WordPress helpfully informs me that I’ve now written 77 Blog entries, 54 of them during the last 54 consecutive days. Putting this in context, its been 113 days since I accepted God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and promised my life to Him.
I was hungry for a close personal relationship with Him and He did not disappoint.
A little over two months ago, feeling touched by Psalm 139, I wrote here:
I no longer hope to hide my sins or feel ashamed – I WANT God to see my faults, to make me aware of them and help me to change, to “lead me in the way everlasting!”
Yes! Search me, O God, and know my heart! Every day, every minute. Show me the way.
Some day I may think of that as a cautionary lesson to be careful what you pray for. God may grant your request.
Since then I have been struggling to keep my side of the promise to change those broken parts of myself that He calls to my attention.
It’s been kind of like peeling an onion. First the outer layers, many of which I wrote about here (self-hatred, disliking reading the Psalms, fear of God deciding I’m not good enough for His Kingdom once He realized who I really am(ha!), believing but not trusting what Jesus promised in the Gospels).
Then came the inner layers most of which I did not write about here, many of which are pretty hard to acknowledge even privately to myself. There are lifelong toxic habits: not knowing how – let alone who – to be in the world without cloaking myself in lies (“I don’t need or want to be close to anyone”), the performance of faux vulnerability to avoid being honestly vulnerable… the list goes on, and is long.
I feel like I’m at a real milestone. The question for me is, am I just going to go on clinging to remnants of the same old person I have been, maybe making little tweaks and adjustments from time to time to convince myself I’m born-again? Or am I really – really – going to let that old self die, and turn control over to God to recreate me as He intends — whoever that may be?
I almost wish these things happened in an instant “poof!” — kind of like jumping off a diving board … once you actually take that leap it’s too late to go back now. But that’s not how it’s been for me. Its more like like a conscious choice I need to keep continuously making over and over again regardless of how scary or uncertain or spiritually exhausting it may seem at the moment.
SO. That said. I’m not giving up this blog. I’m not even sure what “taking a little break” means, but I think what it means is that I need to let go of trying to be in control (“gotta keep that 54 day streak going…”) and let God lead. When God is leading me to write I will write … whether its today or next week or 5x in one day or whatever.
What I want and need to do, more generally is spend less time reading and writing and talking about God (which I think is actually a form of procrastination) and more time being with God … whatever that turns out to mean.
And that is what I mean when I say I’m taking a little break.
Please know that I value and and grateful for your reading these words and want to honor that by making sure I’m writing what God leads me to write rather than something that soothes my own ego.
GodSpeed.
GodChild 