Maybe that's just me. (and hey, God has answered this prayer before!)
On a different note, have you ever thought, "I'm missing it. I'm missing it big, and now everyone knows it. And I should know better by now! I do know better. But I forgot. *sideways mouth face*"?
That's me.
This year, my goal for the school year is to spend more time with the Lord every day, pray more, and overall, abide more.
I have my excuses and justifications why I didn't last year. For one thing, praying meant thinking about my problems, and thinking meant being overwhelmed again, and being overwhelmed meant depression, hopelessness, giving up, and looking for icecream.
And yet, mid-year, when God showed me that I hadn't been abiding, the horrible, rotten, no-good year began to change.
I want God's help this year. I NEED His help. I need Him IN me.
That's just in the area of school. Then I open this book a friend lent me (she reads my blog...maybe she knew I needed it? :-P) called Your Half of the Apple: God & the Single Girl by Gini Andrews.
Because God hasn't fully gotten hold of me yet so that I can say these things in my own words, I'll just quote her, 'k? She writes,
"How exciting is your relationship with the Lord? . . . Think of the traits you love in people: gentleness, imagination, tenderness, warmth, understanding -- to name only a few. Now realize that God is infinite in each of these areas."
"You learn to love a human being by being with him, spending time getting to know what he's like. . . . You talk and you listen; you think about one another a lot.
God thinking about me? The world, sure; mankind, yes, but . . .me?
David said, 'How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God . . . . If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand'; and in another place: 'we are ever in Your thoughts.'"
"Yours is a God who cares for you in detail, who wants to be involved in all you do. He is truly interested . . . --well, there's just nothing about you He doesn't care about. How many hairs in that nice head of hair on which you spend so much time? You don't know, do you? He does. If God notices a sparrow fall, do you think He doesn't care when you burn a cake, wreck the new nylons, or lose a boyfriend?"
"The love relationship between you and your God is forever. It's not just til marriage and not just till death either. The intimacy and comradeship begun here is being forged every day as a link in the chain of a permanent relationship, so permanent that it's eternal. . . .
Loving and radiant, He goes with you on the subway to work, into the kitchen when you're tired, with you as you open the door of your lonely room at night . . . ."
"Does this mean we have no need for human companionship, human love, for marriage? Of course not. . . .
This is the Biggest Thing life has to offer: a deeply personal, day-by-day, hour-to-hour love relationship with the living God, and it's as freely available to you as to your married sisters. Everything beautiful in life enhances this, but nothing replaces it."
"Does God know as much as you do? Are you willing to trust Him enough to put yourself, your whole self, into His charge and go forward with real excitement into the future He has for you, telling Him as often as you like that you want love, you want a home and husband and kids, but you're on your way on the route He wants you to go, that you understand that He really does know how to make you happy?"
My personal summary, what I have lived to be true, and a reminder for when I forget: Whatever hobby horse I have--marriage, teaching, a love for icecream--the basis, the foundation, of life and all its pleasures, of meaning and of hope, is my relationship with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment