Sandman

It's not about trying to decide the will of God,
it is about finding the strength to follow it.

I don't often sit about, wondering, "What is the will of my Father?" I know that. As a daughter of God, I can feel His influence, and His love and understand without any doubt that His will is for me to walk in remembrance of He that sent me. Namely, He wants me to act according to my linage and be an EXAMPLE ( 'be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity') of one carrying the 'FAMILY NAME'. I know I have to make choices relying on FAITH, HOPE, GRATITUDE, and SERVITUDE, but such choices are not always easy to see clearly. I want to think the things that I want...the things I hope for, and work for and proposition my standing with are valuable to GOD, but I stumble again and again in my constant temptation to bargain with God...to tell HIM what is right for me, or why what I believe is enough, or should be enough considering what He has given me to work with.

For instance, I know that at some degree, I align my life for the approval of other people. I want to feel a worth-- a measurable worth--and find it hard to be in the company of anyone who feels EXACTLY as I do when the measuring stick comes out. That is to say...I FEEL I know what I value, but it's hard to live EXACTLY what I value...and even to find others who can tell me, "I KNOW what you mean....I WANT THAT TOO!" Still, I desire those things. Some more publicly, others more privately. Some I integrate in my every day...and others I bury away, justifying they would keep me away from 'the more desirable product,' if I fought for them. We all make choices based on desires, but more, I feel I make choices by the balance of the weight each of those desires holds. This is the justification for the way I have my life aligned, and I carry that justification in a tight fist.

What is hardest, though, is my understanding....my COMPLETE understanding that some desires might lead me away from the light God offers us as a guide. I have long wondered...knowing that I cannot serve God and man....how do I please God, and yet LIVE with man?

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ Liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."(Galatians 2:20)

If I were to honestly sit down and relay every moment....EVERY opportunity I was given in the last 2 or 3 days to serve GOD....to act by the will of my Father....I know I would be disappointed for all the choices and chances I sided not with His scripture, but of my own desire and temptation--it all feeling so unavoidable, or justifiable or 'earned.'

And, I am a good person. A well intended, and very thoughtful woman. I adore my children--truly love them to pieces! I love my Joe with all my heart. I joy in my work--in the tiny hands of all those little ones who come and bury their faces against my chest for comfort or kisses--and I am grateful for THEM ALL! I see God in all the faces of those I love. I feel the depth of His giving in my own thanks-giving for my home, my health, my life! I KNOW He is at work in my life, in my heart, and through my spirit. And still, I also know I forget in large segments that LIFE is not about the HOUSE

or the JOB

or People Pleasing.

It's not about finding something to have pride over...or feeling accomplished or even desirable...

Life is all about our Savior, and his mission--and the fact that he has left us here--ME here to do his work, by his spirit and with his charity until he can come again.

What good is the 5 bedroom house? What good is my health, my values....if not put to the use I feel that He would want me to?

Recently I had a dream. I was sitting along in a room. Its blankness overwhelmed me with its expression of POTENTIAL. Alone, I felt a paralyzing question befall me. Simply, it was:

What are you doing, and why?

In my wakened state, I suppose I would answer.....

I am trying to add more value to the world than I deplete from it. I am living, carrying the weight of a thousand of lives I would rather be living--though so thankful at the same time for the one I have been given. I am lost, I am loved, I miss things I cannot articulate--sorrow for things that have no name. I hope for eternal love both for my earthly life, and the one after it. I don't know how to get any closer to anything that could right the incongruities in my life, because I know I am a scared person, and would stop at Love. I lack faith in the outcome of my own expression--but WANT to feel I have absolute faith in God. I am working on making my wants, and my needs, and my HAVES unarguably right in God's eyes. But, The Truth? I am scared to bind my will to God's, and scared NOT to. Thus, my life is as it is, and my desires are as they are.

"We need a budget" Joe tells me encouragingly. I have been thinking a lot about budgets, and what I am doing...why I am where I am, and where I want to be and why. I do need a budget! I need to stop putting my money into unnecessary things....and I need to put my HEART into more necessary ones. I need to budget my life with God as the first pay-point and I need to remember where this all came from.

THANKS SANDMAN...Cool Dream.