One of those vague goals

Spotted this in the store today: The Illustrated Kitchen Bible. Flipped through it, want to buy it and cook every single recipe in there, Julie & Julia style (although I haven’t read the book/seen the movie). It (this cookbook) has the best pictures!! Plus, I want to learn how to cook dishes of various cuisines. Pretty much all I can do right now is stir-fry. And make pasta. And bake.

Search me,

God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-4

Prayer = love

Just really, really needed to stick this quote somewhere I wouldn’t lose it because it resonates so truly.

If we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them, and this will lead us to prayer. Intercession is a way of loving others.

Richard J. Foster

Restless

This past week or so has been filled with all sorts of mindless lounging, enough to make me feel a bit out of sorts. I can’t remember the last time I had so much time on my hands and so much “nothing” to do. It felt wonderfully mind-emptying at first, but now I’m getting to the point where I feel useless and unproductive. Not a very restful place to be…

I’m way looking forward to the youth retreat, themed “Choose Life and Serve God.” At the same time, I feel almost jittery. I’ve been given a lot of service areas–small group leader, worship musician, icebreaker coordinator, even bus monitor (although it seems like the duty is more for monitoring the directions rather than the people on the bus). I’ve tried to pray as often as I could remember about the retreat–so many things to lay down before the Lord. Above all, I’m worried about the condition of my heart. Am I prepared? Will I be able to do all of these things for God and for my brothers and sisters?

I catch myself thinking, “No, I can’t, just please let someone else do this…” at times, and I realize how self-centered I’m being about this whole thing. I know there’s nothing I can do to really be prepared except to throw myself down before the Lord and ask Him to prepare me, to equip me, to fill me with a loving and worshipful heart. I can almost feel my heart physically tremble when I focus on my fear of not being good (capable?) enough to serve. It’s so natural, this self-centeredness. Thankful to the Lord that He will do all, for His glory. And how self-pitying to think that He can’t prepare me, that He won’t use me!

This day I call the heavens and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

More lessons

For quite a while now, there have been a couple of things–? issues? I don’t know what to call them, really–that I’ve been nursing in my heart, waiting on God for resolution. My waiting has grown to become a thick outpouring of constant pleading for Him to show me the way clearly, to firmly close or open doors, to reach down His mighty hand very palpably into my life and point clearly to the path He wants me to go.

For a long time, I didn’t realize how much this was hindering my growth, handicapping my walk. But I’m so thankful, because He recently, gently showed me how wrong I’ve been during this waiting period.

As a teacher, I always aim to guide my students to the right answer themselves. I often answer their questions with questions of my own, not answers. It’s the process of learning the right answer that helps them remember that fact even more; there’s often a logical path to get to the answer. With my very weak students, I sometimes have to “feed” them the answers directly, spelling out everything that they should write down. It’s almost painful, because I know that they’re not gaining anything from this process. They’re going to write the information down, the words passing from my mouth to their hands to the paper without even going through their brains.

By grace, I’ve realized that God’s trying to show me the exact same thing. When I plead for Him to come down and rearrange my life for me just the way He wants it, I’m that weak student, pleading to be fed the answers, asking to NOT grow. Yes, my yearning for His will to be done is wonderful, is right. But the way I want His will to be carried out, just with some (magical?) crazy intervention? That’s me, asking for my growth to be stunted. He’s asked that I abide in him, and He in turn will abide in me. He’s not asked for me to become a mindless, lifeless instrument, but a living and growing one, progressing in faithfulness in the midst of uncertainty.

What a wonderful God.