What God Has Taught Me Lately

Wow. God has taught me so many things lately, and compounded on already-learned-lessons. So this might be a long note. :)

One thing that is made clear EVERY time I open my Bible (and of which I'm so glad I'm reminded) is that the more I seek God, the more I find him. And truly, the more I find God and learn about Him, the more I am filled with His Spirit, and the more my Spirit is filled with love for Him. Now if only I could get that to translate in action EVERY day, THAT's what I'm working on. Because sometimes I just completely forget what I learned in my quiet time by mid-day, and I then live according to my feelings. But anyway, that's a rabbit trail. Back to the main point.

This year, I'm choosing to read My Utmost for His Highest in the mornings. And I'm SO GLAD I chose this, because not only did my Mom choose the SAME thing (we found that out later, hehe), but I've learned something EVERY DAY! Yesterday, The lesson learned was that sometimes, when God doesn't seem to give me a clear direction in which to go or act upon, He really wants me to wait and concentrate on seeking Him and renewing or developing my relationship with Him. Waiting periods are not bad. And this ties into me not acting on my emotions and feelings of the moment. God knows what's best for me. Following His bidding is the BEST thing I could ever do, bar none. My question is, why do I need to relearn this lesson? And I already know the answer: my sinful nature. I am always going to struggle with it. And I'll come back to this later.

I was reading Proverbs 1 today (I'm behind for the month), and I put together my own lesson, :) - To do God's Will is to Listen to Wisdom. A few weeks ago, I was in Sunday School, and this guy was reading what some other dead guy had written (I can't remember his name), the dead guy wrote a story that he thought paralleled God's and our relationship some times: There was a boy who was going off to college, and he asked his Father: What should I major in? And the dad said, well, that's up to you. But the boy kept insisting, no. I want You to decide, because I want to do what YOU want me to do. And the Dad kept saying, Son, you know what you're good, and you know what you're interests are, so you should make your decision based on what you are good at and what you'll enjoy. I want you to make this decision, because you're not some lawnmower whose string I can pull and You'll do what I want. You have your own mind, and it's a good one. So I listened to that story, and It's been on my mind ever since: God DID give us Freewill. If He hadn't, sin would never have entered the world, but we would also have never chosen on our own to worship Him with our lives. So free-will doesn't only apply to us choosing whether or not to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and give our life to Him, it also applies to the difficult decisions we have to make later in life WHILE we are living for Him. God GAVE US these decisions, so He doesn't want to make them for us.

So how does that tie into Proverbs 1? well, Remember what I wrote earlier: To Do God's Will Involves Listening to Wisdom. Proverbs tells us to listen to Wisdom OVER and OVER again. God has GIVEN us wisdom, all we need to do is ask Him for it, believing HE WILL give it to us. ASK with the belief that He has ALREADY given it to us. And He WILL show us faithfully which decision is wiser. My question now is what do I do when I could glorify God with either decision? I guess a good example is summer, and the options I have. I have a number of summer camps I could apply to work at, but I also would like to apply to a mission organization that will send me to the Dominican Republic to work with children. All of these options involve working with kids and using the gifts God gave me. The good thing about going to the Dominican Republic is going overseas and using my Spanish. The good thing about summer camps is that I get paid, and I could really use a job. So I guess, in this case, even though I could glorify God in both options, I feel like wisdom is telling me to apply at a summer camp so I can both use my gifts and get paid to work.

Ok so back to my sinful nature: If to do God's will is to listen to Wisdom, then why is foolish behavior so appetizing? Why is following my emotions so easy and desirable? It sounds like it's because we have that sinful nature, and nature comes with sinful desires, which we long to gratify. So how do we overcome this problem? Do we turn to the old saying "practice makes perfect"? Do we use what it says in the Bible, "For it is God who works in us to live and to act according to His good purpose"? or do we combine them both?

I have more questions, but I can't form them right now, and this has been long enough. But let me end on a high note: God wants us to seek Him, and he will give us the answers. Jeremiah 33:3 says "Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not yet know." :) HE ANSWERS. Both prayers AND questions. :)