You give and take away,

You give and take away,

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be Your name.

Psalm 119: 1-16

You’re blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by God. You’re blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him. That’s right – you don’t go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set. You, God, prescribed the right way to live; now you expect us to live it. Oh that my steps might be steady, keeping to the course you set; then I’d never have any regrets in comparing my life with your counsel. I thank you for speaking straight from your heart; I learn the pattern of your righteous ways. I’m going to do what you tell me to do; don’t ever walk off and leave me.

How can a young person live a clean life? By carefully reading the map of your Word. I’m single-minded in pursuit of you; don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted. I’ve banked on your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt. Be blessed, God; train me in your ways of wise living. I’ll transfer to my lips all the counsel that comes from your mouth; I delight far more in what you tell me about living than in gathering a pile of riches. I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you, I attentively watch how you’ve done it. I relish everything you’ve told me of life, I won’t forget a word of it.

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So this is something I came across last night. I was reading a devotion on knowing God’s call for your life, and it said to align your walk with the guidelines set out in this passage. I think it’s fantastic. It lays it out beautifully.

I’m blessed when I’m on course, following God’s path that he lays out for me. I’m blessed when I’m doing my best to find his directions.

I’m going to delight in what you tell me and consume every piece of wisdom you share with me.

And I won’t soon forget it.

I’ve done nothing all evening except search for and read Christian “articles”. I found a really good website tonight called Boundless. I really like it. I’ve been reading one thing after another and it all applied to me. I learned a lot tonight.

First off, I over think things. I shut my heart off and only let my brain do the talking. I really need to find that fine balance between my heart talking and my brain reasoning. I just reason all the emotion out of everything, which is why I’m seldom emotional, to either extreme of the emotion scale. Faith isn’t difficult. I’ve seen that God is on my side and wants nothing but the best for me. I choose otherwise sometimes, but He’s always there to pick me up off of my miserable face and to get me going again. I believe this with my whole heart, but my head takes over and gets me to believe that it’s all just a pretty fairy-tale. The thing is, it’s not. It’s real. I just have to stop over-thinking it and just living my life like I believe it.

Secondly, I learned that I can’t just skim over things anymore when I’m reading. I find it easy to read the bible like it’s a story and just leave it at that. It’s especially easy with the Message bible. I don’t think I could really study the Message bible, but it really makes the concepts and situations a whole lot clearer. I really need to pay attention to what’s being said and think about every sentence and how it pertains to my life. Then I need to do some sort of written assignment to make sense of it all. I am terrible for just saying I don’t understand something and leaving it alone out of frustration. If I make the effort to write something out and apply it to my own life, I think it’ll make everything much more relevant for me. Hopefully I can get to the point where I’ll be able to read something and talk about it and be comfortable enough in my knowledge to apply it to my life. Maybe I’m just being silly in thinking I can’t talk about it now.

That’s another thing I’ve learned, not tonight, but in general. I have to stop being so wimpy. I need to suck it up and just accept the fact that I’ve got a voice and thoughts and if they’re wrong, they’re wrong and I can be corrected.

Third, praying for me is a big mess. I haven’t got the foggiest idea about how to do it. I know there’s the ACTS or CATS format, but I can’t follow it. I’ve been thinking of talking to someone who knows what they’re doing and getting some guidance. I read a really good “article” on it tonight. I’ve just known, for about a year, that when one prays, the physical, circumstantial needs shouldn’t take priority. While I really believe that God can do anything, physical or non-physical, if we pray for non-physical needs, like strength or courage to make it through a situation, we’ll see the physical needs met in a way we never expected. With a strong heart, anyone can make it through anything. That strength comes from God.

In writing that, I’m once again letting my brain do all the talking. I’m reminded of Oprah and her latest kick on the inner-self and “god is all of us”. I have to always remind myself that God isn’t a non-physical God, and that forgetting that he is a physical God leads to doubt. I tend to fall back on the theory that it’s all within me and in thinking that I’m receiving fruits of the spirit from God, I am actually providing them for myself and just giving a reasonable pathway for my brain to understand it. I shouldn’t think that way because I find it far too easy to fall into that trap. I really would love to see some sort of physical intervention by God, but I don’t need it to have faith. I’d just like to see it a lot.

Back to praying. I really need to either practice up, or get some guidance. I think the latter would be most effective because I’d be practicing a skill I have no idea how to do in the first place.

Fourth, I read one sentence tonight that really hit me between the eyes: As we obey, we will be overwhelmed with the love of God for us. Isn’t that what everyone wants? To be overwhelmed with the love of the God who created and controls everything? This was really a blessing for me to hear. That’s what I want right now, and in order to get it, I just have to obey what He says. I might not like it and I might lose focus sometimes, but I know why I need to follow his instructions now.

Anyway, this was quite the ramble session. I’ll end it here.

I find it rather ironic that I used to have to go online and read a blog to figure out how you were feeling.

I don’t much like it that we’ve resorted back to it once again.

Nonetheless, challenge accepted.