Category Archives: Christianity

Day Nine: Letting Go of Sin

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READ:  Today’s passage comes from Leviticus 16 (verses 20-22, specifically, though they recommend reading through to verse 30).  This passage talks about the scapegoat.  The scapegoat was the goat upon whose head the nation’s sins were placed.  Then, this goat was sent out into the wilderness, taking those sins with him.

THINK:  Here we are given a list of activities to consider performing.  I will list them for you.

 

  1. Picture yourself laying your hands on this precious animal’s head.  Even better, hold a stuffed animal, figurine, or even your pet, and put your hands on its head.

 

  1. Confess to God your acts of rebellion, your bad attitudes, and your harsh thoughts about others.

 

  1. Experience the feeling of transferring your sin to this animal.  (Don’t feel sorry for the animal.  God didn’t give it the capacity to take on hurt or guilt from your sin.)

 

  1. See yourself sending it off as it takes your sin far away from you.

PRAY:  What do you wish to say to God about having sent your sins off without you? 

Now, that’s a powerful question.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how to respond to that question.  God says that this is good enough, but my mind questions:  “Is that really all there is to it?  Surely, that can’t be it.  What else do I have to do?”  I can also say that just that response right there would be enough for me to not want to take that step, if I didn’t already know better.    Even so, it was hard to actually do that activity in faith.  I kept getting this nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that there’s no way this could be good enough, because, what if the goat comes back?  How do we get so good at rationalizing away everything?  But, even more important to ask, if that’s all there is to it, then why not do it and trust what God says?  What do we have to lose but our sins?

LIVE:  Quiet your mind and wait on God to show you situations in which you need to remember what you just did.  Practice resting assured of God’s love in those situations as you are resting assured now.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of the scapegoat.  Thank you that you have made it just that easy for me to be separated from my sins, since I cannot ever hope to make atonement for them myself.  Thank you that You came after me when I was lost, and for continuing to chase after me until I am back home in the fold.  Forgive me, Lord, when I have cheapened the sacrifice of Your Son by refusing to believe that it is enough.  Help me to remember, when I am having the hardest time forgiving myself, that I cannot withhold from myself that which you have so freely given.  And when I am hurting and tempted to seek vengeance on those who have wronged me or my family, remind me that you withhold your forgiveness from nobody and that I will only be forgiven the measure I am willing to forgive.  Give me strength to walk in faith, resting in this forgiveness, claiming it for myself as my victory over sin.  Every.  Single.  Day.

In Jesus’ Precious Name, Amen.

Day Eight: The Necessity of Sacrifice

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This devotional takes us back to the basics of the Gospel but we begin by reading back in Leviticus.

 

READ:  Leviticus 4:32-35.  This passage covers the rules for bringing a sacrifice to the altar for an Absolution-Offering.  Absolution for sin. 

 

THINK:  “Each (sacrifice) served a specific purpose for interaction with God.  For example, a sin offering was given for confession, forgiveness, and cleansing.  Why does God take sin so seriously?  When we sin, what sort of sacrifices are we required to bring to God?”

 

PRAY:  Ask God to help you understand the severity of your own sin.  Thank God that he sent Jesus, the Lamb of God, to come and be the sacrifice for your sins.

 

LIVE:  Knowing that God has provided the ultimate sacrifice through his Son, Jesus, consider sharing this great truth with someone today.  As you drive, walk, work, and relax, whisper under your breath, “Thank you, Jesus,” each time you remember the sacrifice he made for your sins.

 

I wish there was something I could add to this.  Honestly, I’m coming down off of a really good message at church that was the capstone for my entire last two weeks.  It was breakfast Sunday, so I got there early and ate with a man that I’ve not had a chance to really talk to yet.  We swapped an abridged version of our life stories and talked at length about suffering and what it has looked like in our lives.  The man (I will call him “Joe”) told me about where he was in his life at the moment, and how he thanked God every day that he got a second chance at life, and did not intend to do anything to mess it up.  As for me, I shared with Joe, just how I had spent my last couple of weeks and the necessity for it.  Joe proceeded to tell me just to stay strong.  It was a really good chance to be able to extend my two weeks of devotional time. 

