WHOLEHEARTEDNESS 2020
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."
This year I felt the concept of wholeheartedness being more important. At the beginning of the year, I didn't super know what that meant, thought I could feel that part of it was every single piece of who I am and what I do being aligned with God. It was a vague feeling, so it wasn't super helpful, but I trusted that the Holy Spirit would bring more understanding as it was needed.
We were made to be whole, not fragmented, not splintered so that parts of ourselves are at war with other parts. Sin does that, it pits parts of ourselves against each other. In the Psalms, David talks about his soul being damaged by sin, praying that God would repair his insides because sin had wrecked them. That doesn't mean that wholeheartedness looks like perfection, but it looks like total pursuit of what God values, even when we mess up: reconciliation with no shame, accepting grace over our lives and learning from the situation.
It's only been a few months since the beginning of the year, and I'm sure that my view of wholeheartedness will grow and change as the year continues, but right now where I'm at with it is pursuing the relationship that Jesus spelled out in John. The "I only do what I see my Father do." relationship that is built on dependence and closeness, not trying to force my mind and body and soul into alignment with Him, but trusting that when I am only focusing on what His desires are, on what He is trying to do, everything in me will align naturally.
"Unite my heart to fear thy name." My priorities have been so scattered and mixed. I want my desires in life to reflect and match God's desires for me. And I know that muscling them to be what I think God wants them to be is also not the way to go, but clearly the Holy Spirit has been touching on these things for a reason, and I am leaving it up to Him. Not in a lazy way, or a subtle excuse way, but in the past 6 months, I feel like my trust in God the Father and the Holy Spirit has reached a different level. They have demonstrated their consistency and sneaky timing over and over. I have full confidence in God's timing, and I trust the Holy Spirit to not let something fall to side that needs to be addressed. He works so subtly. It's like that Jane Austen quote, "I was in the middle before I knew I began." Now I don't want to be hyper-spiritual and throw my hands up in the air, putting in no effort (because there is plenty of hands-on stuff as well), but I trust to the Holy Spirit to show me what is what, what needs to be left alone, what He is working on, and what I need to do.
This is kind of off-topic, but not really because it all is a part of the whole. Trusting the Holy Spirit is the most actively freeing thing a person can do besides accepting Jesus as your Savior. Trusting the Holy Spirit takes ALL OF THE PRESSURE OFF. I am chillin, y'all. Worried about my future? Nope, I'm trusting. Worried I will feel alone when my sister moves? Nope, I have the most present and comforting friend with me 24/7. SIDENOTE: oh boy. This has been tested and proven. At first when my sister moved I struggled with the loneliness, I forgot that I was supposed to be leaning on the Holy Spirit, and I sought quick ways to get rid of that feeling. I texted friends more, went to my mom more, allowed some self-pity, and nurtured those feelings of isolation and loneliness, whispering sweet nothings. That all made me feel better in the short term, quick fixes of indulgence or interaction that pushed my loneliness down. I was resisting the uncomfortableness of the quiet discipline of reaching out to the Holy Spirit even when I didn't obviously feel Him. It's only been a short few weeks of actually putting this into practice, and it's not as easy as the quick turnarounds of distraction. His way is a little slower, a little stiller, but it is deeper. It is not covering up bad feelings with good feelings, it is clean resolution. His peace and companionship is so sneaky and so complete. It's amazing what happens when we just give Him a little room, a little space to untangle things. He does every time, every single time. He has never let me down or left me alone. He has proven to me personally that He is the most present and comforting friend. END OF SIDENOTE.
This year I felt the concept of wholeheartedness being more important. At the beginning of the year, I didn't super know what that meant, thought I could feel that part of it was every single piece of who I am and what I do being aligned with God. It was a vague feeling, so it wasn't super helpful, but I trusted that the Holy Spirit would bring more understanding as it was needed.
We were made to be whole, not fragmented, not splintered so that parts of ourselves are at war with other parts. Sin does that, it pits parts of ourselves against each other. In the Psalms, David talks about his soul being damaged by sin, praying that God would repair his insides because sin had wrecked them. That doesn't mean that wholeheartedness looks like perfection, but it looks like total pursuit of what God values, even when we mess up: reconciliation with no shame, accepting grace over our lives and learning from the situation.
