{"id":5139,"date":"2012-04-14T14:59:57","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T14:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=5139"},"modified":"2012-04-14T20:51:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-14T20:51:22","slug":"what-if-you-said-yes-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=5139","title":{"rendered":"What if…….. you said yes to God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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* First an apology: \u00a0Sorry for being AWOL yesterday, it was for good cause. \u00a0I’ve just returned from almost three straight weeks on the road, away from Sherelene and my family. \u00a0As soon as I hit the ground Monday afternoon, there was a ton of things that needed to be done to catchup. \u00a0It has taken the first three days back in the home office to answer requests, ship things out, and file reports and catch up on other administrative tasks. \u00a0Yesterday I took my first full day off in almost 24 straight working days, I took Sherelene to Lexington so she could shop and we could have a few hours to visit and catch up in the car. \u00a0We had a great day together and devoted the evening to. the phone off the hook and the TV turned off to just be together. \u00a0Thus no blog entry yesterday. \u00a0I’ll try to make up for it today! \u00a0 Thanks for understanding!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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The movie I blogged about a few days ago has continued to be a source of deep spiritual conversation between myself and God. \u00a0It has spurred me to make sort of a series of teachings drawn from the rich spiritual truths in that film. \u00a0We will soon announce the first Spiritual Bootcamp event, to be help in summer in the Great Smokies, wonderful time to shoot dewey spider webs and dew covered morning insects and flowers in the fields of Cades Cove! \u00a0The theme of the first camp will be How to Say Yes to God and No to the World!<\/p>\n

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So what do I mean saying, “Yes” to God?” \u00a0 First if you have never come here before and you just stumbled on this blog today, this all may seem a little strange, or then, if you are a believer, it may not at all. \u00a0Let’s define where people stand in relationship to God;<\/p>\n

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1. \u00a0Does not believe in God.<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0If a person does not believe that God even exists then it’s going to be hard for them to be interested in a conversation about how to relate to Him, that’s another lesson all together, and we will deal with that at another time, just not today.<\/p>\n

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2. \u00a0You believe in a “higher power” but don’t know exactly how you relate to that belief.<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0This person acknowledges that someone, somewhere is pulling the strings, but they really have no idea who it is, and have not spent a great deal of time searching for that answer.<\/p>\n

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3. \u00a0You believe there is a God, but you have not sought a relationship with Him.<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0Pretty clear what this means, you believe, but are not walking in a close relationship with Him.<\/p>\n

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4. \u00a0You not only accept that God exists but you have asked Him into your heart and are seeking to live according to His purposes for you life.<\/span><\/strong> \u00a0You’re the target audience for this entry, how do you say yes to Him and what does that mean?<\/p>\n

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In the film, What If, the principal character (Ben) who 15 years ago took a different path in life finds himself in the middle of a marriage that would have happened 15 years ago if he had not run away. \u00a0God is letting him see what his life could have been like. \u00a0He is struggling with accepting who he is and how God wants him to change, he has a conversation with an angel \u00a0(Mike) and it goes something like this;<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben: \u00a0“This What if ….isn’t working, my kids hate me, Wendy is convinced that I don’t love her anymore, I divide myself between saying stupid things, and doing stupid things, and the church is a disaster. \u00a0You need to end it!”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mike: “It’s not even close to my decision”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben: \u00a0“But I’m hurting these people and I don’t want to hurt them, I keep doing everything wrong and I mean everything!”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mike: \u00a0“That’s simple, do everything right.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben, “That’s ridiculous! ” \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Mike: \u00a0“Exactly now you’re on the right track!”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben: “You’ve not listening to me, I can’t be the Ben that they think I am.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mike: ” Look, the Ben that won Wendy’s heart and fathered those children didn’t do anythimg your not capable of, theoretically.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben, “Yeah, but I’m not him.” \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Mike: \u00a0“That’s because you don’t want to be.” \u00a0 “You want to be like him? \u00a0 Study him, learn from him, read what he read, feel what he felt and maybe, just maybe you’ll discover that you are him.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben; “It can’t be that simple!”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mike: \u00a0“Simple huh, you want to make it harder, \u00a0how about this, everything in life boils down to this; \u00a0 \u00a0God Loves you, so love other people. \u00a0God sacrificed everything to be with you, so sacrifice evereything.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben: “That’s not simple!” \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Mike: \u00a0“Yeah it is, it’s just….hard.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben: \u00a0“O.K. when this is all over can I go back to my \u00a0old life?”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mike”: \u00a0“Well yeah if that’s what you want, God’s call always involves a choice, you can always say no, in fact you already have, you know when you walked away you broke two hearts, Wendy’s and His, and now He’s giving you another chance, but you’re not getting out of this until you totally embrace the situation. \u00a0Total surrender, even on a trial basis….and then if you want to go, my guess is He’ll let you, if that’s what you really want.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben: \u00a0“Total surrender?” \u00a0 \u00a0 Mike “Total surrender.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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This journey starts with total surrender. \u00a0Are you willing to give it all up to know God’s true will for your life, are you willing to let it all go to know Him the way He want you to know Him? \u00a0The journey starts here, are you willing to start the process by telling Him that you’re willing to let it all go, for Him?<\/p>\n

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the pilgrim<\/p>\n

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*Photo note: \u00a0While Sherelene shopped at Talbot’s I found something interesting to photograph in the store. \u00a0iPhone4s with Simply HDR App.<\/p>\n

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  * First an apology: \u00a0Sorry for being AWOL yesterday, it was for good cause. \u00a0I’ve just returned from almost three straight weeks on the road, away from Sherelene and my family. \u00a0As soon as I hit the ground Monday afternoon, there was a ton of things that needed to be done to catchup. \u00a0It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5143,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5139\/revisions\/5143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}