 

After that, we went into the service.  Worship was phenomenal.  Honestly, I cannot recall the last time I actually worshipped.  And I know that, within the last year, I haven’t truly worshipped at all.  I haven’t even been able to sing at the top of my voice this past year, and probably not for the past 3 years.  Before that, the memory gets fuzzy.  I’ve been so consumed by the drama that was our lives at the time, that I simply can’t remember what my worship life was like.  However, I believe I was too concerned with how I looked in worship to actually do it.  NOT TODAY!! 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I have participated in worship every Sunday I’ve been there.  However, most of the time, I was standing there saying, “I am singing to you because you deserve this.  You are God and I am not.”  But today was different.  I was feeling worshipful.  Now, I realize that worship is not about the feeling.  But today, I didn’t have to try to force something that felt like a lie.  I was worshiping.  Praising God because He deserves to be praised and singing the words, and meaning it, and basking in it.  I can’t describe it, but if you’ve felt it, I don’t have to.

 

Then, the preaching started.  We started a new series this week on the book of James.  We started at the beginning and we are going to work our way through.  So, today, we read Chapter 1, verses 1-4, concentrating primarily on 2-4.  Let me share:

 

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance (or steadfastness).  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

 

I wish I could share with you everything that our preacher said because it was JUST THAT GOOD.  But, what was so amazing was that it was almost like he had been eavesdropping on my past two weeks and my conversation with Joe.  Over the past year, he has shared many services that have hit my right where I was living, but most of the time, I’ve been sitting there, crying, trying not to keep sniffing through his entire sermon.  This time, I was rejoicing.  It was like God was continuing to smile down on me after having been there for me all week. 

 

So…how do I bring this back around and tie it into today’s devotional? 

 

I guess it all comes down to grace.  God’s grace is why we are on the Earth, and God’s grace provided the first sacrifice that covered Adam and Eve’s sin.  That sacrifice and every other atoning sacrifice in the Old Testament pointed to Jesus Christ, the last sacrifice that would ever need to be made for the whole of mankind’s sins.  And that sacrifice made it possible for me to have the devotional time I had the last two weeks.  God has always actively sought out His creation in hopes of redeeming them and bringing us back to Himself.  Most of the time, we spend our lives running the other way.  But when, like the prodigal son, we make our way home, even just part of the way, Our Father comes running out to us, and orders the fatted calf slain in order that He might throw us a party, in celebration that we have returned to the fold!  For me, that was what worship was like today! 

 

How could I not go out into the world and share that with people.  That freedom.  That relief.  That grace that taught my heart to fear.  The grace my fears relieved.  The grace that has brought me safe thus far.  And the grace that leads me home.  

Day Seven: God Encounters

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Good morning everyone.  Technically, this would be Day Eight, but I spent the bulk of yesterday driving and, when I arrived home, the people I live with were hosting a small get-together.  Needless to say, by the end of the day, and after the last couple of weeks, I was pretty much wiped out.  But, I am back home from Liberty (Lynchburg, VA) now.

 

Day Seven of the SOLO devotional is different than the preceding six days. On the seventh day, we are asked to review and reflect on all we read during the week and to revel in the ways we’ve encountered God in the past six days.

 

REVIEW:  This week, we have read about reconciliation in Genesis 3 and about wrestling with God until we get a blessing in Genesis 32.  Genesis 50 (verses 15-21) gave us a picture of forgiveness by looking at the story of Joseph and his brothers.  Day Four asked us to read Exodus 3 and the story about Moses and the burning bush and the holy ground.  We were challenged to pay attention to our lives in a way that might help us to notice God and His Holiness.  On Day Five, we read about the Israelites begging for meat; so, God gave them quail and manna.  This was in Exodus 16 (9-16).  Then, on Day Six, we read about God shielding Moses from the full effects of His Glory, but that God did allow Moses to see His Back, while they were on Mount Sinai (right before God wrote the Ten Commandments).  This message was from Exodus 33 and 34.

 

REFLECT:  As I reflect on all that’s been covered this week, it’s amazing to me that what I wrote and shared with you all, does not sound like it would’ve had anything to do with what we were asked to read.  But, then, is that not the grace and glory of God to take us places we don’t realize we need to go using means that would baffle other people?

 

Let me share about where God led me this week.

 

Every prayer is an act of faith.  If you don’t believe that the entity you are praying to will answer your prayers, would you pray?  I began my period of the last 2 weeks just begging God to reveal Himself to me.  I didn’t know what I needed, but I knew I needed something, and I knew that only God could provide it.  I didn’t know how He would show up (or if, for that matter) but I took a leap of faith based on what I’d read in Scripture.  I figured, “if the Bible is true, He surely has to honor this request.”  But to make doubly sure, I didn’t miss anything He might try to say to me, I made sure that I had as quiet an atmosphere as possible for Him to work in, or speak to me.

