Revelation in Target

I have been very distracted from God recently!  I can't put my finger on just one thing that has driven me to distraction, but I can tell you it has not been fun losing connection with my Father and my Lord Jesus.  And the longer I stay away, the more lost I feel, the more distorted my view of who God is becomes.

Interestingly, I'm sure God knew that this might happen if I wasn't more careful, because I believe he warned me about it.  I was in Target, and I found myself aimlessly walking through the aisles and looking at EVERYTHING, even though I didn't need any of it.  Nothing necessarily wrong with doing some "window shopping" every once in a while, but all of the sudden I heard this phrase in my head like a caption beneath the cartoon of what I was doing: "She wandered from the faith."

"What?!?"  I stopped in my tracks, looked around wide-eyed and high-tailed it back to find my husband, thinking "I don't want to wander!"

But since then, that's what I have done without realizing it.  I didn't guard my morning time in the Word.  I let myself be too tired to stay awake in the morning, and allowed my mind to run around me in circles like a tiny, excited dog so that I could not concentrate on the Lord even if I were awake enough to do so.  I haven't kept it a priority to be in touch with my amazing Christian friends who encourage me and point me to the truth.  I stopped blogging, which really helps me work through things with God sometimes.  I have hardly prayed.  I didn't even want to go to church this Sunday (but I did because my husband made me, bless him).

I'm not listing all of those things to make myself feel worse, but because I think those are the keys.  My man and I listened to a teaching last night that addressed these things, which really brought into focus the causes of my current spiritual distress.  I definitely recommend you set aside some time to listen to it,* but I'll tell you that the suggestions (based on the Parable of the Sower) were to build godly, spiritual habits into your life, and to do whatever it takes to rearrange your life so that you can and do put God and our Lord Jesus Christ first.

Needless to say, I will be scrambling to restore my Father to his rightful place.  I'm beyond thankful that he hasn't, nor will he ever give up on me when I wander, and that Christ did what it took so I don't have to ever EARN God's love and acceptance.

*You can find the teaching at truthortradition podcasts - it is the February 2012 teaching of the month called "The Parable of the Sower" by John Schoenheit.

Cooperation

What makes it easy to work with someone to help them improve themselves?

Using the example of a coach working with a swimmer, it is much easier to help someone...
...when they know they need the coach's help rather than when they think they are doing a great job by themselves
...if they pay attention when the coach is showing them what they need to do to improve
...if they are willing to put the work and focus in to do what the coach prescribes
...when they understand specifically what they are doing wrong and don't like the fact that they are doing it incorrectly, rather than not trying to understand and not caring even if they do understand

Working with a swimmer who is coachable but may not have much inherent skill is desirable to working with someone stubborn and unwilling to improve even if they are very talented.

It seems to me that as long as a person is willing, tractable, and not arrogant, then they can be happily worked with no matter how badly they do.  When you know someone is trying their best, it is hard to give up on them, even if they are floundering a bit.

Despite the fact that Jesus will never give up on a believer, I want so badly to be easy and pleasant for him to work with.  I think repentance is a huge part of coachability because the Bible definition (from dictionary.com, of course!) looks a lot like a simple willingness to do what is right:

"Metanoeo, meaning to change one's mind and purpose as the result of after knowledge.  This verb with the cognate noun 'metanoia', is used of true repentance, a change of mind and purpose and life..."

I think the big trick is to not just to do our best, but to also ask for more help from Jesus because often the things we need to change our mind, purpose and life about are deep habits, maybe even things we enjoy even though they are wrong.  As noble as it would be to do everything out of sheer willpower, I think the whole point of having a Lord is so that we have extra help and support to save us from our dead human nature:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 

and are justified by his grace as a gift, 

through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, 

to be received by faith.

Since we are already justified, we can walk freely with Christ, knowing that we are already good enough on the inside because God said so.  Our right response to that freedom is to desire to reflect our true nature in Christ, and to let him direct us into it.