It's only been a few months since the beginning of the year, and I'm sure that my view of wholeheartedness will grow and change as the year continues, but right now where I'm at with it is pursuing the relationship that Jesus spelled out in John. The "I only do what I see my Father do." relationship that is built on dependence and closeness, not trying to force my mind and body and soul into alignment with Him, but trusting that when I am only focusing on what His desires are, on what He is trying to do, everything in me will align naturally.
"Unite my heart to fear thy name." My priorities have been so scattered and mixed. I want my desires in life to reflect and match God's desires for me. And I know that muscling them to be what I think God wants them to be is also not the way to go, but clearly the Holy Spirit has been touching on these things for a reason, and I am leaving it up to Him. Not in a lazy way, or a subtle excuse way, but in the past 6 months, I feel like my trust in God the Father and the Holy Spirit has reached a different level. They have demonstrated their consistency and sneaky timing over and over. I have full confidence in God's timing, and I trust the Holy Spirit to not let something fall to side that needs to be addressed. He works so subtly. It's like that Jane Austen quote, "I was in the middle before I knew I began." Now I don't want to be hyper-spiritual and throw my hands up in the air, putting in no effort (because there is plenty of hands-on stuff as well), but I trust to the Holy Spirit to show me what is what, what needs to be left alone, what He is working on, and what I need to do.
This is kind of off-topic, but not really because it all is a part of the whole. Trusting the Holy Spirit is the most actively freeing thing a person can do besides accepting Jesus as your Savior. Trusting the Holy Spirit takes ALL OF THE PRESSURE OFF. I am chillin, y'all. Worried about my future? Nope, I'm trusting. Worried I will feel alone when my sister moves? Nope, I have the most present and comforting friend with me 24/7. SIDENOTE: oh boy. This has been tested and proven. At first when my sister moved I struggled with the loneliness, I forgot that I was supposed to be leaning on the Holy Spirit, and I sought quick ways to get rid of that feeling. I texted friends more, went to my mom more, allowed some self-pity, and nurtured those feelings of isolation and loneliness, whispering sweet nothings. That all made me feel better in the short term, quick fixes of indulgence or interaction that pushed my loneliness down. I was resisting the uncomfortableness of the quiet discipline of reaching out to the Holy Spirit even when I didn't obviously feel Him. It's only been a short few weeks of actually putting this into practice, and it's not as easy as the quick turnarounds of distraction. His way is a little slower, a little stiller, but it is deeper. It is not covering up bad feelings with good feelings, it is clean resolution. His peace and companionship is so sneaky and so complete. It's amazing what happens when we just give Him a little room, a little space to untangle things. He does every time, every single time. He has never let me down or left me alone. He has proven to me personally that He is the most present and comforting friend. END OF SIDENOTE.
Concerned about my brother becoming conductor of the crazy train? Nope, I know that the Holy Spirit, God, and Jesus want him to come to truth more than I do, and I trust that they are working in his life, bringing him to the end of himself. I am not worried about life, I am not hopeless, I am not anxious. In fact, I almost feel shallow because my thought life and general mood is so on the surface and free from deeper or underlying tension. It's almost like I've become one dimensional, but that's okay because it feels great.
"The Son of Man can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do."
"I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." And then a few chapters later, Jesus says about us: "for without me ye can do nothing." That sure sounds a lot like the relationship that Jesus described between Him and God. Obviously Jesus is the Son of God, fully man, fully God, and He was, is, and always will be perfect, but the relationship that He demonstrated with the Father, and the sensitivity and communication with the Holy Spirit that He leaned on, that is a guide, a model for what our lives can look like. And it's not striving, it's not pushing and trying to force ourselves into holiness or perfection because that will end in shame and failure. If it's by your will that you become righteous, then your sin will be your life's failure instead of becoming God's mercy.
I don't know what that "without me ye can do nothing" relationship looks like, but I trust the Holy Spirit to bring me further understanding. In the mean time, I am going to pursue every day being centered around my relationship with God.
For me, a practical step that I know I can take is to talk to the Holy Spirit. Literally, out loud, in my head, whatever. I want to talk to Him, to make going to Him first such a habit. The Comforter is here for relationship, for friendship. And the Trinity all want friendship. "for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth, but I have called you friends."
