December 06, 2006

Desiring Life

It’s been a hard week. Work has been busy and nights have been fully scheduled. Time to reflect, read, and pray have been scarce. Just this afternoon, I returned home, read for thirty minutes, then realized I had a half hour until it would be time to go...again. I felt rushed, pressed, and stressed. I was not going to be able to do everything that needed to be done to satisfy my heart’s demands. I felt the urge to go pray. Thankfully, I followed it.

Something in me encouraged my heart to pray quickly: I still had to publish a blog. I couldn’t believe the conniving of my heart. I so often view satisfying Life as getting everything done that I schedule for the day. Writing a blog fit into today’s plans. Completing that would be a step towards fulfilled aspiration. Then I pictured the blog’s title, Desiring Life. Fortunately, I was reminded. I am after real Life, not the life that I arrange for myself.

Jesus talked about real Life being the experience of knowing the Father and Him. He prays about it in John 17:3. Real life is not reading the quota of Scripture that I set for myself each morning; it’s not praying for a certain number of times each day. It’s not writing a deeply spiritual book. Although all these things can be good, when they become the point, bad things happen.

I feel rescued. My focus tonight has shifted. I was reminded of Jesus and a discussion with some Pharisees in John 5:39-40. I am often a Pharisee. I study and memorize Scripture as if it is the point. Jesus rebukes them, and me. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

Tonight, I want Life. Not my version, but the Real kind. I asked God to walk with me and show me that the experience of relating well with them really is the point.

2 comments:

Lori said...

Thank you for visiting my blog. And thank you for the compliment of the design. I had Susie of BlueBird Designs design it for me, she is WONDERFUL.

This is her sight, http://www.bluebirdblogs.com/

She does a great job in, not only designing the blog, but in capturing the persons' personality. How she does it I do not know. I do know she is in demand. I originally submitted my request in October and just now had it completed.

She does not invoice you until you are completely satisfied.

Once again thanks for visiting, feel free to stop by anytime =)

PS. about your post, I know exactly how you feel. I am right now battling keeping my sanity to going , going, going.... God has really been helping me and keeping me focused. I have to say that is no easy task =)

Anonymous said...

It is a scary, and yet necessary thing to realize your own inner Pharasie. It seems ironic that at a time when we are supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus, we get bombarded and overloaded with "holiday festivities." Dec. 26 is my favorite day of the year, I think. All the goodness of Christmas, none of the Christmas scheduling!