Drifting away again...

No, not in Margaritaville... From God.

Drifting away again from God.

When in the world will I learn? Live and dwell in Him.

It's simple. Truly, simple.

Seek and you will find. I'm not sure where that is in the bible, but EVERYONE says it. Trouble is, we repeat a lot of things that are derived from the bible, but we have no idea the context under which it was said or the level with which God has intended us to apply it to our lives.

When I'm zeroed in on God's word, life is gravy. It makes sense. It's much simpler and clearer. My decisions seem to be few, my path smooth, and the fruits of my labor seem to be more abundant than the effort I exerted.

Why? It's elementary. It's like color-by-numbers, but on a spiritual level. Nobody questions why their color-by-numbers picture turned out well. They were given specific and direct instruction on how and what to color the individual pieces of the picture... of course it should turn out well, right? Sure. So, why is it that we are given color-by-numbers instructions for how to live our lives and we insist on trying to be some sort of renegade colorer? Then we have the audacity to be dissatisfied and bewildered when the end result of our defiant coloring ends up looking like a piece of artwork in which Salvidor Dali crashed into Van Gogh in a dark alley with neons and human waste. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's ugly and it certainly is not 'art'.

I started this by saying that I'm drifting away from God, AGAIN. I'm not angry with Him, not dissatisfied (other than with myself), not feeling abandoned by Him or any other level of contempt. Quite the contrary. Life was going great, it was WONDERFUL! To God be the glory! I was reading a daily email bible study, and had actually added another one and was up to two. I was reading in my bible. I was listening to thought provoking and uplifting podcasts that were speaking volumes to me. I was SEEKING God and He was ALL OVER THE PLACE! I couldn't do a THING without hearing Him, seeing Him, feeling Him. It was amazing.

Well, what happened?

Me. Yep, Me. In my 'I can take care of this' way, I started focusing more on my 'To Do' list and my schedules and didn't make Him the priority that I was making Him. Life got busy and I stopped taking the time to pay attention to Him. I stopped making Him the priority that He should be. See, that's the cool thing that I think often gets overlooked about our relationship with God... We say it SHOULD be this and it SHOULD be that. To say 'should' implies that we have an option for doing otherwise. We have a choice. It's up to us. Our relationship with God is up to us. That choice just so happens to be an unfortuante aspect of it as well, because more consuming of a reality than most, our relationship with God isn't what it SHOULD be. Translate that as we don't consistently and intentionally choose Him in our lives.

Why should He get my first thought of the day, why should He be my top priority above all else, why, why, why? What I've seen in my life is that God wants to bless us and bless our efforts. But, He can't bless what we don't do or even attempt. Bottom line is that if I want to enjoy the peace He gives, I must seek Him in my life through His words and instructions. He doesn't give me complicated instructions like E=mc 2 (that's squared). His instructions are simple and straight forward... just like color all #2's royal blue and all #3's candy apple red. He takes all the guess work out and what I'm left with is an identifiable piece of art that I can sit back and enjoy. That piece of art is called 'my life in Him'.

I type all of this to myself with the hoovering question, "Jenny, Will you choose Him tomorrow?" Only God knows. I pray that I do... I miss His familiar and safe scent in my life.

All my love to you and yours...