen, who also produced a series called "My friend Luis" which is the exciting real life spiritual adventures of a Mexican immigrant who began their friendship when Luis was first hired as a cleaning business for Wayne's home. Check it out at www.myfriendluis.com You will thank me later!

All along the way, I have taken more and more steps to seek to feed this hunger I had, for a more intimate fellowship with God! Along with many podcasts, I also listened to YouTube videos of sermons and teachings and messages, and then Cindi set me up with the app called Audible and I have listened to several books, as well as now having the bible on Audible, I no longer have to take the CD's with me. 

Indeed there has been a major change over the last 6 months as you can see, with many other things to say which could fill a book, but instead I will continue with a part three, to write about something else that happened for the first time in more than 20 years, which came about as part of telling the story of  the major life changes in my pursuit of a renewal of my spiritual relationship with God as I am Still On The Journey..