Florida - Gorgeous! (Old School reference nbd, sort of)

"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ" - Galatians 1:10.

This verse came to mind several times in the days leading to my visit to see my grandparents in FL. And just last night at dinner, I feel like God had to nudge me with, "remember that verse I brought to your mind. Yes that applies. Right. Now."

Words from family members tend to have much more of an effect on someone. Words from people who have known you from day 1 cut much deeper from those of a stranger, or even a friend.

God has been gracious. Since last night there are approx 5 comebacks with which I could have returned the cutting jab, but God keeps bringing that verse to mind, which helps me combat my flesh. The Enemy is ready to provide me with equally cutting words, but I reject them.

I like the end part of the verse, "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." I read that, "if you're worried about making men happy, then I can't use you Ian" and I think God wants to use each and every one of us to advance the Kingdom. Do I want to be used by God, do I want to be a servant of Christ? A thousand times yes, so that adds some extra motivation to turn the other cheek and to love said family member who is loose with his or her tongue.

If that motivation of wanting to be a servant of Christ is not enough, there's the "love your neighbor" verse. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" - John 13:34-35.

I remember one time I gave a certain family member a big hug when a handshake was expected, and it sort of paralyzed him (um...or her. ok it's a him :). So when we can return a jab with an act or word filled with love, then that's powerful.

That's the Kingdom.

** I hesitate to write this entry and I wanna backspace the heck out of it for fear of giving the impression that my time in FL with my grandparents is not enjoyable. Beneath it all, I am forever thankful to be with my grandparents. Another reality that hits me is that my grandparents are just people. My grandpa's just a guy, and my grandma's just a girl. A guy and a girl who decided to marry each other, and later to have kids who then had kids, ect ect. They, just like me, just like you, have a past full of successes, and some failures. Not all of it is rosy, and on this level I can relate to them. We're all broken, but we're still all created by God who relentlessly pursues us in order to make us whole again, to complete His work in us.

*** why the picture of Bush? I'll blog about it later. Let's just say that W and I are now bbf's now tho nbd.

Lean

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Prov 3:5-6

I felt like I needed to sit in silence for a minute, so I put my chillin' mix on. But even my chillin' mix doesn't allow God the space to meet with me. If you know me well it takes a miracle for me to chill w/OUT my chillin' mix on :) Maybe I need to create a Silent Mix with zero tracks on it. I digress...

"Can you turn that off, too" says God. Ok fine.

Sometimes I get to this place where I have 80,000 thoughts running thru my mind, mostly jumbled up, and they consume me. I push God out of the picture the more I dwell on them, which leads me to where I end up now.

The silence.

And that verse pops into my head. And I feel like I can finally STOP leaning (slash dwelling) on my human, ugly, feet-running-in-place thoughts and it finally forces me to throw my hands up and say "ok I can't do anything more at this point. I'm just running in place now. I guess I have to trust you. I need to acknowledge you now, b/c I'm done with trying to figure out this stuff on my own. Because I'm tired, fresh out of energy, and I don't get it"

Not going to say it's rock bottom, but, it's certainly not a spacious place, where God ultimately wants to bring us into.

"He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me." - Ps 18:19

That verse has been coming to mind today. After David has the "chords of death entangling him," God rescues him b/c He delights in him, and He brings him into a spacious place.

A spacious place, where he looks all around, and there's nothing, nothing but the Father who just took him to that place. No enemies. No worries. No jumbling thoughts. Nothing. Peace.

But I don't think we can live in that space forever. Perhaps it's an "ok child, O child whom I created with my bare hands in your mother's womb, let me draw you out of these deep waters and take you to this place so we can spend time together, just you and me. Let me show you Truth. Let me show you my everlasting, ever-faithful promises I have for you."

And we get refreshed. And then maybe God nudges us back to real life, and gives us that free will to make choices, to make decisions, but at least we can feel better about stepping forward after we've met with Him. I need to meet with Him, I need him to come and meet with me.

Paul's (my) Contradictory Life

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." - Romans 7:15.

This verse has been coming to mind a lot over the past several weeks, and I'm not sure why. Sometimes God can bring stuff to mind w/out saying why and we just need to be OK with that, I suppose.

I wonder tho if this verse applies only to the sinful nature we have, or if it can apply to simply us humans behaving in a way that's contrary to what we want. Fear can be a part of that; it can be this driving force in our lives, compelling us to do things that we don't want to do, or NOT do things that we want to do. There's the fear of the unknown, the fear of failure, the fear of rejection.

I suppose when we let fear drive us, then that is sin, so maybe it circles back around to the sinful nature I was talking about.

I say all of this because I am afraid to sit down one day and make a chart of "What I'm currently doing" and "What I want to do." I'm afraid that they will be vastly different, and I'll wonder what I'm doing with my life.

So what, then? Do I go after the things in the right-hand column, the things I want to do, and deal with consequences if it gets ugly? I should at least do a self-eval to see if any fears or anxieties are keeping me from moving in any given direction that God is calling me too, a direction on a path that I am currently not on.

Not sure what to make of all of that, and there's still more "abrewin'" in my heart and mind about this. But it's hard to explain, hard to put in words.

Final thought - I love how Paul's real honest in how he's living this contradictory life, because my life too often feels like a giant contradiction between the things that I believe in, the things I want to do, and the things I'm actually doing.

Thankful tho for God's grace, a grace that I should receive like a child, a child who can do nothing of merit to deserve that grace.