I heard a quote once that said "words are poor containers for our thoughts" and that's totally true, but here I go anyway...

"The voice often comes in the middle of the night or the early hours of morning, when our hearts are most unedited and vulnerable.... But there is the busyness, the drivenness, the fact that most of us are living merely to survive. Beneath it we feel restless, weary, and vulnerable... a Sacred Romance calls to us through our heart every moment of our lives. It whispers to us on the wind, invites us through the laughter of good friends, reaches out to us through the touch of someone we love.... rouses an inconsolable longing deep within our heart, wakening in us a yearning for intimacy, beauty, and adventure... the tears I shed in the moments before sleep were sad and joyous and felt not at all contradictory...Not realizing it is a journey of the heart that is called for, we make a crucial mistake. We come to a place in our spiritual life where we hear God calling us. We know he is calling us to give up the less-wild lovers that have become so a part of our identity, embrace our nakedness, and trust in his goodness.... When did I stop listening?" - John Eldredge, "Sacred Romance"

I don't know where I'm going with this. It's 1:30 am. John up there is right - God definately speaks to us in the wee hours of the night/morning. We just need to listen. Two weeks ago in church Matt spoke about how we need to stop worrying about being busy Christians and be more focused on having a deeper relationship with God. This has been a tough thing for me and as I posted earlier I have been very dry lately. I haven't been reading my Bible and I haven't done much praying either, with the exception of "Honey Do" prayers. I was definately convicted. So... in the past week what did I do about it? Nothing. Then this past Sunday comes. Yet another amazing sermon - this time about how Jesus was zealous for His temple and overturned the tables - the NLT version of John 2:17 says "Passion for God's house burns within me." - but 1 Cor 6:19 says that "Don't you know that your body is the temple of theHoly Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God?" - so... Jesus could say to me that "Passion for YOU burns within ME!" - should we reverse that as well?

Sunday Evening - I finally read my Bible. I read James 5 for my bible study with Puff, Deanna, Ruth, and Stacy. So we talk about it, yay. But then we get on this tangent about God's will. God's will is a topic that has had much debate throughout always. At this point there are too many things going in my head to even remember what was said Sunday night.

Tonight. There's a group at Mercy House who meet with Matt at his house and last week they discussed that they were passionate about the city of Anderson and the community of Anderson and that they wanted to do something about it. He suggested that we read and discuss Nehemiah, because basically, he was the same way. And he did do something about it. So this afternoon I didn't read the whole 13 chapters because I knew this wasn't just a one time thing - but I did read the first four. And wow - I have never gotten so much out of an Old Testament narrative before. It's incredible. And looking back over these scriptures I don't think that in the past I would have gotten so much out of them either. So tonight we had our discussion about it - and it also eventually went into discussion of God's will. So... all of what I've prepped with here and some other things I haven't mentioned yet... here are where my thoughts are going (if they are even understandable, which I don't think is a word)

God's will - so many of us are so worried about what God's will is for our lives. We've been told many things and we don't know how to balance it. Last semester during Spiritual Emphasis Week (as opposed to IMPACT your world week - had to throw that in for Thrash) Bart Compalo (sp?) came and I remember him talking about how as Christians we spend too much time praying about stuff and using that as an excuse not to do it. If a man says, "Hey I have an opportunity for you to go to this ministry and help these people" as Chrsitians we tend to say "okay let me go home and pray about it and figure out if that's God's will" and then we pray and pray and usually forget about it. Bart told us repeatedly to "go until we hear no" - and he definately has a point. If it's "God's will" for us to go then when we start to go doors will open and we'll get the money, the days off work, etc. But if He doesn't, then those things won't happen. But tonight in our dicussion (I'm running so fast to catch up with my thoughts that I can't tell if I'm spelling things right or not so bear with me) Matt brought up the example of how this is not necessarily right - Abraham and Sarah. God told Abraham that he would have a son and Abraham looked at Sarah and said, "dude, she's old, she can't have kids" so he slept with her servant and got Ishmael - which lead to the Muslim faith. So at this point we decided that you need to have a balance between prayer and doing. Nehemiah prayed for four to sixth months before God opened the doors of communication between him and the king (to get permission to rebuild the walls). Nehemiah could have brought it up at any point before that, but it probably would have resulted in his death. Instead the king was gung-ho about it and even helped him out more than he asked for. So then we got talking about how do we balance and all that. Dansky brought up Romans 12:1-2 "And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice - the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done fo you, is this too much to ask? Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what god wants you to do, and you will know how good and pelasing and perfect his will really is." - Dansky talked about how we should be servants ready and willing to do our duties - to pray every morning, "God, I am your servant. What duties do I have today?" (not his exact words, but the idea that I remember). He compared this to a child telling his parent "I'm ready to do whatever chores you have for me" - obviously that child is going to get a lot of chores - and we should be like that with God, and then do those chores and that will be our spiritual act of worship. But then Paul brought up the fact that we should rest in God and dwell in His presence. And many other things were brought up that just went back and forth between opposites. But I think, at least for me... it eventually boiled down to this:

We need to not worry about knowing God's will - we need to focus only on knowing God. The whole of the Bible can be summed up in this - love God. I believe that if every day we try to know and love God as much as we can, then His will is going to be carried out in that. This does not exclude human nature and sin - those things will happen, and they will be roadblocks along the way. But if we model our lives after God - he will work through us. Jesus was just walking down the road or hanging out with his friends, and someone would come along and need his help, and he helped them. If I came back to my apartment and my roommate was freakishly bleeding badly I wouldn't stop and pray if it was God's will that I call 911. I would just do it. The more we grow and learn to love and know God, then the more His life is going to be reflected in our actions. I think that I almost belive that I do know what God's will is for every single human being...



love

"O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for you people Isreal. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, laws, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses. Please remember what you told your servant Moses: 'If you sin, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back ot the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.' We are your servants, the people you rescued by your great power and might. O Lord, please hearm y prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you, Please grant me success now as I go to ask the king for a great favor. put it into his heart o be kind to me." - Nehemiah 1: 5-11