Today at church I felt like God was standing toe-to-toe with me with his head leaning against mine, but in a good way. In a way that felt like he was trying to say "do you really really really get that I'm trying to get your attention?" It all started when I just hit rock bottom this week. There was a lot of stress related to my job plus the move, and I really started missing my mom (see post below). Things just began to feel like they were spiraling out of control. On Wednesday night a friend of mine was talking about whether or not Paul said that prophecy no longer existed. I got out my Bible and started looking. Later that night my Bible was still sitting on my bed, and I decided to open it and study for the first time in a long time.
It's not that I don't want to study my Bible. I really do, but I let a lot of things get in the way. For instance, I've been reading Eat, Pray, Love, which is a great book. When I'm reading a book about spirituality though, I feel like it gives me an excuse to read that instead of the Bible. Then I kept calling my move my "leap of faith." It still is my leap of faith, but it suddenly hit me (like a V8 slap to the head) that wouldn't my leap of faith be a lot better if I was actually living out my faith??? I opened up my Bible and came across James and thought "this is a good one that I can read all in one night and make me feel like I accomplished something." I had no idea it would put me on a course of action that would keep changing my life piece by piece for the rest of the week.
It honestly felt like the book was dated April 16, 2008, and started Dear Melody...I have never had a book feel like it applied so much to where I was in that exact moment in time as I did Wednesday night. From moving to judging others to taming your tongue to if you're sick - it was honestly just everything in that book. It talked about holding on to things for selfish reasons. Suddenly I began to see the way I am living my life in a very different light. Every day I feel like I'm doing better. I said goodbye to a friend early because I really felt like my selfish desires were getting in the way of their happiness. I've made some decisions about what I'm going to be doing in the next week so that I'm actually living out my faith now and not waiting for New York to get everything together. I feel like since Wednesday I have had many affirmations in the decisions I am making. One of those affirmations came in Mike's sermon today. It felt like James in that I felt like he could have started his sermon saying "Hey Mel, this one's for you..." He talked about Hebrews 11 which is all about faith. Faith. An extraordinary thing that we try to make so simple. So I feel a little bit like Samuel now where I'm here saying "Yes, Lord, I am listening."
No comments:
Post a Comment