After graduate school was finished and the school year was winding down, I began to discover that the television binge I had been on was beginning to lose it's luster. Food was tasting like cardboard. Wine wasn't appealing. Books remained on the shelf...and phone calls were avoided.
What I didn't know...couldn't see, because I hadn't taken the time to see, was that God was moving. Like He always does, waiting to heal wounds, encourage movement, and draw near.
A few weeks ago, as this dissatisfaction with everything else was happening, I knew that I was going to be taking quite a few long car trips and so I logged onto the library website to find an audiobook to listen to on these rides. I had this sense that God had something to say, and might be leading me there...so I searched and searched through pages until I could hear that gentle spirit in me pushing me toward one over the other. It was the first time I had stopped to ask and to listen in a non-desperate moment in a long while. I suppose I had been too busy trying to fill my life with such fulfilling things.
I began listening to Walking With God: Talk to Him, Hear from Him, Really. by John Eldredge. It's a memoir of sorts, over a year of John's life as he sets out to seek God and to listen to His voice. I've known for a long time that God can be heard...I've experienced that kind of love and movement in my life before...it's the other things I didn't expect to learn, that I suspect is just what God wanted me to hear and recognize.
The book talks of agreements. Agreements that we make with the world, with lies, with ourselves, that the world is just one way over another and there is nothing that we can do to change that. That instead of running full force after the healing that God longs to our into our lives, we settle for a partial truth, a lie that life can't be more than what it is...
And that's when I began to see them. Everywhere I turned. Agreements I had made with lies from the world. Agreements that I don't need to listen to. I could trace some all the way back to their roots if I stopped to think about it...which to be honest, is not something that I really want to do. But I know that Jesus is moving. In my heart and in my life...
So for a while, my blog posts are going to be about the destruction of such agreements, and the truth that God reveals. To do that, I'm going to need to listen, and draw near...I've got to trust that God will do the rest.
What I didn't know...couldn't see, because I hadn't taken the time to see, was that God was moving. Like He always does, waiting to heal wounds, encourage movement, and draw near.
A few weeks ago, as this dissatisfaction with everything else was happening, I knew that I was going to be taking quite a few long car trips and so I logged onto the library website to find an audiobook to listen to on these rides. I had this sense that God had something to say, and might be leading me there...so I searched and searched through pages until I could hear that gentle spirit in me pushing me toward one over the other. It was the first time I had stopped to ask and to listen in a non-desperate moment in a long while. I suppose I had been too busy trying to fill my life with such fulfilling things.
I began listening to Walking With God: Talk to Him, Hear from Him, Really. by John Eldredge. It's a memoir of sorts, over a year of John's life as he sets out to seek God and to listen to His voice. I've known for a long time that God can be heard...I've experienced that kind of love and movement in my life before...it's the other things I didn't expect to learn, that I suspect is just what God wanted me to hear and recognize.
The book talks of agreements. Agreements that we make with the world, with lies, with ourselves, that the world is just one way over another and there is nothing that we can do to change that. That instead of running full force after the healing that God longs to our into our lives, we settle for a partial truth, a lie that life can't be more than what it is...
And that's when I began to see them. Everywhere I turned. Agreements I had made with lies from the world. Agreements that I don't need to listen to. I could trace some all the way back to their roots if I stopped to think about it...which to be honest, is not something that I really want to do. But I know that Jesus is moving. In my heart and in my life...
So for a while, my blog posts are going to be about the destruction of such agreements, and the truth that God reveals. To do that, I'm going to need to listen, and draw near...I've got to trust that God will do the rest.
