Never again a bug on a Petri Dish

I have been sitting here this morning trying to listen to God and trying to sort out my brain. It is full of conflicting emotions. I feel frozen, I have so many things I want to do with my life in the next few months but… I am finite and limited… and tired.

I suppose I believe there are two forces in our lives. I believe satan is working to stir evil desires within us, desires for things that our flesh craves as important but are really harmful. I’m still thinking about Psalms 37:4 (delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desire of your heart). God gives us the desires of our hearts. I don’t believe God means that to say He gives me the stuff I want. He gives me the want itself... Delight in the LORD and your desires change… they become holy. You don’t make your desires holy by trying but by delighting in the LORD. Holy desires are a gift from the LORD or maybe a law of physics. If you drop the butter, it will go splat on the floor. If you delight in the LORD… you will be filled with holy desire. What an awesome picture… see It’s not my effort that makes me holy in my thinking. Does it make sense then that the work of holiness is in being still? Psalms 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God” How can we delight in Him if we do not know Him… and how can we know Him if we are never still? No wonder there is so much in the scripture about resting… Have I said that before?

So what else is in there? (listening) Interesting—our enemy gives the desires of the flesh and God gives the desires of the heart. One draws out in us some kind of all comsuming, carnal, insatiable hunger. The other stirs us up in the depths of who we are and fills us with longing for more of Him. I hear so much about my own sinful desires. I struggle with how much people fear the worst in me. It stirs up fear in me. Well it used to more than it does now. I used to always feel like a bug in a Petri dish constantly under scrutiny by my fellow Christians and then I in fear of what I didn’t see in myself I would examine myself to try to see what they feared. I quit of putting myself under that microscope the day I realized my focus was on me. I can’t find Jesus when I do that… and I sink like a stone in the process.