I looked back to see the last post I did online. May 16! I have so much to share with you! I have been marinating in the tenderizing juices of God's heart for me this summer. My journal is FULL (I have 2 blank pages left) of writing from my journey through this life altering book. Part of the reason I haven't blogged it in "real time" is because I have needed to let many of the lessons penetrate old mindsets and perspectives.
I am not overstating this. It seems extreme to call something that isn't the Word of God "life altering" but for avid readers, even a few carefully placed words in a novel can change your mindset.
This book has done more than that. It has shifted my perspective on spiritual practices, drawn me in when I'd rather retreat and brought me deeper into the heart of God for me and His heart for my beloved ones.
I will spend the next several days, maybe even a week or two getting caught up posting my journal entries. I invite you to join me as I complete this incredible journey.
Week 7 Section 3 "To me, dormancy is about ... REST" (I took this quite seriously)
Retreat - not away from God, but into Him. Like jumping voluntarily into the eye of a hurricane.
The swirling of expectations, disciplines, redundancies of the day-to-day whip around in a cyclone threatening to pull me up and spin me into a frantic life.
When I can make the leap from the frenzy into the still place in the center, I look upward and experience release and rest.
In several seasons of my life I have felt God was "absent" but that doesn't make it Truth. I firmly believe that feeling He is "absent" builds my faith and exposes my wounds and questions. Like a poultice designed to draw poison out of a wound, His "absence" draws out pain, disappointments, loss, and discomforts that might have otherwise gone ignored in the hurricane of life.
When I take these opportunities of "absence" to stand arms uplifted, reaching for Him, in the eye of this hurricane of life, releasing the toxins that can steal my joy, wreck my faith and leave me feeling disillusioned, my heart and mind return to REST on the Rock knowing His Word is Truth and I am firmly planted on it, by choice, forever.
Hebrews 13:5
"5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
Deuteronomy 31:8
"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
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