At times
I lament my slow learning curve
And yet,
the opposite is to refuse grow at all
or to be so arrogant as to think
there's no more room for growing.
So I will welcome the learning and discovering
as slow paced as it may be
and I will rejoice in a God
who so patiently
and intimately
unveils Himself
to me.
My time with my Spiritual Director yesterday
was heavy.
Good, necessary, and the place I needed to go
but somewhat overwhelming all the same.
Fear
or more aptly
my fear--
My fears of future "what if's",
of loss and illness
No one who knows me well would be
surprised that I struggle with fear
And truly
I would love to be free of it!
But how?
When?
God knows I've tried!!!
I listened quietly
as my Spiritual Director
talked of God and His sovereignty,
and all that this encompasses,
and then how we
in our brokenness
often create our own theology of God.
and then how we
in our brokenness
often create our own theology of God.
I wrote down the pathways she suggested
I take
in order to move towards healing and freedom
and away from the grip of fear.
This morning I started reading one of the scripture passages
she gave me
and the discovering began.
What follows is the unfolding of my time with
God and His Word.
(Incidentally, the best way for me to read and take in scripture
is to follow a pattern which Ruth Haley Barton lays out--
Read, Reflect, Respond, Rest, Resolve.
As I'm reading a portion of scripture I "listen" to
what grabs my attention
and then focus on those words)
Read:
1 Samuel 2:1-11
"The Lord kills,
The Lord gives life.
Some He cause to be poor
And others to be rich.
He cuts one down
and lifts another up...
For all the earth is the Lord's
And He has set the world in order." (vs. 6,7,8b LB)
Reflect:
"This is indeed a difficult passage.
'The Lord kills.'
Wow!
He causes some to be poor and others rich.
It doesn't sound loving or kind.
Yet....
that presupposes that I am the one
who knows what is loving and kind...
that I am the one who is
all wise,
all knowing....
Hannah understood God in a far reaching way.
I am becoming more aware of how I limit God,
how I try to keep Him in a box of my own making.
That way I can feel "safe".
Otherwise God becomes too big to control...
out of control...
unsafe.
'For all the earth is the Lord's
and He has set the world in order.'
Yet there is something strangely freeing
about allowing God to be God.
Less energy and work on my part
trying to explain Him,
control Him,
"anticipate" His actions,
understand His actions.
I can let God "be".
Take my hands off.
Rest in my "being" as a finite human
and rest in Him as infinite."
Respond:
"God,
thankyou for this glimpse of freedom;
this unveiling of my face to see Yours more clearly.
'...whenever a man turns to the Lord,
the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit;
and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty(freedom)'
2 Corinthians 3:116,17
"God, You are transforming me
into the same image(Your image)" vs. 18
which sounds so incredibly radical....
that I could actually be
becoming more like You!!!!
I am grateful for Your unveiling
of my heart today."
Rest:
In the vastness...
the "bigness"
of God
Resolve:
To keep my heart turned to the Lord
so that He might remove more of the veil.
Yesterday
as I turned on to my street
following my time with
Ingrid
I heard the song
"Make Me"
by Sidewalk Prophets
Some of it was exactly what Ingrid and I
had talked about together
And while I can't say that I am able to sing the words with gusto
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