4 WriteStuff

I surround myself with sayings, with words, with pictures, with lists of what I want to be, to do, to do well… because my heart desire is to do well and to not harm. Yet I jump from task to task… and often the most important things do not fit on a list. I lose track of that which is most precious…

…even in music, that language that speaks to my heart, I struggle with the rests… As we put together various aspects of the service. The hardest part for me was inserting a blank slide… a pause… before the revealing…

There is a time to just SHUT UP… to be quiet, be still… and I find that so difficult. Those are words I reserve for myself, ‘shut up!” When we are silent, we are face to face with our feelings, our emotions, our God. I am too quick to speak… my mind circles again and again looking for a more productive way…

My most difficult, my most rewarding time each day is that moment when I kneel before my God, my father, my hope, my redeemer. I cannot enter the presence of God and come away unchanged… I do not enter His presence and leave unanswered… I don’t always like the answers… I don’t always know the right questions… I am undone… I grab hold of Jesus, of God’s word and hang on tight… until I again tackle something that I feel requires both my hands, my mind finds a lost thread and recaptures the trail it was on… without thinking, I let go of all that is good, and chase down another rabbit trail… I run again towards the jaws of the wolf.

My heart fails, my steps falter, my heart betrays me… my God comforts, strengthens and holds me when I am so weak, I cannot crawl; when the storm surrounds me; when hope, that living water, seems so far away.

15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Romans 7
But God is good, He continually brings us back when our hearts and minds wander… He continues to refine us… like gold in a fire… but oh, that fire is hot. As He skims off the impurities, more and more of His reflection is present… such a long, long way to go… I am so grateful that He continues to work in my life. Yes, I am grateful for the stillness, and the pain of the refining… I am grateful for those moments when I turn again to look in His face and know that I am not doing this alone… He is still working on me…
I wonder what the final picture will be? He sure has had a lot of work to do! Or maybe that would be, more accurately, re-do. When I am not still, the paint smudges, more debris falls into the pot He is refining… and He begins again to fix that which I have smudged.
I can never be enough for some people. But i can be enough for God, because He fills thst vast gap between what i am and what is enough.
But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. Job 23
Deeper Still:
20 My son, give attention to my words;
Incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Do not let them depart from your eyes;
Keep them in the midst of your heart;
22 For they are life to those who find them,
And health to all their flesh.
23 Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth,
And put perverse lips far from you. Proverbs 4
9 “The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10 I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17
10 Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah Psalm 46:10
10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48
14 I am poured out like water,
And all My bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It has melted within Me. Psalm 22