Pimple Stars/Bird Sounds/AI Art
1 year ago
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Difficulty
I've had a difficult time coming into God's presence for the last day or so. I listened to the Spirit in my heart, but something was missing. I wasn't encountering Him with joy like I had been and I wondered what was wrong. Last night He showed me that there was an area of my heart I had been keeping back from Him. I was really enjoying shopping for Christmas gifts and had been avoiding Him about it, in case He would tell me not to go shopping because He wanted to do something else. I was like a little kid holding on to some little treasure so tightly, so no one could take it away. Its not that shopping for gifts or any of that is bad in itself, but He wants all of me. Even the good things. An area that isn't surrendered blocks some part of our fellowship, which is truly bad I have decided. I would rather have Him than my little shopping spree. Nothing compares to that joy I have found in Him...though I am embarrassed to admit how hard this one was to let go of. But what can I say? Apart from Him I am still the same silly selfish girl and will always be her apart from Him. And this is my choice: not to be apart from Him.
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2 comments:
I can relate to this. It's kind of been a battle for years to want to shop for Christmas presents and feeling like maybe this isn't what God wants. I thoroughly enjoy buying presents for people. I love finding that perfect gift that I know a person will love. However, in my heart, I was sickened with what Christmas has become here in the U.S. and all the pressure to buy, buy, buy. In my heart, as I worship Him and adore Him for coming Himself to save us, I'm overjoyed. But all around me, the real joy has become lost and I've been a part of that materialism. The two aspects conflict within me and every year, a small battle would wage. And then, I was so convicted about getting a new this or a new that when there is such poverty in the world that some people don't even have clean water to drink. Why should I get a new sweater when someone else is starving? I'm trying to change it up this year. If I have to choose being buying gifts and truly directing my heart and other hearts to the glory of God, well, it's God's glory.
I went through that dilemma too in years past. But it seemed wrong to me to think of giving gifts to my friends and family as being wrong. So I began to ask God "What do YOU really want?" and waited on answers. (though it was hard to get an answer as long as some part of me still held on to her own plans)
This year the struggle has been not so much with whether to give to charity or buy gifts, but just to I remained surrendered to Him, loving Him. Then He can do as HE pleases with my money. Walking with Him like that takes away all of the anxiety I had been feeling. When I keep turning my mind to Him, and opening my heart to His will, suddenly I just KNOW what He wants to do. In fact, sometimes He just does what He wants through me. I see in retrospect that it was Him. In that way He truly is glorified. Because, I learned, to glorify God is to display His character to the world, and if HE is the one doing all the doing in and through me, then of COURSE His character will come through.
Check out John 15. The branches of a grape vine make grapes because they are connected to the life source, the vine. That vine is for grapes, so every branch connected to it will make grapes. Similarly, when we connect ourselves constantly to Christ, the vine, we bear HIS fruit, righteousness. If Jesus' life flows through us uninterrupted by our own wills, then people will be seeing Him in us. We will "bear much fruit". So the goal is to stay constantly listening, seeking, surrendering to HIS will with our WHOLE selves. Let it be "no longer I, but Christ who lives in me" for real.
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