In my mind, I often think of my life -the world around me- akin to properties of water. I often imagine my thoughts as a trickling, merry stream, with mossy rocks poking out here and there. My thoughts are not new, or diverse, or even that profound, but they are constant. The stream seems unbroken, and there appears no apparent pattern. However, just as the stream remains the same but the water journeys on, so my thoughts seem to hasten to an unexpected end (likely to get caught up in a tide pool, where they circle around for a bit before finally evaporating, or continuing on to make its way to the rapidly filling expanse of ocean I call my life).
One of my favorite things about journaling or writing prayers down is that it's like taking a picture of that stream. For an instant, I am able to take those individual droplets, and write them out where they can be examined, thought out, and frozen in time to be compared with thoughts anew. So often, I'll experience a dry season in my spiritual life, or face some new impossible problem or trial, or feel some emotion I thought must be entirely new, only to find that it's a theme that has recurred again and again without me ever seeming to have noticed a pattern.
Do you ever feel like you are constantly changing and that nothing is the same, and yet at the same time you are getting nowhere and nothing is new? Perhaps my metaphors and rambling have lost you, my poor reader, but my thoughts... like a gurgling stream that has endured a chilly spring rain with no jacket, now slops over the edges of my mind and demands some run-off be channeled onto electronic paper - I've not the patience to attempt to journal this by hand.
As all streams and rivers meet to join hands in vaster expanse, so my thoughts eventually make up my life and my surroundings. I, settled aboard my shanty of a ship, with my tattered sail, have had the blessing to have that wind, that pneuma, that breath, that.. Holy Spirit to guide and lead my life. HE who knows all, and is through all, and is in us all (as believers), has guided this little ship, my life boat, through many a calm sea and stormy waters, and he has never steered me wrong. And yet, there are times when this breath seems silent, and I can not feel his spirit ruffle my hair, or tug me in any direction, or stir the waters of this serene sea, and I can not help but feel alone and lost.
Father, what have I done wrong? What have I not learned? How do I seek you better? Wind can not be caught LORD, and you will not be tamed, but I..a child, ask that you would take me where you will, lead me as you desire, I just.. want to know that you are there. It seems so childish to fear that a parent would leave for good when they have stepped out of a room to place one in "time-out", and that they will not return with a loving embrace once again. Yet I, Father, sometimes fear that you have left me to my sin for good, and have given up patience on me once and for all. Do not abandon me O God! Do not take your spirit from me! Restore unto me the joy of my salvation, for nothing in life is comparable to you. Can a person buy wind? Can I make what you LORD only have? LORD, I have nothing but you. YWH. Please.. be my God who saves.
How do I find God when there is no wind?
I listen. pray. repent. and cry desperately out to a God who is the only one mighty enough to save.
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land."
One of my favorite things about journaling or writing prayers down is that it's like taking a picture of that stream. For an instant, I am able to take those individual droplets, and write them out where they can be examined, thought out, and frozen in time to be compared with thoughts anew. So often, I'll experience a dry season in my spiritual life, or face some new impossible problem or trial, or feel some emotion I thought must be entirely new, only to find that it's a theme that has recurred again and again without me ever seeming to have noticed a pattern.
Do you ever feel like you are constantly changing and that nothing is the same, and yet at the same time you are getting nowhere and nothing is new? Perhaps my metaphors and rambling have lost you, my poor reader, but my thoughts... like a gurgling stream that has endured a chilly spring rain with no jacket, now slops over the edges of my mind and demands some run-off be channeled onto electronic paper - I've not the patience to attempt to journal this by hand.
As all streams and rivers meet to join hands in vaster expanse, so my thoughts eventually make up my life and my surroundings. I, settled aboard my shanty of a ship, with my tattered sail, have had the blessing to have that wind, that pneuma, that breath, that.. Holy Spirit to guide and lead my life. HE who knows all, and is through all, and is in us all (as believers), has guided this little ship, my life boat, through many a calm sea and stormy waters, and he has never steered me wrong. And yet, there are times when this breath seems silent, and I can not feel his spirit ruffle my hair, or tug me in any direction, or stir the waters of this serene sea, and I can not help but feel alone and lost.
Father, what have I done wrong? What have I not learned? How do I seek you better? Wind can not be caught LORD, and you will not be tamed, but I..a child, ask that you would take me where you will, lead me as you desire, I just.. want to know that you are there. It seems so childish to fear that a parent would leave for good when they have stepped out of a room to place one in "time-out", and that they will not return with a loving embrace once again. Yet I, Father, sometimes fear that you have left me to my sin for good, and have given up patience on me once and for all. Do not abandon me O God! Do not take your spirit from me! Restore unto me the joy of my salvation, for nothing in life is comparable to you. Can a person buy wind? Can I make what you LORD only have? LORD, I have nothing but you. YWH. Please.. be my God who saves.
How do I find God when there is no wind?
I listen. pray. repent. and cry desperately out to a God who is the only one mighty enough to save.
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land."
II Chronicles 7:14
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