I love you. I love you when you vent, when you're mean, when you don't like me. I love you when your words are hard to hear, when I want to cry, when you want to cry. I love you despite.
Father, break open my hands. Draw me to the River of Life where I am satisfied. Keep me innocent, Father, and child-like in nature. Guide my path and keep my eyes fixed on You, the One who Was, and Is, and Is To Come. You will be first. I will be Your bondservant, Your love-slave, Your child. I want to listen to Your voice alone, Abba, and hear Your whisper in the midst of a noisy world, a noisy life. Thank you, Daddy, that You bring Conviction, and not condemnation. Thank you for loving me... me, a sinner.
Have you ever tried to write notes with your eyes closed? Like, on lined paper, when you look at it, you can write perfectly within the solid lines. But as soon as you close your eyes, or glance away, your letters will probably start veering off to the top or bottom and get all messy, and then you have to erase it and start all over again.
Or how about this: have you ever taken your shirt fresh out of the dryer and buried your nose in it to try and smell the fabric softener? The shirt is so close to your face that you can smell it, but you can't see what's on it because it's so close. You can sense it, but you have to pull it away from you to get the "big picture." When you're holding it so close you can't see the detail that makes up such a big part of the whole image, the whole reason...
Perhaps this is better— you're investigating the foundation of a house because the owners have complained of it's lack of solidity. For years, no one has touched any of the wooden beams that hold it all together, and they look fairly sturdy. You poke at them a little, and suddenly there are termites swarming all over the place. No one ever saw them because they were never disturbed, but they had always been there, eating away a little at a time.
Father, make me aware of Your reality.
Ecclesiastes 3
"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stone and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. he has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God's purpose is that people should fear him. What is happening how has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again."
