Processing

As I am getting to know God more I like Him more and more.  Getting to know the real God is eye-opening and burden-lifting!

Yet in the process I find those roller coaster moments of my hesitation (especially when I feel like someone other than myself is "burning my ships"--explained in a previous post) that I am:

still timid before Him

Still insecure about my place in His family inheritance

Still cynical of the magnitude of his love for me

Still standing as one who needs to earn His approval

Still affected by the guilt and shame of my sins

 

These "still" truths are revealed through a few things-

silence in me, usually from shame or guilt for disobeying Gods voice in a situation (like a child who knows they did something bad, and in their guilt they remain silent so as to steer away any attention to themselves)

Secondly, a sudden lack of confidence in me.  My worth becomes questioned due to my disobedience.  I suddenly feel like I am an orphan and not a real daughter, because you know, real children never disobey their parents... (Meager sarcasm there).

At the bottom of one of my roller coasters I usually feel utterly hopeless.  As I am becoming more and more aware of my intentional sinning (it's rare that any of my sins are unintentional) I become ever more desperate to know that I know that I know that God is good and that God loves me unconditionally.  

So I pray.  I ask Him.  

"Can you show me that You love me in a really obvious way?  Not just through a pretty picture of nature or a piece of dark chocolate found on my desk, but something that only You know is in the deepest part of me...."

He always, always, always does so.

 I have to be told by Him (and I am) how much He loves me, and how He always wants to spend time with me.  

My fault lies in my lack of full acceptance that God is good, and that He loves me.

  I think I've accepted that God is God, so now it's just the other two that I need to see with more precision.

  It's a choice to accept the truth, and the truth never changes in Gods case.  He was the First, and He is the Last; He was the beginning and He will be the end.  He holds all things.  For him and to Him and through Him all things were made.  

The choice to accept that truth means getting up and off the throne of my heart.  To not be the "final say" in my decisions, even and especially in my most possessive decisions, but to yield trustingly all the small and big things.  Why?  Because He is a good God who loves me perfectly.  

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In my experience, when I choose my sin rather than choose to love God (through obedience) my ability to serve and love others is drastically diminished.  Guilt is a silencer. 

In contrast my obedience bursts open the floodgates of my heart's ability to genuinely love others, and people are revitalized by me.  I can't explain it very well right now, but it will clarify itself to me more as I continue to choosing to love God.  

When we choose to love God through our obedience we burn brightest.  I burn brightest.  I have found the power of God defies my logic haha in so many ways, it's humbling.

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I know my mom is always battling for me through her praying and probably sometimes pleading with God for me, and that's so comforting for me. 

I am reminded to pray for others and battle for them as well.  I am apart of one body, if I'm the eye and the hand is hurt, then MY hand is hurt. 

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Ok this just happened...this guy next to me ordered a smoothie.

That awkward moment when you are down to the very last sips of your delicious smoothie from a straw, sitting in a quiet room, when that slurping sound increases and you fight a battle between social etiquette to cease slurping and your own special delight in having every last sensational drop of your wonderful drink.  It's always funny when the person chooses instead to try the happy medium of taking several quick sips, rather than one really long and loud slurp.  Teehee hilarious.  -__-  ok perhaps you had to be here.  

J