Refocus & Stop the Sifting

This is a repost of an excerpt from "Doing" ... I'm here again. I think I got sifted and became unwilling. I feel like I have some things to fix and need to refocus.  Thankful that a friend mentioned this post to me just a few minutes ago! I really needed to read it! <3  Growth is funny this way... not funny haha.. funny ironic. .. Its 3 steps forward and a couple back most often and I like most people like to take 50 steps forward and none back but such is life and learning. Daily becoming more and more willing to go through the growing process and not staying in the staying still backward motion that I lived in for so long.  Glad I had this excerpt to go back to.

"I got to the end of that first day, laid in bed and flipped through Pinterest to take a minute to relax and when I finished God said to me, “now that you’re finished everything that you wanted to do today now its my turn.” He had not been first at all that day!!  It was 12:30AM and I was ready to drift off; I sat up opened my Bible then prayed. The best thing is to spend time with Him even when it doesn’t feel convenient.  The next several days including last night were very similar to that first day!!  ‘I HAVE GOT TO CHANGE SOMETHING!!’   I’ve learned the hard way over and over that if I do nothing to change, I will absolutely shrink backward.  My (our) only hope is to make a conscience effort to move forward, to be “self-controlled and alert” for our enemy’s #1 goal is to take us down. He wants our time as soon as our eyes open and all day; we have to find consentrated time with Him and He can change our hearts and grow fruit of the Spirit in us!  What am I doing???? What??? and What are you going to do to stop shrinking backward, being picked over by a lion??  UGHHHHH!! I have to stop!!  Make a deliberate decision everyday to focus my time on God, to “give Him the time of day”, to read His word and think on it & allow Him to change me through it and through whatever means He moves to change me.  This takes daily action.  The Bible also says to pray with out stopping... so be in constant communication with the God of the Universe.  I think its so cool that someone soooo big even bothers caring about me, much less is desperately seeking my attention!!! and your’s too.   There is no better day to start than today, I remember believing the lie that ‘well when I graduate it’ll be easier to spend the time...’ or ‘when I start working full time I’ll have more time to...’ or ‘when I get married...’ or ‘once we have children...’  Time just gets swept away; it is like dust in the wind.  DO IT NOW! Make the change.  Oh, gosh! did you feel that push back? I did. The push back is the lie that ‘Im comfortable here, and I don’t need to change or ‘but this’ or ‘but that’.  Change is difficult and I really don’t want to go through the motions because I have a feeling it’ll hurt.  Usually, or very often, there is a sense of great peace on the other side of that push back.  I’ve absolutely experienced the drastic change for good He accomplishes in me when I’m consistently spending time in prayer and Bible study. He will do that again in me and wants to do it for you too. Galations 5:22-23 lists the Fruit of the Spirt: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control.  If you’re a Christian, He has already given you these things and He wants to develop them in us too.  If you’re not a Christian, believe me when I tell you that God Loves you and all that’s necessary is to come to Him and ask for Him. I talked about that in my first post :). 

This picture of meeting a friend for dinner keeps coming to mind. We’re good friends and we care for each other but we sit there in silence the entire meal and in this picture I think thats what a good friend is, someone who is around.  Or worse yet, I go to meet my friend for dinner, but sit with someone else and enjoy an entire evening with them without ever acknowledging my friend who I came to meet.  Now, I want a good conversation and some laughs like the next person and God does too; He even wants so much more than that, He wants genuine intimacy. We can’t get that sitting there silent or spending our time thinking or doing a million other things.  We have to move into an active relationship with Him just like we would in our most intimate human relationships.

I think its about time I figure out how to do that again.  Meet my Savior and not get wrapped up in “doing.”  What about you?"