 

So, without further ado, here are some of the things God showed me this past week.

 

1. The hardest fought battles bring the sweetest victories.

 

2. I CAN live a victorious life in the midst of horrific circumstances.

 

3. I truly must work out my salvation with fear and trembling.

 

4. I hear best from God when I’m writing (this is a personal revelation, not a global one.) 🙂

 

5. Nothing I put inside my body will fill a deep ache in my soul.

 

6. The strength God gave me is a gift  I CAN use it to overcome.  I WILL use it to overcome.  And I WILL do what He has called me to do.  Regardless of how much it hurts.

 

7.  There is a reason God made me strong.  There is a reason my husband keeps saying I “just keep coming.”  I will never be able to move into God’s perfect will for my life if I am too afraid to deal with my baggage from the past.

 

All this, and it’s just the first week.  I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year reveals.

 

If you worked through the devotional this week, or followed along with the passages I posted and what I was doing, and felt God was speaking to you, and would like to share, I would love to hear from you.

DAY SIX: GOD REVEALS HIMSELF

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The title I used this time is actually the title of today’s devotional as it appears in the book.  Hmm…I wonder…Coincidence?  I think not.

 

READ:  Today’s passage is Exodus 33:21-34:7.  This is the story of God shielding Moses from His Glory while they were on the mountain, and includes Moses cutting the stone tablets upon which the Ten Commandments would be inscribed.

 

What struck me today?  Verses 21-23.  Here are those verses:

 

     God said, “Look, here is a place right beside me.  Put yourself on this rock.  When my Glory

     passes by, I’ll put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I’ve passed by. 

     Then I’ll take my hand away and you’ll see my back.  But you won’t see my face.”

 

THINK:  This part of the devotional encourages us to listen for a word or phrase that especially impresses us and let it interact with our thoughts, feelings and desires.  And this is where I find myself parking today.

 

I think about my own situation, what my family is going through, and I have often wondered where God is.  This passage makes me think about it a little differently.  What if God has not abandoned us?  What if His Glory is passing by us and He has hidden us in the cleft of the rock and placed His Hand over the opening so we cannot see what’s going on outside?  Or…what if, He has passed by, but has turned His back so we cannot look full upon His face and I am merely mistaking that for Him turning His back on us?  I realize that last bit might sound a bit like mincing words, but I’m hoping you hear the spirit of the words.

 

PRAY:  “Deeply ponder the quality of God that the word or phrase portrays.  Share with Him what’s striking to you about this aspect of his character.  Explore what makes you desirous of someone with this trait.”

 

Reading this passage, I envision a God who cares so deeply about His people that He desires to shield them from anything that might overpower them.  And the Glory of God would certainly overpower me.  These verses make me want to try to look at my current situation in a different light.  Maybe I can’t see what He’s doing because it is too powerful to fathom.  Maybe He’s shielding me from being able to see or understand because I wouldn’t comprehend anyway.  Maybe I would just get in the way.  But, maybe, and possibly, most likely, He just wants to develop my faith a little more, asking me to trust that while He has me hidden, or while His back is to me, I can believe that what is on the other side of Him is going to be something that is indeed good for me.

 

LIVE:  Here we are asked to envision the ways God is present to us right now, the posture He has and what expression is on His face.  We are also asked to listen to His tone of voice, if He is speaking to us.  And we are challenged to ask Him to enhance, or correct, this picture of Him, through the passages we read and through our experiences.

 

To say that I have been seeing God through the glass darkly (not dimly, but darkly) would be an understatement.  I’ve not been trying to see much of Him at all.  I think that’s what made these last two weeks so powerful.  Not only has He revealed Himself to me, but He has done so in such a way that He has also unveiled much of my own character for me to see myself more clearly, as well.  I’ve discovered that I cannot have an accurate picture of myself without an accurate picture of my sin.  And I cannot have an accurate picture of God without spending time in His Word.  And when I spend time in God’s Word and get a more accurate picture of Him, my sins come into full, crystal-clear resolution, and I am left seeing that the idea that I could make it in this world on my own steam is foolishness.

 

So, for now, I am going to keep plugging away, spending time in the Word by reading this devotional, and sharing it with you, trusting that God will continue to meet me here.  My prayer is that He will continue to crystalize my image of Him so that I can relate to Him from my proper place:  worthy of dying for and unable to make it through this life without His help and provision and protection. 

