I love how Friday's are becoming my "AH HA!" days :) I rejoice in the fact that God has turned my dreary depressing Friday's into Hallelujah Fridays! He's literally turned my frown upside down :)
Well today is another Hallelujah Friday! God has once again shown me something that is worth singing about... but since I don't have a record deal or anything close I'll just blog about it :) :)
Today started out crappy. I woke up late for my once a month job, it was cloudy, and I just wasn't feeling like doing anything! Argh I hate moods like that! After my job I got home I ate some lunch, did pointless things like Facebook stalk my friends etc. etc. etc. (See I'm still learning to seek God for happiness instead of other things. So there, I'm not perfect and I don't always learn my lesson the first (or 500th) time.) Finally I decided enough was enough with this mood. I realized it was time to just dig into the word. I got a new Bible study called "Having a Mary heart, in a Martha World." Though I don't consider myself especially serving like Martha, I do consider myself being too "busy" for God. I felt that this was the exact study that God wanted me to do... and I was right. God pointed out something very special to me today, my personal relationship with Him. I have been struggling with it for the past week or so. I wanted a personal relationship with God SO Bad and I wanted to be able to just focus and pray to Him all the time, but I didn't know how. (That was the main reason for me picking up this Bible study.) But once again God didn't give me the answers I was necessarily looking for, instead He showed me what I needed to see.
In her book "Having a heart like Mary in a Martha world," Joanna Weaver said,
Jesus invites us to come and rest, to spend time with Him in this incredible intimacy. Intimacy that allows us to be honest in our complaints, bold in our approach, and lavish in our love. Intimacy that allows us to hear our Father's voice and discern our Father's will. Intimacy that so fills us with His love and His nature that it spills out to our dry world in service. It all begins down at His feet.
As I read this I got a tingly feeling and thought, "YES! This is exactly what I want!!!.... Now how do I get that exactly?" I love what she says at the end, "It all begins down at His feet." This is where my Ah Ha moment comes in. You see I kept thinking that a personal relationship with Jesus was all up to how much I did. That I had to be the one that kept talking. I would kick myself every time I realized I hadn't prayed that day, or I would tell myself I needed to talk to God more about how my day is going. Don't get me wrong I still totally think we need to pray to God constantly and talk to Him openly. I recently read a book by Beth Moore called "Jesus, the One and Only." She said something that I absolutely loved, something to the effect of yes Jesus knows exactly what's going on in your life, but He still wants to hear you talk about it. Whether you're excited about something that happened to you or upset about something you did, Jesus wants to have a real relationship with you , not a stale "thank you for the sunshine, thanks for the flowers, oh and by the way I need a scholarship if I'm going to get into college. Amen." He wants to hear about your life and day, and He wants you to ask Him for things!
But what God has shown me today is that a relationship with Christ really starts with me bowing my knees and sitting at His feet to LEARN! It's not all about me. As I journaled my feelings about what I had just read I wrote this down, Learning from God+ Trust= a relationship and intimacy. It starts with God, not with me. If I sit down at His feet and learn from Him I will then gain this awesome intimacy that allows me to hear His voice and to start seeing His will more clearly, that will help me SO much in my prayer life and in my side of the relationship!!
What God has taught me today in a nut shell, A Real, intimate relationship with our loving Father starts with Him, not us. His word is to be the foundation of the relationship, not my complaints or praises, though those are Very important too! I wish I was better at words and could just express to you how I feel about all this! It's so amazing, and so Freeing to know that it's not just up to me to keep this relationship going, Jesus wants it too! He's not like some friends who drift away if you don't talk to them for a little bit. Instead He is always there, waiting for you to sit at His feet and listen. And after you listen, He wants nothing more than for you to respond and tell Him what's going on in your life :) We serve an Awesome God!
With Love,
Abbey
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