Dust in the Air

When I lay idle in this body for so long my soul becomes scummed over like a stagnant pond in the muggy summer.  There is a reason why Proverbs speaks so much of work and poverty, and the more and more I live I realize that Proverbs speaks against poverty of the soul, and not of mere wealth. It is good for a young man to work and earn his living by the sweat of his brow.

Yesterday I was working very hard in my front yard and sweat was pouring off of my face into giant drips that stained the hot concrete of my driveway. I was getting frustrated with a piece of lawn equipment that was constantly dying on me. It was beginning to drive me crazy. My brother had already called for me to stop and come into eat dinner, but I was determined to finish what I started. And so… I continued my assault on the yard having to stop every 15 seconds to restart my equipment. I didn’t swear… I almost did several times. Finally I had this break down where I decided to talk to God about my predicament… I had read Philippians the other day with a friend from my University and we were talking about how Philippians is about not complaining, but being grateful in all situations. So book of scripture has been haunting me and my Spirit has been going to town working inside my heart.

As I remembered this book, I looked up and realized that getting angry and frustrated was not good, but that finishing the job was good. So I calmed down and finished the little section I had left in peace and gratitude without the machine stopping once!:) It was a nice victory indeed!

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

I've been daring lately and I have let God's spirit go roaming through my heart. It seems that I haven't let Him in for a while. Rather than lying in the dirt and clutching my hurt leg, I have been walking! This lame old body has been walking and dancing to the glory of God! There are rocks that I nearly twist my ankle on, but I am walking and laughing all the same!

I recently read my DTS journal while I was traveling in Colorado. It was a brilliant time of memory and God reminding me what He has done and what He will do within me and through me. I was made for joy, and joy abundantly to give to those around me.

There's not a day that I don't remember my Abba Father, my saviour, my deliverer, and I have to open my heart and pour out the Joy He has given me.

So as I pick up my weak and lame body, I walk onwards in joy to work, to walk and to dance into His Kindgom! I'm walking in the footsteps of Christ and the dust is still in the air.



Give up yourself, and you will find your real self

I found this as I was roaming about through C.S. Lewis quotes. It is exactly what I am trying to understand in my life at the moment. I do hope you all will enjoy :)

"But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. 

    Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) 223-225.