 

Abba Father,

Thank you for answering my prayer and for meeting me right where I was, and how I was, these past two weeks.  And thank You for revealing Yourself to me.  Please help me not to forget about this time and how sweet it was when I return home, and give me the courage to tell others about it IN PERSON so that they, too, can see that You dearly long to show Yourself to them as well.

 

In Jesus’ Holy Name, I pray, Amen.

 

 

DAY FIVE: ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST

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READ:  In SOLO, today, the message comes from Exodus 16 (verses 9-16).  This is the story of Moses addressing the Israelites complaints about not having any meat in the wilderness.  God told Moses to tell the Israelites:  “I’ve listened to the complaints of the Israelites.  Now tell them: ‘At dusk, you will eat meat and at dawn you’ll eat your fill of bread, and you’ll realize that I am God, your God.'”  That evening the quail flew in and they had meat.  Then, the next morning the manna fell from Heaven but, of course, the Israelites had no idea what it was.  Then, Moses informed them that it was the bread God had given them to eat and that they were gather just enough for each person for the day (except for on the Sabbath).

 

THINK:  This section challenges the reader to reread the passage, stopping to really ponder the emotions the Israelites might have been experiencing at the time:  the neediness of complaining; the excitement of seeing the glory of God visible in the Cloud; the perplexity of seeing this strange bread from Heaven; and the satisfaction of having enough.

 

This part is intriguing.  What does the neediness of complaining look like?  Ha, well…this one I can answer.  It looks like a gaping hole that will never be filled.  But…what it feels like is another story.  I’ve done my fair share of complaining.  Sometimes, I felt mad;  sometimes, lonely.  But every time, I felt doubtful and distrustful.  Every time, I either felt unloved or unlovable.  But, what I never felt, any time I complained, was satisfied or satisfy-able.

 

The THINK passage goes on to encourage the us to contemplate what we would complain to God about right now (and then instructs us to do so).  But then, it asks:  “In what ways, if any, have you been perplexed by God’s response to your complaining?  How might God have truly provided enough but you didn’t recognize it as God’s bread from heaven–exactly what you needed?”

 

Well…isn’t that hitting a bit below the belt?  Over the past 3 years, I’ve had plenty to complain about.  Some of it justified (in my mind) because the situation was unjust.  But, most of what I’ve complained about stemmed from the fact that God did not meet my needs the way I wanted them met.  Sure, God has provided for me.  Sure, I’ve had plenty to be thankful for.  But, why couldn’t it look the way I wanted it too?  It seems that all my years of going to church had served to give me a good dose of “holier than thou” but not so healthy a dose of “true holiness” and even less gratitude.  Naturally, I was thankful when things went my way.  But…why wouldn’t they go my way, when I was being a “good girl”?  After all, that is the way the world is supposed to work.  Right?  Right???

 

It seems I had forgotten the verses in the Bible that declare that, in this world, we will have suffering; and that if they hated/rejected Me (Jesus), they will hate/reject you.  No…I was so busy focusing on the “all things work together for good for those that love the Lord” verses that I had neglected to remember all those pesky verses about suffering.  And, I’m not even going to touch the passage about Jesus praying that “this cup” would pass from Him, nevertheless, Lord, Your Will be done.  Those did not quite fit in with the doctrine I had developed for myself.  As it turned out, I had been most of my reading out of the “Gospel according to Patty.”  And now, my faulty thinking and false doctrine have come crashing down around my ears, and I have been left feeling like, God is surely not enough.  Or, maybe I am just not worth what the Bible says I am.  Either way, the end result has been the same.  COMPLAINING.  And a general state of DISSATISFACTION. 

 

PRAY:  With the above statement in mind, I move on to the PRAY section.  In this passage, we are encouraged to formally complain to God about everything we want to complain about.  (Fantastic, I say.)  But, then, we are encouraged to ask God to show us precisely how He has provided for us, even though we might still wonder?! 

 

Wonder about what?  The passage doesn’t address that, but I have filled in some blanks for myself.  If God is enough?  If He has provided me with enough?  If He actually loves me the way He says He does and will do for me what the Bible says He will do? 

 

If I am honest, I have to admit that God has provided more-than-graciously over the course of our lives.  And over the past 3 years, though it hasn’t looked the way I wanted it to, He has taken ample care of us.  I have nothing to complain about.  But, there’s still that nagging feeling like something might be missing, or like I might do something to make Him finally decide to throw in the towel.  That’s where the “gaping hole that can never be filled” part comes in, and I am forced to deal with it. 

