Good Morning Butterfly: A Love from God Is Our Greatest Gift

By John F. Grooves

Mr. Groves believes that many Christians today are questioning who they truly are, and how they fit into the kingdom of God. They have had doubts about what God says they will become or what they can be, and challenge whether God will keep His word with what He will do in their lives. They are having trouble with their faith and trust in God.
Mr. Groves was also having trouble dealing with his trust and faith. One day, Mr. Groves felt Gods presence imparting the message that He would show what was needed to know and to become one with Him.
Mr. Groves experiences and journey compelled him to reveal what he has learned to others through Gods wisdom. It is important to include your heart, mind, body, and soul and to, conditionally, love and trust His word. This book reveals Mr. Groves discovery of the power behind trusting Him everything that he does, and everything He says, even when we are in the midst of our troubles. He explains how having faith in God, and God alone, will bring us through whatever we are enduring.
As Mr. Groves began to reconnect with God and reveal that he had felt left down by God in the past, he learns a very valuable lesson, and is delivered from the old and into the new with God. His journey through trust and faith has led Mr. Groves to tell his story.
John F. Groves writes, I can recall the journey of transformation that God put me through to become one with Him. This was the process of being tucked away inside His cocoon of grace, and trusting His timing, His process and allowing Him to completely remake me through His mercy. It was time of not knowing what or who I would become once I submitted to His will, and not on my own. But I followed Him, even though I could not see what He saw in me!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468551471

John F. Grooves

I am an inspiring writer and moltivational speaker, lecturer, panalist and business consultant. I have been published with articles in the dcmilitary.com. The central theme of my lecturing focuses on what God tells us to do during certain times in our lives. My lectures and messages has inspired countless military, educational, and politically inspired leaders to reach goals and to maximize their potential. As a war veteran who have served over twenty-one years in the military, and have had the opportunity to address vast audiences abroad. throughout my military career I have learned so much and now have the opportunity to teach about my experiences. I have earned an MBA in Business Management at American University, MBA in Human Resource Management at American University, Masters in Project Management at Villanova University and a BS in Computer Science. I am currently pursuing my Doctorate studes in Executive Leadership and Organizational Behavior. I have traveled extensively and am the pround father of two beautiful daughters and a son. I currently work as a consultant in the defense industry! I currently lived in Great Mills, Maryland but am originally from St. Louis Missouri.

Book preview

Good Morning

Butterfly

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A Love From God is Our Greatest Gift

John F. Groves Sr.

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2012 by John F. Groves Sr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/11/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5149-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5148-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5147-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012902159

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

A New Beginning

Chapter 2

It’s Been A Tough Journey

Chapter 3

Learning To Trust Again

Chapter 4

The Burdens Of Being Blessed

Chapter 5

Overcoming My Past

Chapter 6

Lifting The Reproach Of Men

Chapter 7

Regaining Faith In God

Chapter 8

Living As One With God

Chapter 9

Inside The Cocoon

Chapter 10

Prayer Journal

Chapter 11

Parable Of A Christian

Prologue

Someone once told me that being a true Christian would be one of the toughest and hardest things that I would ever have to do in my life. They also informed me that by attempting to walk a faith based life, it would require me to make several changes to my current life and those changes would require me to become a new person in my thoughts, my beliefs, my walk, my talk, and my actions.

Furthermore, I was informed if I were to become new in God, then I would have to give up the old in me and start a new replenishing journey towards Him. This new replenishing journey would be required for me to develop a new level of trust and faith in God.

As I considered with thoroughness, what this person told me, I thought about my past and present walk with God and then I began my walk towards him. True enough as I started my journey as a New Christian, I realized that they were accurate in their every assessment.

They were precise in the way I started looking at things. They were correct in the manner in which I now viewed the world and they were right in how I began to look at myself!

I started seeing myself with new vision and I began to notice that as I started making certain changes in my life, it was those changes that required me to make other changes to adhere to my new changes.

These changes required me to take a new look at myself and to take a new look at the world in which I thought I lived. This was the beginning of the transformation and metamorphosis God was about to put me through.

My Calling

I have always known that there was a calling on my life to be one with God, but I didn’t really know how and what to do about it. It wasn’t until I was at the lowest point in my life that I was forced to surrender to God.

Once I surrendered to Him, it was then that He told me it was time for me to come back home to him. In acknowledging this was true, I felt like one of His wayward children who had gone off on my own, not knowing exactly how difficult being out there by myself would be, and then experiencing trials and tribulations, which I was not fully capable of handling.

Shortly after I packed all of my things and went home, so to speak, God met me at the door and told me it was time and that I was about to embark upon the most important journey of my life to fulfill my calling. He told me this was to be a journey that had been predestined for me from the moment I was born.

Albeit I had left God’s comfort and gone astray a long time ago, I knew the day would come when I would have to go back home to face the music, for the reason that when God decided in advance to adopt us all into his own family by bringing us to him through Jesus Christ, it was only a matter of time that I had to go through my transformation of becoming one with him.

No Easy Task Going Back Home

Becoming one with God and making changes that would enable me to walk with Him, was not going to be an easy task for me and I must admit that there were times when I moved away from what God told me I had to do to walk with him.

