by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Nov 8, 2023 | growth, healing, Teaching
When I see the degree of spiritual bondage some people are in as I talk to them and discover how spiritually immature and incapable of helping themselves they are, I realize why Jesus likened people to sheep. One can almost hear it in the voice of some who are...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Nov 8, 2023 | Faith, giving
“How often is God’s heart broken by our insistence on “playing it safe”…. As if not getting hurt is the most important thing in the world.”. Taking a risk, stepping out on faith, being obedient and trusting God when something seems contrary to what the world...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Nov 7, 2023 | Lifestyle Choices
I have lost 30 pounds in the last few months, but it has not been the agony that diets through the years have been. It has been about reorienting my thinking, not so much about the food itself, but about my relationship to food….. what longing I seek to satisfy...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Nov 1, 2023 | forgiveness, heart, justice, love, mercy
“Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. (Rule 2) There are a trillion things to pay attention to. Almost all of them are irrelevant. I would argue there’s no better use of time than understanding your own personality and the...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Oct 31, 2023 | The Church
The problem with the church, any church, is not the church. It’s the expectations that people bring to the church…. In other words , the ecclesiology of individuals, or what they believe about the church. I worked through my personal ecclesiology in the...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Oct 31, 2023 | grief, memories
In October of 2013, three months after my Daddy’s death, I took a weekend retreat at a campground in a National Forest in Alabama. It was a small guest house close to the campground director’s home. I got there exhaursted, but with a big writing project...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Oct 26, 2023 | spiritual battle
Sometimes the simplest way to resolve a demonic presence is to simply listen to the person who is under its influence…. The Holy Spirit will reveal deceptions and give one the opportunity to combat the Enemy in ways that do not involve physical restraint,...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Oct 26, 2023 | significance, Simplicity, Teaching
I have often reminded discipleship students that, “It’s the little things”……….They reveal where our heart and mind are focused. Sarah Westfall writes about this truth in her “Liturgy of Little Things” in her HUMAN...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Oct 26, 2023 | Grace, Holy Spirit, sanctification
Have you observed situations in which “grace upon grace” preached and given led to indulgence and unrepentant excuse-making …..? Worth thinking about. “Grace doesn’t free us to sin. Grace makes us despise our sin. Grace frees us to obey, and, when we...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Oct 26, 2023 | sanctification, theology
I have listened again and again to several writers’ reiterate multiple repetitions of the concept of the church only being or becoming the church (again) to the extent it is a house of prayer (again.) I had taken a day off to be at home to read, pray, and...
