I guess that's my prayer request. I want to really want it; I want to truly allow the Lord to tweak me. I don't know if it's fear or apathy or lack of faith or what it is, but I don't want to be a hearer and not a doer. I truly want to constantly be transformed into more of the likeness of Jesus, yet I don't know if I'm really chasing after it as my Ultimate Thing. Well, actually I know a lot of the time I'm not.
A couple additional requests...
- Brent & I have to do a 5-minute Scripture/marriage meditation at my cousin's wedding in a couple weeks. No idea what we're saying. Please pray that the Lord will give us a clear word...preferably the same one to both of us! And that I might actually hear it!
- I just continue to ask for prayer against the god of approval in my life and that my focus would be less on myself, so that I can love others well rather than constantly wonder if they love me. (But after all, in the words of a wise woman, "I am most focused on myself because I am myself!")
I truly value your hearts, minds and friendship so much. Thanks for your honesty and your prayer!
Mental Hugs,
Beth
4 comments:
Beth, did you crawl inside my brain? (If you are keeping track, it HAS been a little more than an hour since I last checked this blog ... I think ...[sheepish grin]) Anywho, I think Miss Beth has crawled inside my brain and hijacked it. Please don't think that any of us (particularly me) are any purer or want this any more than you do. I am totally guilty of nodding my head a lot and shouting in my best jive, "preach it, sista," and then promptly shutting off the connection between my mouth and my heart and my mind and my actions ... you get the idea. In a nutshell: I talk a good talk. I think I do this in hopes that the more I talk about it or share about it, maybe it will actually become part of my actions.
Just today, I find myself totally and completely stretched out and A+ peeved at certain situations ... pretty sure I'm not reacting how Jesus would. Instead I'm running to straight to my god of comfort. Agh. I don't know, friends, but it is hard. And then I think, is it hard because I am trying to be more like Jesus just like I try to cook a great meal or parent? (I.e. trying to do it all still within my own strength?)Probably. [big sigh]
Anywho ... all I can say is "BABY STEPS!" We're not going to get it all right all the time and in the wise words of Paula Abdul, "You take two steps forward, I take two steps back" or something like that.
Am I rambling? Yes. I'd give you a mental hug, Beth, but you stole my brain, and with it, my ability to stop rambling. Seriously: I totally relate to your concern as to whether I really, really want to be changed, or whether I just like to talk about how I want to be changed. I'm guessing God will hear our desire and still give us things that will change us (if we choose to accept).
So you just tell that mean satan that he can just STOP with all his ridiculous lying and deceiving. We're on to him ... IN THE NAME OF JESUS!
Am I the only one with Spice Girls lyrics running through my head? "So tell me what you want, what you really really want.
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want..." (I just looked up the rest of the lyrics, and I'm pretty sure that the application ends with those 2 lines.)
Like Rochelle, I'm finding myself wondering how you guys can take my thoughts and put them into words--words that sound intelligent and witty, nonetheless?!? It's like we're the same person walking around in a whole bunch of different bodies. Except when I listen to me--meaning you--I don't seem like a freak. Make sense?
Anyway... Evidently everyone can't see through my failure to put my money where my mouth is like I thought. Did you not notice how I had a whole bunch of questions but didn't include even one answer or indication of how I planned to let these questions change me? How many times I find myself singing (in my own variety of harmony) worship songs and just begging God internally to make the words I'm singing true of me and my heart. Or having a sense of what God is asking me to do to make more room for Him yet somehow thinking if I just don't say it out loud the sense of conviction will go away and I'll get an answer I like better (remember Rochelle's quote about the more we say yes, the more likely we are to hear the next time and the more we say no, the more likely we are to miss it the next time? Yikes.)
Have any of you ever heard Beth Moore's analogy about planting the seed vs. eating the seed? I won't tell it as well as she does, but I'll give it a shot: She tells of impoverished people who are simply starving to death. Yet when they receive seeds to plant to provide for their families in the future, they are so desperate to be filled up that they eat the seeds rather than planting them in the ground and awaiting the harvest. In their desperation and lack of patience and faith, they eat the seeds to get a very temporary feeling of "fullness" that soon passes and becomes desperate hunger once again. If they had only taken the seed and obediently planted it in the ground, it would have eventually produced a harvest that could sustain them indefinitely.
Now imagine that seed being truth... truth heard in a sermon or a song or personal conviction. Truth that is so moving that we weep and cry out in praise to God and tell others about. Yet how often I use that truth to feel temporarily "full." I eat it up and feel like I've changed--for a moment. But in 24 hours (or less), I'm back to where I started--feeling empty with nothing to sustain me. If only I had taken the truth and really let it take roots in my life so it could produce a real harvest.
Anyway, all that is to say I totally get where you're coming from, Beth. And Rochelle. I'm there, too. Wanting to want it more. Wanting to really give it all over to God in faith. Wanting my words and my actions to line up consistenly. Wanting to be a better me than I am right now because Jesus is filling me up more and more. Wanting "the things of earth to grow strangely dim" as I set my sights on Him as my Ultimate Thing. I guess "wanting" is where we have to start. Week 2, Day 1 hits on that... God uses scarcity (want) in our lives...to draw us to dependency on Himself."
So....Good thing these comment boxes don't limit how many characters you can type. But I should stop voluntarily before... before what, I don't know, but I know I've written quite enough.
I'll be praying we'll be seed-planters more often than we are seed-eaters.
Hugging you in my head~
Tiff
Is commenting on your own comment even worse than commenting on your own post??
Just a correction: I meant Week 5, Day 1...page 103.
This all echoes what I think I wasn't so eloquently trying to explain last night. Realizing that I want the change but not sure I want to put the effort into it. Or perhaps not knowing what applicable ways there are of making change. Guess I'm looking for the checklist approach.
I totally struggle with (and always have) feeling inferior at Third. I think that easily happens when you have so many gifted people matched up so well to service areas. In a small church, sometimes it just takes a warm body to fill a spot.
So perhaps this blog alone will keep it at the forefront of our minds. If I can be reminded daily of what I'm trying to work on and not get sidetracked by our earthly struggles (or just daily routine), then maybe some of my attitudes and behaviors will be changed.
So about those attitudes and behaviors...I guess that will be my prayer request for the week. I somehow need to have some clarity on what I should be working on right now. Every post I read feels like it's the "one" ...and then I read the next post and it's the "one." And so on and so on.
The one thing that stands out everytime I think about my spritual life is my burning desire to give our kids a strong, Christ-centered foundation..one that neither Jayson nor I had. I want it somehow to be easier for them.
My thoughts keep spilling out so I'm going to call it a night.
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