On top of that, going back home was never something that I looked forward to doing, especially when it required changes in me. If that wasn’t bad enough, the hardest part of going back home was giving up my freedom.

Since I had experienced the freedom of making my own decisions, and living my own life, it was tough to give up that freedom and submit to someone else. It was tough because I had been responsible for my dreams and goals, and whether I made those dreams and goals come true, or not.

Alternatively, I felt that once I went back home I would no longer be in control of my own destiny. As a consequence the ideal of this didn’t fare well with me so I initially rebelled.

The Truth

There were days when I didn’t listen to God and I attempted to do things my own way. Likewise there were days when I set on the sidelines and watched others take up their cross and walked with him while I postponed my journey and my destiny. I had done everything that I could have done to be as far away from God as possible.

Although I was running and hiding from God, He didn’t let me get too far from him and finally I realized that it was my time to take up my cross and to walk my walk with Him.

This was revealed to me when He told me to let go of everything I knew and to give permission to Him to take control of my life! He told me that once I allowed Him take control, I would be under His covenant and I would be one with Him.

Nonetheless, this was a very frightening thing for me to do because I had always prided myself on being in control and I felt at that point I wasn’t going to have any control at all. I was afraid but still I relented and let go.

Even though I called myself letting go and letting God, there were still some things I held on to because I didn’t quite understand where God was taking me and didn’t trust him totally. Consequently, it was because of my disobedience that I had to endure some very hard lessons that would change and mold me forever.

It was these lessons which enabled me to learn what being a Christian was really all about. I found that being a true Christian was not a momentary feeling with emotional attachments, or a weekend trip, but being a true Christian was and is a lifelong journey, one in which I was about to embark upon.

Still, It wouldn’t be until I let go of my own understanding completely and I took heed to what God had in store for me, that I would able to see His vision to help make my transformation.

Your Calling

I mentioned that I knew there was a calling on my life; as well I believe there is a calling on each and every one of our lives. Just as I have mine you have yours as well and at some point in time we all have to fulfill our calling.

What’s more, I believe that as we go through this world on our journey we are all predestined to be something or to be somebody great and we just need the guidance to get there from where we are today in our lives.

In this book I will talk about what God has told me about my calling when I finally let go of me and started trusted in Him. As I enlighten you about my journey and how God helped me, I hope it will help guide you over to your calling.

While Reading

Inside this book is an account of my personal journey towards becoming one with God and fulfilling my destiny. This book conveys my longing to live for Christ and to be His very own. It is my personal journey of becoming a Christian and loving God with all my heart, mind, body, and soul.

My journey to become one with God has helped me to focus on being able to love him unconditionally. It has taught me the power behind trusting him even when I was in the mist of my troubles. It also taught me to have faith that His Will is better than My Wants.

As I embarked upon my journey I found that through my tested times God and God alone was there through every step of the way and only he knew why I had to go through the trials and tribulations that I went through. Yet through all of my trials and tribulations, he brought me through each one with no evidence of pain or any scars.

For that reason, as you continue to read you will see the ups and downs of me as a New Christian and how I struggled to build a true relationship with God. You will see how my distrust in God became trust and how my doubts became full and complete faith in him and his promises.

Starting My Journey

When I first started my journey I had little to no faith in God, let alone in what he told me he would do in my life. Furthermore, I found that trusting Him when I was in the mists of my troubles and leaning on his every word was something I had heard of but I didn’t believe in it at all.

I believed the key to me coming out of my troubling situations and becoming who and what I was supposed to be, relied solely on me and me alone. I believed that there was no one else in my corner but me, so to speak.

It was because of these thoughts that I struggled with becoming what God had called me to become. Furthermore, due to the fact that I didn’t talk to God I couldn’t hear Him, and therefore could not possibly know what he wanted from me.

The bottom line was I was not in tune with God, I couldn’t understand His music, so I doubted that I would be anything other than what I was. I couldn’t see His vision for me and could only see myself as a mere Caterpillar and not the Butterfly He promised me I would become.

However, my faith in God grew more and more as well as each morning that I awakened as a caterpillar I found a peaceful place, which I called The Garden, that I hadn’t been in a very long time, where I prayed and I waited for a new word and a new message from God.

In this garden is where I talked to Him and I waited for His transformation of me into a Butterfly. This is where He would give me the Wisdom to learn some very important lessons and to see me through some very important things as I went upon my journey.

I learned that trusting and having faith in God was what building a true relationship is really all about.

These lessons and visions I tell in my story.

I Thank God for Jesus, I Thank Jesus for saving Me, and I Thank You for allowing me to tell you about My wonderful experiences and relationship with God!

My Story is called Good Morning Butterfly!

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank several people who were there with me through the good times, and those who stayed by my side during some very tough times. Without these people I don’t know what I would have done.

First and foremost, I would like to give total thanks to God, because if it were not for Him I wouldn’t be here today and would not be fulfilling my calling. He has been and continues to be My Rock that I stand on to realize the higher limits he has promised me!

God is the voice in my head that whispers to me the right directions when I am lost. He is