reflectionoitcelfer
Time for reflection, where have thou gone? My diary has turned stale ever since school started, and I've been drifting wherever the tide takes me. Like ants on a log in turbulent waters who think they're steering it.
The EP retreat was a much, much, much needed anchor. A sobering look at ministry and what it means to have a growing leadership only pointed my thoughts back at myself—am I growing? What is my current spiritual, ministerial and strategic formation? Rather dismal actually, what with all that constant spiel since the start of school that I must place priority in knowing God rather than knowing about God... My conversations with E, and the Lectio Divina that Rev M led (and subsequently privately exhorted E and I, bless her) on 1 Kings 6 eventually coughed up one word: Obedience.
My mind has been swimming with thoughts of an unprecedented egocentric scale. They keep resurfacing despite my desperate attempts to battle it, and there's really no wonder why I'm failing at it: I've fighting it with my own strength.
I do fire off prayers to God to help me, but His Word has been weak in my life. The Sword of the Spirit has been blunt in this one; I find myself with less and less strength and unction to combat these. Obedience. School, even Bible school, is not the walk in the park with Him (in all sense of the idiom yes).
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. — Psalm 27:4 (ESV)
And on what Rev M exhorted me with: "Come unto me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest" (Matt 11:28). Lay down your expectations, and look to God.
Obedience. I know people's expectations of me, good, bad and ugly. And I have responded to them. Unconsciously, my expectations of self have inevitably been formed in response to theirs. I've been fighting to meet them, good, bad and ugly. There are some times I have nothing but utter distaste for my actions—I have become restless. What is it to be?
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8
If I fail in His expectations of me, I fail in everything else. If I fail being obedient to Him, I fail in everything else. But yet He gives me grace sufficient to bring me through... And to His grace I will continue to cling.
Lord have mercy.
The EP retreat was a much, much, much needed anchor. A sobering look at ministry and what it means to have a growing leadership only pointed my thoughts back at myself—am I growing? What is my current spiritual, ministerial and strategic formation? Rather dismal actually, what with all that constant spiel since the start of school that I must place priority in knowing God rather than knowing about God... My conversations with E, and the Lectio Divina that Rev M led (and subsequently privately exhorted E and I, bless her) on 1 Kings 6 eventually coughed up one word: Obedience.
My mind has been swimming with thoughts of an unprecedented egocentric scale. They keep resurfacing despite my desperate attempts to battle it, and there's really no wonder why I'm failing at it: I've fighting it with my own strength.
I do fire off prayers to God to help me, but His Word has been weak in my life. The Sword of the Spirit has been blunt in this one; I find myself with less and less strength and unction to combat these. Obedience. School, even Bible school, is not the walk in the park with Him (in all sense of the idiom yes).
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. — Psalm 27:4 (ESV)
And on what Rev M exhorted me with: "Come unto me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest" (Matt 11:28). Lay down your expectations, and look to God.
Obedience. I know people's expectations of me, good, bad and ugly. And I have responded to them. Unconsciously, my expectations of self have inevitably been formed in response to theirs. I've been fighting to meet them, good, bad and ugly. There are some times I have nothing but utter distaste for my actions—I have become restless. What is it to be?
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8
If I fail in His expectations of me, I fail in everything else. If I fail being obedient to Him, I fail in everything else. But yet He gives me grace sufficient to bring me through... And to His grace I will continue to cling.
Lord have mercy.
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