I want His voice to be the loudest, His hand to be the strongest, and His heart to be closest. And I know that saying a bunch of "I want" statements doesn't accomplish anything, but it's becoming a priority in my life, which means that it's becoming what I look for, what I seek, what I value above all else. And it's a spectrum, my whole life will be the spectrum of growth and closeness that doesn't really end, and I am more than ready for that because I am not trying to reach some goal or destination of perfect Christianity. I just want to live a life that radiates with a magnetic relationship with God, one that draws others into salvation.
I know that there are parts of my heart that are still at odds with the love of God, that are still nursing their hurt instead of handing it over, and I can feel the difference. When I am operating from that hurt or bitter or obsessive place, I can feel the change in my spirit, and I am happy I can feel the difference, but it is such a strange thing, caught between knowing something is poisonous and pointless, and really really not wanting to give it up because it gives the illusion of control and self-protection. And I don't like to admit that I am actively holding onto it because it rubs against my pride, against my false holiness, but I have to be okay with the fact that God is not raising a painting of perfection; He is raising a mirror that reflects the mercy and love that has been poured out over me, the salvation, the blood of the perfect lamb that says I have more grace than I know what to do with no matter what I look like because I am a mirror.
If I'm being really honest with myself, I know that I am not ready to let go of those sinful corners, and I know that is fleshy and childish to know something is wrong but to hold it in a clenched fist, but that's where I'm at. I know the God that gave me breath and blood will not retreat, He will never leave me, and He will gently pry my fist open inch by inch until both hands are open in surrender, I fully believe that. He is the God that transforms.
Yesterday was a really gnarly day. I cried for about half of the day for many reasons, and I was fleshy and self-indulgent and I leaned on my emotions for relief instead of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Today I have fought feelings of failure, but those feelings are self focused, they are "by my own strength" feelings that push out the Holy Spirit's place in that moment. I am not a failure until my measure of holiness is by my own strength. His love is actively changing me, which means that there's gonna be things that need to be changed. Wholeheartedness to me right now feels like being fully accountable to God. Being accountable for my flesh and my wrong heart attitudes without falling into self-pity or false righteousness, it feels like saying "I let my emotions get out of control and take me to places apart from You, but You're still here for me, and I will firmly ground myself in You without a waiting period of embarrassment or separation." That's part of what He paid for on the cross. We are blameless in His eyes, our sin swept away before we even sinned. Again, we are accountable, but that accountability does not require shame or withdrawing.
"As He is, so are we." 1 John 4:17
"Be ye holy, for He is HOLY." 1 Peter 1:16
We are from Him, and we are for Him. He is the source of our joy, the sole source of pure, true joy. In 1 John , it is said that through the fellowship of us and the Holy Spirit joy is found, and in John, Jesus says over and over how no man can take the joy that He has given us, our joy is complete in Him, it is fulfilled in Him. And in Revelations, when it talks about what Heaven and the New Earth will be like, it says that He will be our source of joy -- which makes sense when we will be in face to face fellowship with Him (which is wild in and of itself. Can you imagine? I can't. I can grasp at imagining what I will feel, but I cannot fathom what it is going to be like to see Jesus standing in front of me, hands outstretched, excited to see me. (SIDENOTE: I love imagining things about the New Earth or Heaven, and I love asking God questions. I may not know the answer now, but I have no doubts that He will take me aside in Heaven and read off the list of answers. That is a really funny and really relational portrait of God in my mind. I think that our daily view of God could be improved if we allowed our imagination to speculate, not out of dissatisfaction with today or imagining a version of God that lines up with some wrong thinking, but imagining simply because He has given us an imagination, and it's fun. Have you thought about the fact that Jesus is going to be excited to see you? Have you pictured what that moment is going to feel like? I think that we should. I don't fully know why, but it always ends in a moment of really sweet connection with Jesus. It's not life-altering; it's just really nice).
Only within the past three days have I understood the verses that talk about laying down our lives for the brethren, for God, for love, etc. In my mind, "laying down one's life" always meant dying for the cause, which is just as valid, but it never even occurred to me that it meant so much more. Maybe I'm a little slow, but now I see it to mean something alongside the lines of wholeheartedness. Our whole lives laid down in service and sacrifice for the Greatest One. We are not our own. My opinions and emotions and desires are no longer my own. It's easy to hear those statements as vague sayings that are passed around with honorable sentiment but no real action behind them. We cannot be a people who take those statements lightly. I am not my own; I am a temple of the Holy Spirit, my body formed by God's hands, His breath in my lungs -- and not just figuratively. I am a cathedral of flesh and bone, a mirror reflecting Him to the world. I am not being philosophical or hyper-spiritual or figurative when I say that our lives have to be laid down at God's feet. I mean it at full force. My future is not mine (which is a really hard sentence for me to write). My dreams and hopes are wonderful, and God has given me those desires for a reason, but again: it is not my decision. He is not a puppet master, but He does have a plan for the life that He bought with blood, and I cannot let my own selfish and temporary hopes for earthly success disrupt that.
