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| this one's from a friend...
Seriously, I am going through one of the weirdest seasons of my life. Ever since I got back from Africa, things have been harder, more challenging. And one of the things that I really dislike have been thrown back at my face: inconsistency. I try my best, but I'm still not as consistent as I should be in my times with God. I do pray to him throughout the day, but I would really like to be more disciplined EACH day, EACH morning and devote that time to spending it with my Lord and Savior. And most of the time that I do spend reading the Bible and praying, I feel like I'm hitting a brick wall. I know I can't base everything off of emotion, but I'm just not "feeling" God at the moment. I know he's there, because at the opportune time, God does reveal himself to me and teaches me what I need to know. But for the most part, I feel so dry.
I don't know what you all will think when you read this, but this is who I am and this is what I am going through. And it's hard. I sooo want to know the Lord better and to hear his voice. Right now, God's being really silent in some areas of my life. Or maybe I'm not listening hard enough. Either way, I am just waiting.
So this is messy, inconsistent me. But in me is also the Spirit of God...the one whom I know will guide me and direct me. And Christ is in me. I just have to cling to that and keep pressing on.
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| It's time to GO!
The normal rat race offers nothing, and I can't offer it anything that it hasn't gotten ten billion times over. I was thinking about the cafe thing, and then thinking about getting a house, or maybe an apartment, and thinking about how I was going to make that work with what we're being offered, and then I was listening to Switchfoot, and the "this is your life" song came on, and it says, "this is your life, are you who you wanna be. This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be when the world was younger, and you had everything to lose" And that got me thinking that this is the time that I have everything to lose before I get it. before it's too late to lose it. before the mortgage or the rent sucks me in and the kids come and get used to "American Dream" nightmares, and I'm running some cafe, trying to pay the bills, pretending like I'm writing my musical or doing anything that matters other than keep myself in my house and my nikes (not that
I like nikes) eating my bon bons, doin jack. the song before that one was "we were meant to live for so much more, have we lost ourselves? " "Maybe we can live with our eyes half open, maybe we're bent and broken." Like just focus on this faux life I've started and overlook the "GO". Than WAM! Halalujah I'm saved! I've been so out of sorts, so lost cuz I was so ready to give up really living for a "life" I thank God for the shake down. That's all
<edit> oh yeah, it's Chris  | | |
| from a former DTSer; her advice to me on my return into... my life, i guess.
1. Get into the word...NOTHING is more important than having intimate time with Jesus. You need to have the sword of the spirit at your side.
>2. Be real with how your feeling and share it with someone you trust.
>3. Know that you are in a very sensitive place spiritually. God has just instilled SO much greatness into you that the enemy is scared like no other. Satan also wants to completely destroy you so the best way to handle that is to be aware of it and to fight it by staying close to Jesus.
>Last but not least...be aware of any pride in your life. When I came home I was so exicted to exert my new identity to everyone that I forgot to have humility...I felt like nothing could take me down and lo and behold...God humbled me because I fell harder than I ever had.. | | |
| so there's this guy who sees this pearl he thinks he'd really like to buy. he asks the seller how much it is. the seller responds that it is very expensive.
buyer: but could i buy it?
seller: oh of course; anyone can buy it
buyer: but you said it was expensive...
seller: and that it is-- it will cost everything you have.
buyer ponders for a moment, then says, "okay, i will buy it"
seller: (takes out a notebook and begins to write) "what do you have?"
buyer: well, i have ten thousand dollars in the bank.
seller: that's a good place to start. what else do you have?
buyer: nothing... well, a few dollars in my pocket.
seller: how much?
buyer: (counts his wad) umm... one hundred and thirty dollars
seller: good, very good. now, what else do you have?
buyer: nothing, that's everything
seller: well, but don't you live somewhere?
buyer: yes, i have a house
seller: then that becomes mine as well
buyer: you mean i'll have to sleep in my camper?!
seller: ahh, you have a camper-- that's also mine, then
buyer: but i'll have to sleep in my car!!
seller: you have a car?
