Significance

Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; give me life in Your ways.
(Psalm 119:37 HCSB)

And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.
(Philippians 1:9-10 HCSB)

Those are some verses that have been smacking me in my face lately. For the last week, in my personal prayer time, two of my focal points have been praying my way through Psalm 119 and the apostolic prayers of Paul. So, each day, I would come across these verses and each day they touched off a realization in my heart, a new way of thinking that I have to step into on a daily basis.

The Lord desires for us to be able to discern what has eternal significance. It is the mark of a mature believer to be able to focus on eternity and not just be blown about by whatever we feel is important at that particular moment.

When believers are sucked into the cares of this world, it includes being utterly consumed by the urgent things, and not being able to determine what is truly significant.

God has been challenging me lately to examine my life and see the quality of the work I have produced. Have I built on the foundation with gold, silver, and costly stones...things that will last? Or have I used wood, hay, or straw, those things that will perish in the Day of Judgement when they are tested with fire (1 Corinthian 3:12-13)? Each day I have to make a renewed commitment to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).

Lord, turn my eyes from looking at worthless things. Enlarge my ability to walk in Your love and discernment, to determine what really matters and has significance. Teach me how to make seeking you first the focus of each day. Let everything else that I do on any given day flow out of tapping into Your heart for the people and situations I come in contact with.

I'm Back

Four years ago, my friend, Skip, and I started this blog. We were starting to have some pretty intense conversations about what God was teaching us and we decided to chronicle them here, kind of in a way to continue our discussions when we weren't together. And then, we let it fall to the side as our lives shifted and we started to focus on other things.

In the last six months, God has totally drawn both of our hearts to seeking Him as our first love. It's been pretty amazing hearing what God is doing in the other person's life because it totally encourages us to keep moving forward, to keep seeking after him. And I started thinking about our defunct blog again, wondering if it might be time to dust this off and start posting here again.

A couple of days ago, I decided it was time. Not only to talk about what God is doing in my own life, but also because I see God doing this all across our generation. I hear it in conversations, I read it in my friends' blogs. So, I wanted a place to write about it too. A record for myself to see what God is doing, a place where I can dialogue with others and encourage them to respond to God drawing them.

I don't know yet if Skip will join me again. She knows I'm opening the blog back up, but I don't think she's made a decision about her role yet. For the moment, we've decided to leave our old posts up. I read some of them to her yesterday and it was amazing how God spoke to us then and how it echoes what He's telling us now.

Anyways, this is my "welcome back" post. I'm pretty much just shouting into the abyss right now since there's no one reading this (yet), but that's okay. I'll be back later to share a little more about what God is doing in me right now.

It's Been A While. I just realized that instead of complaining about half the crap going on in my life right now, I should realize that this is exactly the opportunity I've been looking for. The opportunity to surrender everything that I want, all the selfish little nitpicky things that are getting stepped on, and submerge myself in who God is and in who He desires for me to be. This is the moment when I should be "dying to self", ruthlessly rooting out that portion of myself that's protesting being molded like clay. So, yeah, I realize that now is the time. How am I going to get myself to do it?

Maybe I Can Make It Through This. After posting the entry from last night, I decided to take a look at some of the old Bride's Journey blogs and the stuff I wrote on waiting (from way back in February) helped...a lot. So, I guess that's where I'm at. Waiting and realizing that means so much more than just hanging around and waiting for something else to launch me out of this place in which I managed to land.

Totally Dependent. Due to current events that have happened in my life (see my blog for an extremely incomplete explanation), I have found myself in a place of feeling completely and totally abandoned and alone. This is one of those times when I guess the lesson to be learned is "lean on God and He will provide". Hmm. We'll see if I can live that out because although depending on God is what I should be doing, I just feel like I'm drowning or being slowly suffocated. I hate this place I'm in. Truly I hate it. And I've been crying or feeling like I want to cry every minute of the day. And I hate it.

Aloha. I just went to check the Bride's Journey (the last time I, ValMarie, posted was 2 months and 13 days-sorry 'bout that) and it was saying "Page Not Found"...so this is a maintenance check I guess. And I'll post something real soon.

Surround Me. We sung that song in church today:

Surround me, O Lord
Surround me, O Lord
Surround me, O Lord
Let Your presence fill this place

Simple, sweet, to the point. Surround me, Lord...