Our only hope for life is in Jesus Christ -- literally our only hope -- how could I not throw my whole self into Him?
And my favorite verse of all time: "In Him we live, move, and have our being."
Just like the fruit of the Spirit is a natural out pour, a result of living purposefully with the Holy Spirit, wholeheartedness is a natural result of doing what we see our Father do. And how do we get to that point? Practice. It's funny how many spectacular, spiritual aspects of living in agreement with the Bible is achieved through practice, the repetitive and mundane retraining of our heart's knee jerk reactions. It is not glamorous or a one-time spiritual encounter that magically makes it easy; it is daily living that we don't feel like we need to bring God into, but it's in that daily living, the calm and normal moments, where we form our habits. And I don't know about you, but I want looking to God to be my strongest habit.
This post is long and rambly, and maybe it doesn't all seem connected to the same topic, but if I have learned one thing in this last year, it's that every bit of who I am must be submitted, must be yielded to His way, to His hands. It is so much better, it is so much better. Our whole being was meant to be directed towards Him, viewed through Him.
The pursuit of my life is relationship with the Holy Spirit, with Jesus, and with God the Father, and I want it to be visible. It can't be a private pursuit that doesn't infiltrate every single thing I do -- He is the center of my heart and my soul. I want to water my plants for Him, I want to write for Him, I want to love people with a pure heart fervently. I want my life to be consumed by God, by His goodness and love and righteousness. I don't want my legacy to just be that I was kind and loved people, but that I loved people in the name of Jesus.
This is a matter of life and death in the realest sense, and He is life. I choose life, wholeheartedly.
"The Son of Man can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do."
"I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." And then a few chapters later, Jesus says about us: "for without me ye can do nothing." That sure sounds a lot like the relationship that Jesus described between Him and God. Obviously Jesus is the Son of God, fully man, fully God, and He was, is, and always will be perfect, but the relationship that He demonstrated with the Father, and the sensitivity and communication with the Holy Spirit that He leaned on, that is a guide, a model for what our lives can look like. And it's not striving, it's not pushing and trying to force ourselves into holiness or perfection because that will end in shame and failure. If it's by your will that you become righteous, then your sin will be your life's failure instead of becoming God's mercy.
I don't know what that "without me ye can do nothing" relationship looks like, but I trust the Holy Spirit to bring me further understanding. In the mean time, I am going to pursue every day being centered around my relationship with God.
For me, a practical step that I know I can take is to talk to the Holy Spirit. Literally, out loud, in my head, whatever. I want to talk to Him, to make going to Him first such a habit. The Comforter is here for relationship, for friendship. And the Trinity all want friendship. "for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth, but I have called you friends."
I want His voice to be the loudest, His hand to be the strongest, and His heart to be closest. And I know that saying a bunch of "I want" statements doesn't accomplish anything, but it's becoming a priority in my life, which means that it's becoming what I look for, what I seek, what I value above all else. And it's a spectrum, my whole life will be the spectrum of growth and closeness that doesn't really end, and I am more than ready for that because I am not trying to reach some goal or destination of perfect Christianity. I just want to live a life that radiates with a magnetic relationship with God, one that draws others into salvation.
I know that there are parts of my heart that are still at odds with the love of God, that are still nursing their hurt instead of handing it over, and I can feel the difference. When I am operating from that hurt or bitter or obsessive place, I can feel the change in my spirit, and I am happy I can feel the difference, but it is such a strange thing, caught between knowing something is poisonous and pointless, and really really not wanting to give it up because it gives the illusion of control and self-protection. And I don't like to admit that I am actively holding onto it because it rubs against my pride, against my false holiness, but I have to be okay with the fact that God is not raising a painting of perfection; He is raising a mirror that reflects the mercy and love that has been poured out over me, the salvation, the blood of the perfect lamb that says I have more grace than I know what to do with no matter what I look like because I am a mirror.
