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Lately, I have been feeling a lack of God's presence in my life and while I have not doubted God and I know He is here. I have been questioning why do I not feel him, then I look at my life and realize I do a lot to block him out. I feel I have some put up so many barriers around me that it is like a wall around my heart. Yesterday, I read James 4:15 "Instead, you ought to say 'if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that'." And that got me thinking... what is the Lord's will. My dad and I were talking that sometimes we think of God's will as being a tightrope that we get nervous about falling off. And I thought, how true but I think God's will is wide enough to take our imperfections and make them perfect in Him. Which, personally find really awesome because God is not limited to a narrow pathway and we are not limited by fear of falling off. We can make mistakes, wrong turns, detours, and U turns and God can work with it.
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Today I read Psalm 51:10-12...
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit away from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
I read the NIV Life Application Bible and it has awesome footnotes, the footnote for this passage said "God wants us to be close to him and to experience his full and complete life. But sin that remains unconfessed makes such intimacy impossible."
I prayed to God about my pride, my doubts, blocking Him out. I have prayed forgiveness of these things before, and I keep asking for God to be able to feel His presence, but the thing is no matter how many times I asked it is hard to change my habits. I know they say it takes 21 days to change your habits... well I think today is day 1. Instead of turning on the TV right after my quiet time, I turned on some Christian music (yes I am still addicted to noise, but at least this send a positive message) and while listening to music I can do other things (like write this post) instead of wasting hours in a mindless TV show. I am not expecting a miracle overnight but I feel I have to start sometime.
So what does this have to do with God being the Good Shepard? Well instead of listening to my thoughts "that I can handle this all..." or that "I got this..." I am going to try to find comfort in the knowledge that God is with me and leading me no matter what. I am going to try to put in practice more and more leaning on His hope. I am going to try to stop listening to my doubts and listen to my faith... and maybe one day I can stop saying "I am going to try" and it will actually be true.
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