I have had an assignment this week. To journal my hearts desire to God and to reveal and confess sins of my past to Him.
In doing this I became aware, amazingly for the first time, how some of the major decisions of my past were ways I was seeking life apart from God.
My dating and engagment to a non-believer was because I thought I needed him to have life, I didn't think God was enough.
My anger at my mom for her drinking and not being there for me, was because I felt my needs were more important than hers. I had the opportunity in those years to forgive her and offer her God's redemptive love, but I chose to hold on to my anger and resentment, because I didn't trust His love to be enough for me.
The lack of anger at my dad's choice, to reject me for his new family, shows my unwillingness to face truth and let God fill that need that I had.
It was "safe" to get angry at my mom, but not my dad.
Rather than offer my husband redemptive love and the opportunity to face where he wasn't trusting God, I chose to pretend everything was fine and keep on the mask that life was fine. I didn't trust God enough to get in the middle of our foolishness and give real life, it was easier to just keep the mask on.
When my kids were hurt by others, I usually hurt along with them and didn't help them seek God in their pain, but tried to make them "feel better".
Yes, I did make choices to trust God and there were times when I know I chose life His way berore mine, but there were and are so many times that I haven't.

Ps. 63:1 says,
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water

I pray that I will learn to earnestly seek Him.

That I will know that the longing of my soul is for Him, and will not seek fufillment elsewhere.

That I will allow the longing and not try to appease it.

This world is a dry and weary land and will not provide the living water that I need. I pray that I will remember that and learn to rely on the true Living Water alone.

O God, you are my God, you are a great God, You are all that I need.

Help me remember that every moment that You give me in this world and reveal to me the how I am seeking life apart from You.

What do I live for?

I find it interesting how often when I am reading several books, where I am in the books seem to coincide with what God is teaching me. Presently, God is getting my attention about how aware, or unaware, I am of Him thoughout my day.
Larry Crabb's new book "The PAPA Prayer" has you focus on where you are at the moment you are talking to Him. What are you feeling, thinking, focusing on, etc and then how does this relate to you and God. Who is He to you right now.
Sometimes it's hard to be honest about this. How do I really feel, what's in my heart, not what do I want to be in my heart or do I want others to think is in my heart?
And what do I really believe about God? Is He truly good and trustworthy? Am I trying to make life work apart from Him?
My SS school class is in John 5 and John 5:40 "But you were unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life" is the verse I picked as our verse for the week. These ladies are not like the self righteous Pharasees, they have come to Christ for life, as I have. However, we still make choices to seek life in ways apart from Him and we need to be aware of this and repent of it in order to enjoy the life He has for us.
A professor made a statement I will never forget. "We have all figured out a way to make life work and that feels like life to us. To give it up would feel like death, and yet that is the thing we have to give up in order to truly have life."
Sometimes this thing is the focus of our whole life, sometimes it is something small that seems unimportant, but it is very important.
I am amazed that God desires relationship with me and is willing to put up with my foolishness and continues to reveal truth to me and to woo me to Himself :)

Little Country Church

Yep...this is us in front of a little country church in Ness, Scotland on the shores of Loch Lomond.

Finally on the web...