Most mornings I listen with coffee cup in hand, Bible and journal in lap. I’m reading through the Bible this year. In doing this I find it more challenging than usual to listen personally and all too easy to approach that day’s reading as something to check off on my daily to do list. It’s too easy to approach it as a routine more than a relationship. When this happens, true listening doesn’t. I come away feeling like my eyes read the words, but my heart wasn’t involved. I come away dissatisfied. I want to really hear, and to know I’ve heard. I want heart to Heart connection. I want relationship, and relationship is all about hearing and being heard, understanding and being understood.
He is jealous for my heart. He wants this intimate relationship between us too. He wants me to hear, to understand, to know Him. He hates our relationship turning into religious ritual even more than I do. And so He comes into the temple that is me, and starts turning over tables, and throwing out the money changers, and upsetting my neat little apple cart, and declaring in His Voice that commands the wind and waves, stars and planets, “This is My dwelling place! Her heart is mine!” Sometimes I’m offended that He messes with my neat little life like this, when suddenly I realize, I’m hearing Him again. This God of mine, He’s just not afraid to deal with anything that hinders His love, even my routine.
Still following,
Elizabeth
Every Wednesday, I join others here~
Oh, Elizabeth, thank you so much for visiting my blog and your encouraging comment. I loved your post and think you and I were thinking along the same lines today.
ReplyDeleteI love the part where Jesus comes in the temple that is me ripping apart tables and upsetting the apple cart--I think that is exactly what He was doing in Is. 30.
No more "morning routine" for me--I want Him to speak to me every day.
Love in Christ,
Dianne