Post-Summer

Hey friends.

Not sure if anyone is still checking this thing (I know I wasn't until a couple of days ago), but here we go anyway.

I just wanted to use this space to say that I have not been very diligent about pursuing joy this summer. I also have not been very diligent about pursing Jesus (or even study of Jesus) much at all. And I have to admit that the one thing I've been pretty consistent about is resisting Jesus and saying a deliberate 'no' to him. It hasn't been in externally obvious ways (not at first glance anyway), but my mindset and the attitude of my heart are clearly misplaced. It has just been the "little" things - 'little' in quotes because I know that's a word the enemy sneaks in to help me rationalize. Just small but very intentional thoughts like, Sorry, I just don't want to sit with you now. Or, Yes, I hear you. I understand. But that's not what I'm going to do. Sometimes it's even sneakier: Eh... Don't be so legalistic about quiet times, Pearl. Prayer is a life-style. 

Ouch.

Am I really that easy to get at?

Obviously I am. And the pretty clear result has been a severe lack of joy. It hasn't been a summer completely void of joy, but I'm finding myself scraping the bottom of the barrel more and more to muster up a little more, and that stinks. 

I know where I'm 'supposed' to be, or at least where I wish I was - but I seem to be stuck in a pit of my own stubbornness. I know what the problem is. I can hear him calling me to lay a couple of specific things to rest - and my answer has been this: Don't worry, I will. I just need to get a couple of other things taken care of first... 

Surprisingly enough, the Great I AM is not being flexible with his plans.

I feel like I'm at a little bit of an old wineskins/new wineskins moment. I've been operating with the same view of God for a while, but I've been changing, and the way He relates to me is changing - so that old view just isn't going to fit anymore. Trying to force it to fit is ruining both the old and the new (Mk. 2:22).

So I'm diving back into the Joy Study, and asking him for some pretty intense revelation of who he is. I know it's not like I'm going to get him 'figured out' in a week and a half or something, but I'm just asking him to show up. I'm picking up where I left of - and probably back-tracking into the Old Testament a little bit too.

Thanks for journeying alongside me.

Pearl