It is not a simple process because before one can cross, unknown dangers may have to be faced and terrifying battles fought. This is what Jacob discovered. To cross over into Canaan was not just a matter of crossing a stream, because in the darkness a strange and mysterious presence arises. Ancient tales had it that rivers had spirits which had to be defeated before the river could be crossed.

Controlling What YOU Hear By Watching What YOU Say: If you’re going to listen to anyone you’re going to hear yourself. It does not matter what anyone in the world says about you, it means nothing until you allow it to get into your spirit and you begin to say what is being said to you.

A humorous look at the author's experience at the Crosswalk.com forum.

Learning how to be content in any circumstance necessitates that you begin by making the decision to take life where you find it and work with it.

God knows we cannot make it to His kingdom until we learn how to sacrifice our needs, our wants, and our desires, for the good of someone else. In other words, until we learn how to love one another, even the unlovable. And, we can never love until we get rid of the anger.

An out-of-wedlock pregnancy causes this woman to turn to God in desperation -- and she finds only unconditional love.

Proverbs 19:21 it says Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar. The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

So it is with all of us who confront our garden; whether we are on our beds of affliction, behind prison walls, or just struggling to live in the midst of life’s chaos and pettiness and brokenness. We know that when we get to Gethsemane, nothing else matters.

Do we really think we can just ask God for some great position in life with out any preparation? Not hardly. Psalm 107 tells us that God sometimes brings storms into our lives to accomplish a purpose in us. And that purpose, I believe, is to prepare us for greater things.

Do you realize you are creating your future by the very attitude you possess?

Maybe once in a lifetime, we find ourselves seeking spiritual growth mostly when everything we try to do is hard to achieve. Among the many questions that consequently come out are: Who am I? Why am I here? Is there a Higher Power?

The cost of freedom is not free! A reminder on this Memorial Day weekend of the cost.

A brief exploration of the difference between the western view of our imperfection and a movement towards 'Wholeness' vs the eastern view of our always already perfection and movement away from 'Wholeness'.

Spiritual growth is the process of inner awakening, and becoming conscious our inner being. It means the rising of the consciousness beyond the ordinary existence, and awakening to some Universal truths. It means going beyond the mind and the ego and realizing who you really are.

I love recipe books...looking through them, collecting them, and occasionally even using them. I suppose just having them is rather like a safety net. It's always mind assuring to know they are there just in case... But unless they are opened up and used, all the secrets inside will forever remain hidden from view. It will benefit no one. Are you hiding your hidden treasures from view?

As we walk along our paths in life, we will encounter several forms of friendships. There will be friends of convenience, friends by association, and friends of the heart. Friends out of convenience are friendships that you might have simply because you both are accessible to one another. These friendships are common in a work or school environment as people are united by place alone. You might even term these friendships as ‘associates’ instead of friends, because you associate with one another because you feel that you have to.

We are living in highly challenged times. Our mass consciousness directly reflects the discord in which many of us find ourselves within our own personal lives...

We confuse ourselves about the meaning of the spiritual path. And because of this confusion, we never embark on it. Yet the end of confusion comes from looking at the essence of true spirituality. Once we capture that essence, we can act in a way that sets our feet on that path.

There was a time in my life when I seriously wondered whether there was intelligent life on other planets. As a child, I believed that we human beings here on the planet Earth were God's only children. I learned early on how special we were: we were made in God's image, to look after His planet. There was no other force in the universe (which I envisioned as a big, black void with our planet in the center) that could compare to us...

This article describes how the body can be affected by stress. It shows what happens to vital systems in the body and how this can lead to illnesses and disease. It closes by giving some ideas on how to combat stress.

We all deal with stress in different ways. Discover the top stress reducers and how to get through the rest of your business day...

Control issues are a big factor in stress. Once you learn to let go, your stress levels will diminish.

When you are stressed and feeling down, have you wondered why you also feel so tired and muscle pains are suddenly all over your body? This is because your mind and body reacts simultaneously on whatever feelings you have.