If I'm being really honest with myself, I know that I am not ready to let go of those sinful corners, and I know that is fleshy and childish to know something is wrong but to hold it in a clenched fist, but that's where I'm at. I know the God that gave me breath and blood will not retreat, He will never leave me, and He will gently pry my fist open inch by inch until both hands are open in surrender, I fully believe that. He is the God that transforms.
Yesterday was a really gnarly day. I cried for about half of the day for many reasons, and I was fleshy and self-indulgent and I leaned on my emotions for relief instead of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Today I have fought feelings of failure, but those feelings are self focused, they are "by my own strength" feelings that push out the Holy Spirit's place in that moment. I am not a failure until my measure of holiness is by my own strength. His love is actively changing me, which means that there's gonna be things that need to be changed. Wholeheartedness to me right now feels like being fully accountable to God. Being accountable for my flesh and my wrong heart attitudes without falling into self-pity or false righteousness, it feels like saying "I let my emotions get out of control and take me to places apart from You, but You're still here for me, and I will firmly ground myself in You without a waiting period of embarrassment or separation." That's part of what He paid for on the cross. We are blameless in His eyes, our sin swept away before we even sinned. Again, we are accountable, but that accountability does not require shame or withdrawing.
A new thing that has been popping up in my heart is feeling the need to use my emotions wisely. Not just being accountable for where they take me, but submitting them for God's use. I am the way I am for a reason, I firmly believe that. I believe that being reactive, uncomfortable with unresolved conflict, unable to build walls in my heart (like, I've tried, and now I'm kind of proud of the fact that I can't), and highly emotional is a gift in my life, not a side effect of who I am, but an important part. I get to be a lamb in a world of wolves, that is so so valuable. So I don't want to live as though my emotions are just happening to me; I want to use my emotions for God's glory, to reflect gentleness and love and openness.
I have felt so welcomed and accepted by God to express and feel however much I want, that my feelings are not "too much" and I'm not crazy. The more I get to know the Trinity, the more I feel like I am knowing myself. It's hard to explain, but I feel like by the Holy Spirit's unseen influence over the past 3 years, I have literally been guided into who I am, into an unrestrained and unafraid fullness of me. I really don't know how to say it any differently. I am so grateful for the ease and rightness that I feel in myself, and I want to submit it to God, I want the heart that He tended to produce good fruit, to produce fruit that He loves. He put in the work and the love and the blood, and I want the fruit to be pleasing to Him.
"As He is, so are we." 1 John 4:17
"Be ye holy, for He is HOLY." 1 Peter 1:16
We are from Him, and we are for Him. He is the source of our joy, the sole source of pure, true joy. In 1 John , it is said that through the fellowship of us and the Holy Spirit joy is found, and in John, Jesus says over and over how no man can take the joy that He has given us, our joy is complete in Him, it is fulfilled in Him. And in Revelations, when it talks about what Heaven and the New Earth will be like, it says that He will be our source of joy -- which makes sense when we will be in face to face fellowship with Him (which is wild in and of itself. Can you imagine? I can't. I can grasp at imagining what I will feel, but I cannot fathom what it is going to be like to see Jesus standing in front of me, hands outstretched, excited to see me. (SIDENOTE: I love imagining things about the New Earth or Heaven, and I love asking God questions. I may not know the answer now, but I have no doubts that He will take me aside in Heaven and read off the list of answers. That is a really funny and really relational portrait of God in my mind. I think that our daily view of God could be improved if we allowed our imagination to speculate, not out of dissatisfaction with today or imagining a version of God that lines up with some wrong thinking, but imagining simply because He has given us an imagination, and it's fun. Have you thought about the fact that Jesus is going to be excited to see you? Have you pictured what that moment is going to feel like? I think that we should. I don't fully know why, but it always ends in a moment of really sweet connection with Jesus. It's not life-altering; it's just really nice).