 

If God has proven Himself, over and over and over again, why do I still have doubts?  Why must I still be so much like Eve when that “Unfortunate Incident in the Garden” was so very many years ago? 

 

LIVE:  I will share this passage verbatim.

     “Sit in the quiet and feel God’s “enoughness” in your body.  Where do you feel it?  In arms that are full?  In a quiet mind?  In a stomach that feels full?  In muscles that work well?  If you can really mean it, try delighting in this enoughness.

 

I think that part of my issue with asking for God to reveal Himself to me over these past 3 years has been that it felt so much like asking for yet another sign or wonder.  Somewhere I got it in my head that praying that God would comfort me or show me how he had provided for me was surely a lack of faith.  And after praying for a miracle intervention into our situation and being denied, I was having a hard time asking for anything at all.  The one thing I was not having a hard time doing was complaining.  Much like the Israelites, wandering in the wilderness, grumbling and complaining, I have been wandering through my own wilderness of self-pity and doubt, grumbling and complaining that God had abandoned me. 

 

Desperate, I called out to God to reveal Himself to me.  Not to do a miracle for me.  But just to show me how He had been trying to reveal Himself to me, or take care of me, and how I had missed it.  Then, I waited; sitting in the quiet, I just started listening.  One day, during my devotional, I might read something that touched me.  “Nice,” I would think.  But then, just a few hours later, in class, somebody would say exactly that same thing, or expound on the thought that occurred to me after what I read.  Then, another thought would occur to me, and somebody else would confirm that.  By the end of the day, when I would sit down to type out my reflections for the day, everything that I had read or heard or thought would come spilling out onto the screen.  All the dots would connect and I would be left sitting in my seat, stunned, by what God had done that day.  My situation still hadn’t changed.  But, God had answered my prayers, and that was fine.  That was enough.  And finally, I felt like I was being heard again.  Like  He cared enough to listen and answer my prayers again. 

 

Until my situation does change, my prayer will remain:  “Lord, move,” but so long as He continues to “move me,” I will keep plugging away.  I will continue telling myself the truth about all the ways the Lord has provided for me.  I will keep reminding myself that whether or not I feel like I am “enough” (good enough, pretty enough, lovely enough) has nothing to do with the fact that my God is enough and that He will do what He says He will do, and that it will, eventually, work out for my good.  And I will keep reminding myself that “Enough truly is as good as a feast.”

 

 

Day Four – Learning to Pay Attention

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READ:  Today’s passage in the SOLO Devotional is Exodus 3:1-6.  This is the story about Moses and the burning bush.

 

THINK:  This particular section focuses in on Moses’ encounter with the burning bush and asks if you have ever experienced a unique encounter with the living God and what it was like.  Then it adds:  “God is holy.  What difference does that make in your life?”

 

PRAY:  “Ask God to reveal himself to you in a fresh way, a way that he has never revealed himself before.”

 

LIVE:  “Find a quiet place and spend a few moments in utter silence, paying attention to those aspects of your life that you often neglect:  people, situations, quiet moments, creation, and so on.  As you do this, look for God waiting there to interact with you.

 

For the most part, the last 3 days, I have shared what I’ve gotten out the passage immediately, letting that lead to the next part, trusting that God will take me where He needs me to go.  Truth be told, I arrived in Lynchburg on Sunday, July 6th, for classes that began on the 7th.  I will be leaving on the 19th.  I decided that I would leave the television off, when I wasn’t in class, and work on whatever God brought to mind.  Initially, I figured that I would just work on getting back into the habit of having a daily quiet time or devotional.  But, I didn’t know where to start.  Then, sitting in my Basic Counseling Skills class, last week, God opened up some pretty deep emotional wounds that I hadn’t really ever dealt with, so I started working on those.  That’s what precipitated me buying this book and why I’ve decided to start making this my daily blog post.

 

As I read the passage from today and was pondering what each section said, I couldn’t think of where I wanted to start, and I didn’t really want to just sit down and type out the book word-for-word.  But as I started typing, I realized that God had been showing all day, and for the past several, what He wanted me to share today.  And it really does have to do with paying attention.

