Holiness

My small group and I are reading a book called Returning to Holiness by Dr. Gregory Frizzell. It was intended to be a pre-emptive cleansing period for churches and pastors before revivals. We are using it as our Bible study for the summer.

The first section that we covered was on the sins of thoughts. Not just those obvious ones that we, as Christians are ashamed of because we know that they are wrong, but on those thoughts that we don't take time to consider there origin, the motives behind them, and the alternatives that we could be thinking about instead. I confess that there are many times that I don't do this. I fill my brain, and subsequently my heart, with the excessiveness of this world and the waste that goes with it. I rarely take time to spend the energy focusing on God and all that He has blessed me with in the 22 years that I have spent on this world.

I strive to be as authentic of a person that I can be. I want (and need) to take the time to consciencely audit my thoughts. The old adage of garbage in, garbage out is taking on a whole new meaning. I don't want to be fake. I want God to take a hold of my life in a whole new way, in a whole new meaning than ever before. I believe that I am on the road in that direction. I need the steadfastness of God's hands to sustain me. Hold me, Father, to the contract that I signed in my heart, when I was a young girl. Hold onto me in all that I do.

Desires

I finished reading this book by John Eldredge that my friend Amy told me about a few years ago. I don't know why I never read before now, but anyways. I learned alot and am still learnign stuff about myself through this book. I am finding out that I have left alot of my desires in the wayside because I, once again, feel this desire to have to be in control of something. I have a desire to go to Africa and I feel that this is something God wants me to do in my heart. Howevre, my idealistic, practical brain that worries about stuff like money and wierd diseases and time off from work keeps telling my heart to put it aside. I've been dealing with this for several years now, and I'm really no closer to the Congo or Johannesburg than I was then. What giveswithme?
C.S. Lewis wrote "We are half-hearted creatures. Fooling around with drink, and sex, and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by a holiday at the sea. We ar far too easily pleased." I know that I am easily pleased with things like weekends at the Lake or on the boat, with complacency with my walk with God, with the mediocrity of my relationships with those around me. The desires that God placed within me are there for a purpose. To glory Him and to bring praise to Him. Am I doing that? Is He proud of what He sees when he looks down at me?
Anyways, just a series of thought to send out into nowhere.