>Beautiful letdown

>These past two weeks have been a let-down, quite honestly, with our answer to prayer about our decision, and also the race.

I’ve been trying hard to keep up whatever “feeling” I had of being close to God. Trying to get into prayer, to Bible study, to want to listen to uplifting music… but what I learned for the bajillionth time is that we can’t do a whole lot to make it happen. And as I’m still growing into maturity in my walk (sometimes I feel like a baby!) I will correlate my emotional response to God with how close I am to Him.

I reach the height of my emotions usually on Sunday morning during worship. On one hand, I am so thankful that I have gotten past the point of worshiping because I “feel like it”. If I still acted that way, I would be a horrible member of the team. I worship with my all every Sunday because 1) I love God, 2) I love music, 3) I love making music with awesome people and 4) I want to see people in the congregation transformed, redeemed, healed, etc. and thus take my role very seriously.

On the other hand, I need to absolutely bring that willingness to worship into my daily life… and I mean every day. We are not given grace for tomorrow, or for six months from now. Only for today and each day we need a new outpouring.

I’ve also been pondering this idea of God’s will, and grace He gives us to do it. If I would have known that Aaron and I would be living apart for two years, I may not have suggested or encouraged him to join the military. But, by God’s grace, I didn’t know that I’d still be here even a month ago. He really does give us grace to do His will.

There are other parts of my life that I want control over. I know that you just can’t believe it, but yes, there are. (Ha.) And I’ve learned that I can’t have control no matter what. I can’t make people accept Christ, because if I could, it wouldn’t really be genuine. All I can do is pray pray pray and extend the invitation to different services and events as the Lord leads me.

Two things I have been convicted on this past week are 1) gossiping and 2) bad attitude. It’s so easy to join in the conversation with something bad to say, isn’t it? It’s like a disease that is so contagious that all you have to do to spread it is think about coughing. I think these two go hand-in-hand.

Strangely enough, and as the devil would love to have it, I refuse to gossip about people at church, at work, basically about anything except my family. With the family, there are “concerns”. I think most of the time it’s baloney. It’s not concerns; it’s gossip and it hurts the efforts of the kingdom of God because none of the words are encouraging or problem-solving. They tear down, separate and start rumors. And I’m done with it.

So I just finished this book today (yes, I actually relaxed on my couch long enough to finish a book):

You may have heard the story about five missionaries who ventured into the Ecuadorian jungle to reach a tribe that has never been reached before by civilization. I knew how the story ended.. they are killed by these murderous and “savage” people. But what struck me was the reactions of the wives when hearing the news of their husbands’ death.

They truly believed it was the will of God. They didn’t let a bitter root grow up in their hearts because of their husbands’ lives being taken. And eventually, the Gospel was brought to these people.

Whenever I start to imagine crazy scenarios in my mind, I remember Philippians 4:7:

“And the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” I love the picture of a divine shield guarding my mind from worry, doubt, anxiety and fear.