 

My family has been going through some pretty heavy stuff over the past 3 years and mostly I have been left feeling like God just dropped my heart and broke it.  The last thing I have wanted to do, most of the time, is get with Him and discuss this.  If you’ve ever been burnt in a relationship, you know the meaning of the saying:  “Once bitten, twice shy.”  The only problem is:  I consider myself to be a Christian.  How can I have that kind of attitude about, or toward, a God that I had always believed had my best interest at heart and that everything He did was supposed to be for my good.  To say I was conflicted would be an understatement.  Nevertheless, I came to Lynchburg with one prayer:

 

“God, I am going to dedicate my free time to you.  Please show up.  I’ve been floundering and I am tired of feeling hopeless and helpless and of feeling like it is pointless to talk to you about it because I was talking before and you let this happen.  So, I don’t know what You’re going to have to do and I don’t care, but please, let me see You.”

 

I have sat in a lot of silence since the 6th of July and have been ministered to in ways that I haven’t in a long time.  As I mentioned earlier, the class I had last week opened up some wounds that I didn’t know were still festering.  It also shed some light on some things that I had needed to work on that I had been choosing not to deal with.  But, He did so in such a way that I have been able to see my own brokenness.

 

Things have been brought into the light that had been buried.  Rotten things that needed to be excised from my life, but that I had gotten so used to that they had just become a part of who I was.  One day, one of my instructors said something that I thought was strange at first:  Your clients need their pain.  They need their hurt.  You cannot just waltz into their lives and demand they give it up or tell them they are wrong for holding onto it until you know where it comes from and what it does for them.  When he said it, it sounded like one of the most dysfunctional things I had ever heard.  I couldn’t believe it was coming out of a counselor’s mouth.  But then, I started looking at my own life and my own baggage and seeing how I had my own issues I had been clinging to, that I had allowed to define me, or dictate my own actions.  And when I started exposing those to the light and trying to get rid of them, it almost felt like a piece of my soul was being yanked out of me.  And I found myself clamoring desperately to hang on to them with one hand while I was trying to push them away with the other.  How could I possibly want to hold on to something that was causing so much pain or keeping me from having the relationship with God that He wants me to have?  Why would I allow something so vile to have such control over my life when I know that God commands that we have no other gods before Him?

 

I will not share with you just what it is God has revealed that I have been neglecting in my own life.  But I will tell you that what God has revealed to me over the course of my time here in Lynchburg is just how serious He is that nothing have power over us besides Him.  He has shown me the lengths to which He will go to bring to the light those areas of my life that need to be exposed.  And He has shown that, though it will hurt, He is not doing it to hurt me, but to restore me.

 

So, if Satan came to steal, kill, and destroy but God came that we might have life and that more abundantly, then why I am I fighting so hard to hold onto something that is choking the life out of me?  And why am I not turning to The Way, The Truth, and The Life for my deliverance from those things?

 

Bringing it back to Paying Attention.  We were encouraged to look for God waiting to interact with us.  To pay attention to where He might have been trying to get our attention but we were too busy or too loud to hear it or notice.  Let me just comment on how effective the silence I have imposed upon myself has been.  I have been very actively NOT DEALING WITH God for almost a year.  I have been staying up too late, until I’m just exhausted, using my Netflix account and OnDemand for all they are worth, driving myself to distraction, just so I didn’t have to sit in the silence and hear anything from God.  As a friend of mine put it once, God was there and He knew it and I wasn’t going to run away, but I wasn’t going to talk to Him and I certainly wasn’t going to be obedient.  I was going to actively rebel and make Him watch, but I would be back.

 

Please, don’t judge.  Save whatever harsh commentary may be rattling around inside your head.  I’m just sharing the words from someone I know who was expressing how she felt during a particularly rough time she had and how she dealt with it.  They just happened to resonate with me when she related her story.  I merely added them to say that I was actively avoiding putting myself in a position where I might hear something else disappointing from God.  I didn’t want to hear that I might be screwing up again.  I didn’t want to hear that I wasn’t going to get my way again.  I didn’t want to hear that He still wanted me right where He had me.  Those things I was capable of figuring out on my own since my situation wasn’t changing.  So…I just didn’t go to Him.

 

And, as a counseling student I can tell you, most people’s greatest motivator is: AVOIDANCE OF PAIN.  I’ve been having a lot of avoidance issues this past year.  But, I was finally tired of feeling that way, and it’s hard for me to justify running away from a problem for too long, because I know that I can’t run forever and the problem with be with me the whole time.  So…I decided to start paying attention.  It was time.  And I am convinced that everyone that God has put in my path since I’ve been here at Liberty had been a divine appointment designed to show me that He was listening when I asked Him to reveal Himself to me.  But, if I hadn’t come here expecting to see God, and if I hadn’t been paying attention, I’d have missed it completely!