Storms.

As you can tell by my blogging, I have been absent and not just because of the storms. But, for some other reasons.

Rest.


I realized over these past few weeks that I've been running around with my head cut off. Literally. I've been stressed, pushed, and worked. And thats only the beginning.

*sigh*

So, Friday night around 11:00 I clicked on over to setapartgirl.com and skimmed through their newest magazine where I found this quote my George Muller.

"The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord."  

*insert wake up call here*

Thats when I realized what I had done. I hadn't given the best fruits of my day to Him. I wasn't find joy in His presence. I didn't earnestly seek His face.  Basically, I was ignoring Him. It took about an hour for it to really sink into me. And then, thats when I flipped on the light and started up worship music and grabbed my Bible. I started reading in Psalm 73....

"Truly God is good to Israel,

to those pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 

For they have no pangs until death;

their bodies are fat and sleek. 

They are not in trouble as others are;

they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

Therefore pride is their necklace;

violence covers them as a garment. 

Their eyes swell out through fatness;

their hearts overflow with follies.

They scoff and speak with malice;

loftily they threaten oppression.

They set their mouths against the heavens,

and their tongue struts through the earth. 

Therefore his people turn back to them, 

and find no fault in them.

And they say, "How can God know?

Is there knowledge in the Most High?"

Behold, these are the wicked;

always at ease, they increase in riches.

All in vain have I kept my heart clean

and washed my hands in innocence.

For all day long I have been stricken

and rebuked every morning.

If I had said, "I will speak thus," 

I would have betrayed the generation of your children. 

But when I thought how to understand this, 

it seemed to me a wearisome task, 

until I went into the sanctuary of God;

then I discerned their end. 

Truly you set them in slippery places;

you make them fall to ruin.

How they are destroyed in a moment,

swept away utterly by terrors!

Like a dream when one awakes, 

O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

When my soul was embittered,

 when I was pricked in heart, 

I was brutish and ignorant;

I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, 

and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

But for me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,

that I may tell of all your works. "

Psalm 73 

When I had finished reading, I came back to the key passages that struck me. 

"But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 

For they have no pangs until death;"

Stop right there, Mistake #1. Read it again....

"But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

my steps had nearly slipped."

During the rush these past few weeks, thats what almost happened. I was slipping off the cliff  because.....

"...I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 

For they have no pangs until death;"

I saw people who were living "the life". They didn't care about the consequences, they just lived in the moment....until death. I was frustrated because I couldn't go and have "fun" like they could. Of course, what they were doing was wrong. They had either rebelled against someone in authority, were in a bad relationship with a particular person (and still are), or they didn't care about the consequences.

The Christian Life is hard. We move against the traffic.

I encourage you to stop and run the opposite way. To God.

I'll leave you with this song by Leeland.