(focus on the point of the story please, not what kind of place this man is from if $130 is change and he's not smart enough to stop telling this guy everything he has)
buyer: yes, i have two cars
seller: then they both become mine as well. what else do you have?
buyer: nothing-- i have nothing left at all.
seller: are you all alone in this world?
buyer: no... i have a wife and two children
seller: then them too-- they become mine also
buyer: my family?
seller: yes... oh, and i seem to have forgotten one piece-- you. you yourself also belong to me now. now, i will allow you to use all these things--- the money and cars and house, to know and love these people and to live, but never forget this-- they are mine. when i want them, for whatever reason, you must give them back to me, for they belong to you no longer. they are mine, lent to you for a time, and i will take them to me someday.
**for those of you who don't know, two weeks ago i lost a friend. a boy in our college group named Chris, had a sudden seizure at college and went to his real home, with his real Father. services for him were this past friday. i felt a lot of things, and one of them was "God, are you sure you needed to take him now? he was going to be celebrating his 22nd birthday next month, and he leaves his sister here, and she's not taking it so well..." and God showed me this story, and i said (after a long while) "you're right. he's yours anyway. give him a hug for me"
well, i shared that story in the Sunday School class (it's all college students who knew Chris) and then we went on to talk about other things, some of which is posted just below
--melinda | | |
| ... back to sunday school. so then we were talking, hey, and one of the things the pastor had said in the morning service (advantage to going to both morning services: if, in the first service, you get a revelation during point 2 and God takes you off on a tangeant, you can sit through the second service and get point 3) was "you have to go to God and ask Him for something new. you can't expect to win two battles the same way, counting on old revelations to take you through new situations... you have to go to him with each new things and get His plan. Abad didn't fall like Jericho; if we really want victory, we have to go to God and ask Him to show us His way for it."
and my mind went off on a tangeant... back to DTS... about how we can't live on revelations from yesterday, but we have to ask God for new things. and we can't live on sparse devotions, but we have to make a connection with Him each day. it's kinda like how when God was giving the Israelites the manna, it was good for one day, but they had to go to Him each day for something new and trust He was going to provide it, instead of trying to live off of what He'd given yesterday. That's what He does in our spiritual lives-- He gives us something new everyday, we only have to go out and get it from Him. but we can't take the old revelations and live off of them till kingdom come, talking about what God did in our lives in the winter of 2004 -- we have to get something new from Him.
i've been in touch with a lot of you who have been feeling a bit.. estranged from God (not the right word, but it's gonna do for now) since DTS. and it's not because He's run from us; it's because we've stopped going and asking for something new. We can't do that and expect to live; we will most assuredly fail. guarantee. Yesterday is over; i need something new to live on today.
so my dad's been wanting me to go to college and yesterday he (again) said "i've decided it's your choice" so naturally, i wasn't going to go. but i was praying about why, and God revealed some major fear in my heart i didn't know was there. see, i've always loved school and learning -- the whole thing, and i was afraid that even a semester at a community college would remind me how much i love to learn, and i was afraid that God would use that love for knowledge to keep me in college here for a few years, instead of leaving to go out of the country and do ministry, and that would interfere with my whole plan.
and i discovered this huge fear in my heart that if i was to stay here that long, i wouldn't want to go back, or i'd get so comfortable here, i'd be another one of those spiritually fat americans who are so content to sit here with all the money and Bibles and write a check out to an organization once a month, convincing myself i was helping... (that was a long sentence...) and God totally decided to wreak conviction all over me for that. cause if He wants me to stay here, then who am i to say i'm supposed to go? and if i go without his blessing, then who do i think i'm fooling in what i do? If He's the one that's called me to missions, then He's gonna go through with seeing it done. and if He's calling me to college and work in America, then i do that. and if He's calling me to a mixture of both, that's what i do.
but oh, how i try again and again to play God in my own life, figuring out what will logically be "most spiritual" and signing myself up for that without consulting the One who holds the plans for my life anyhow. i think it's a type of spiritual pride. and i think it's awfully disastrously arrogant for me to claim to know more about what i should do than God himself. the need to surrender all things, even my good little Christian plans, you know-- the ones i've curiously tried to leave God out of?
so if God calls me to stay here, i'm staying here. or to go, i'm gone... but it's really all up to Him (why do i find myself having to surrender the same things again and again?) and i'm not gonna think less of myself if i stay here for five years or the rest of my life (wincing even as i type that), than if i were to leave right now for... Morocco. i don't think less of others for it -- why be harder on myself? so, God's plans in God's timing. and as for now... community college, i think, with some college applications sent out again. and no more trying to read God's mind.
-- melinda | | |
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