Only within the past three days have I understood the verses that talk about laying down our lives for the brethren, for God, for love, etc. In my mind, "laying down one's life" always meant dying for the cause, which is just as valid, but it never even occurred to me that it meant so much more. Maybe I'm a little slow, but now I see it to mean something alongside the lines of wholeheartedness. Our whole lives laid down in service and sacrifice for the Greatest One. We are not our own. My opinions and emotions and desires are no longer my own. It's easy to hear those statements as vague sayings that are passed around with honorable sentiment but no real action behind them. We cannot be a people who take those statements lightly. I am not my own; I am a temple of the Holy Spirit, my body formed by God's hands, His breath in my lungs -- and not just figuratively. I am a cathedral of flesh and bone, a mirror reflecting Him to the world. I am not being philosophical or hyper-spiritual or figurative when I say that our lives have to be laid down at God's feet. I mean it at full force. My future is not mine (which is a really hard sentence for me to write). My dreams and hopes are wonderful, and God has given me those desires for a reason, but again: it is not my decision. He is not a puppet master, but He does have a plan for the life that He bought with blood, and I cannot let my own selfish and temporary hopes for earthly success disrupt that.
Our only hope for life is in Jesus Christ -- literally our only hope -- how could I not throw my whole self into Him?
And my favorite verse of all time: "In Him we live, move, and have our being."
Everything we are is from Him and for Him. When I am having quiet time with God, when I focus on the Holy Spirit, it feels like the most natural thing in the world, and the most fulfilling. I will never be more content than when I am talking to and feeling the response from God. I've noticed a clear pattern; when I skip time with God in the morning is when I have the gnarliest days. He is our center, and when we get off kilter, He will bring us back to ourselves. He is the light; it is by Him and Him alone that we see clearly.
Growing up in a Baptist church, I knew the name of the Holy Spirit, but I didn't know much else about Him. I never want to idolize one part of God above the others because we need the whole God, not the easiest fragments. But the Holy Spirit was sent to us for every single day, to teach us all things. Jesus prayed that the Holy Spirit would be sent to us, that we would not be left comfortless, that we would abide in Him through the Holy Spirit.
If I am truly a temple of the Holy Spirit, then there is no room closed off to Him. He is not a guest, His name is on the deed, He paid for every inch of my life, every second. And if I am His representation to the world, if I am His servant, His follower, then I have to seek to honor Him above man, with no exceptions. I think that's the part that gets me, because I make a lot of mental exceptions, and I am dishonoring God when I compromise His purity to another person, I am being a false witness. That's a little uncomfortable for me to write, but if I am a temple, then cleaning out the temple is just as much worship as the rest of it.
My hope is not in my pursuit of Him, though that is wonderful and important. My hope is not in my own goodness or how long I can go without sinning. My hope is not in the moments where I have felt Him so closely, where I have clearly heard from the Holy Spirit. My hope isn't even in the fact that He makes me feel loved. My hope is in His strength and His Word. It is in Him and Him alone. I am so done with my prideful measures of righteousness. I have nothing good on my own. Anything good I have is from Him directly.
I am done with false humility or false guilt. I am NOT better than sin, I am NOT better than anything. There is no one good, no not one, apart from God. I never used to understand that because I viewed goodness as a separate thing that God possessed a lot of, the same goes for love or joy. What we have a hard time wrapping our minds around, or at least I have, is that you can't separate goodness from God. It does not exist on it's own. IT DOES NOT EXIST ON ITS OWN. He is the source and the culmination. The branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine; it is impossible.
Just like the fruit of the Spirit is a natural out pour, a result of living purposefully with the Holy Spirit, wholeheartedness is a natural result of doing what we see our Father do. And how do we get to that point? Practice. It's funny how many spectacular, spiritual aspects of living in agreement with the Bible is achieved through practice, the repetitive and mundane retraining of our heart's knee jerk reactions. It is not glamorous or a one-time spiritual encounter that magically makes it easy; it is daily living that we don't feel like we need to bring God into, but it's in that daily living, the calm and normal moments, where we form our habits. And I don't know about you, but I want looking to God to be my strongest habit.
This post is long and rambly, and maybe it doesn't all seem connected to the same topic, but if I have learned one thing in this last year, it's that every bit of who I am must be submitted, must be yielded to His way, to His hands. It is so much better, it is so much better. Our whole being was meant to be directed towards Him, viewed through Him.
The pursuit of my life is relationship with the Holy Spirit, with Jesus, and with God the Father, and I want it to be visible. It can't be a private pursuit that doesn't infiltrate every single thing I do -- He is the center of my heart and my soul. I want to water my plants for Him, I want to write for Him, I want to love people with a pure heart fervently. I want my life to be consumed by God, by His goodness and love and righteousness. I don't want my legacy to just be that I was kind and loved people, but that I loved people in the name of Jesus.
This is a matter of life and death in the realest sense, and He is life. I choose life, wholeheartedly.
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