7.5.11

praying for a new season
[good-bye facebook, hello real people]

i like change
i like new
but i've never been good with it all at once
and for some reason summers feel this way.
i wait so impatiently all winter
for warm weather to finally show its face
and when it does
it brings with it so much else.
and all of the extras,
historically and presently for me,
have proven to be splendid
so i'm not complaining
[learning this too]
i'm just thinking out loud-
but that's what a blog is, no?

so in this quest
i know my most basic need.
it's always the same.
this Book that i say is my very life
yet lately it doesn't seem so.
because i choose other things to occupy my time
and at the end of the day,
these other things [though not bad things at all]
make me sick
while the one thing, the one Voice that will make me well
remains closed
or even open, just quiet.
and it is my choice
because i do have a will
though He continues in sovereignty, love, grace.
sure i read some of these words every day
but it is only a discipline
and while disciplines are good
they can't be the ground on which we build
faith.
i've watched this mistake
and clearly i've made the same mistake myself enough times,
but when that same emptiness is still hanging on
i have to be shaken to be reminded that
my life
is not
my own
and i live so often as if it is
as if it is under my control
as if God can be manipulated by our filthy rags.
[isaiah 64.6]

so for the next weeks or months or years
i am praying for a few things
and i would be honored if you wanted to join with me

i'm praying for my family, that each of us might know Christ and/or know Him more
i'm praying for ross and kristi, their marriage that begins 17 days from today
i'm praying for myself to better understand joy through the grace of Jesus
i'm praying for brad and kim and their boys
i'm praying for the southeast side
i'm praying for the Church to trust Him and to be obedient
i'm praying for 105 beautiful people that i hope to know better
i'm praying that His Name is exalted