"The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory" (Batterson, 37). The Draw The Circle seems to hit on some of the things I've been struggling with. I want to journal, but I lack discipline. That's why I'm praying for this discipline. The encouragement I'm getting from this book seems to hit the buttons that I'm searching for. Journaling, Batterson writes, is a way for one to look back at the prayers you offer to God and see how He moves in your life. That's pretty cool and he also mentions that by keeping a fairly detailed journal you get to go back and see where you can give God the glory for answering your prayers. That's a good goal. That's what I'm praying here now Lord. Keep me faithful to you, keep me faithful to praying and keep me faithful to journaling so that I can see your footprints in my life as I go back and reread some of these posts.
The timeliness that God has with His word in my life is pretty impressive. It always has been and was illustrated tonight yet again. This timeliness is one of the reasons that I have such a strong belief (even if I can't always say that I'm true to the faith that He extends) in Him and why I have never really had strong doubts of His existence or His goodness. Just today I was fretting about money and not making enough of it and lo and behold in Day 5 of Draw The Circle the author tells a story of a woman who was seeking her dream and asking God what to do. She eventually jumped at it and became successful by, and I'm paraphrasing here but it was a good line, working hard like that was the only thing that would make it happen and praying hard like the prayer was the only way her dream would come true. I never really liked the tone of God helps those who help themselves because it sounds like a mantra political hijacker of faith. But, working like it all depends on you and praying like it all depends on God does have a more faith-like ring to it without the coldness of the aforementioned statement. But, on to the timeliness of God.
It's not Day 5 of our trek through this book. We should have been about a week further but my traveling and our work schedules but us behind. Today I opened up about my frustrations with money and my career on a deeper level than normal. And lo and behold God's timeliness shines through again. Of course it could be chalked up to coincidence or the fact that most devotional eventually broach this topic. But, the chasm that seems to always split the believers and the faithless is their vantage point. A believer that has encountered God on a personal level, however deep, that has resulted in that soul being redeemed by the blood of Christ has at their advantage a higher vantage point from which to see the world. Those that have yet encountered God or worse, rejected Him can therefore never see from such a high vantage point. The timeliness of God's personalized messages seems but mere chance or maybe a psychological crutch to feel like there is a God out there to some, but to those who have experienced with God know that we are the only ones free to walk without crutches, as we are led by the hand of God Himself.
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