helpful

Saturday, April 17, 2010 (6:21 a.m.)

Beloved Lord God,

You know my heart. You know that I long to be helpful. Healthy. Good. Yours. All the things Your Word dictates. I’m here confessing that I’m not at all sure how to do precisely that.

Blessed Lord, I love the way You reach out to me. I come to You thinking one thing and You take me in an entirely different direction than I had planned. My thoughts were those of learning how to be helpful in a healthy manner. Instead, I am reading Ephesians 4 in The Message about being precise rather than scattered. Focused. Mature.

Go God! Keep showing me what it is that You have for me to know and to practice.

And now Lord, let me just stop to say that You amaze me! There are these tiny, little inklings of my heart and my soul that seem to constantly dart around never fully connecting to one another. Taking time to sit with You, examining words through the filter of Your Word and I feel them coming together.

Lord, You gave me this heart that cares so much. You know precisely what You would have me do. You know exactly how You would have me proceed in helping others. Following along in Your Word takes me from first one book and then another and I find myself again amazed. Agog! In love. With You.

Thank You Father. Thank You that I get to bring a heartfelt desire to be helpful to You and You provide direction, limits, boundaries, insights all in the confines of Your Word.

(11:08 a.m.)

And here we are, this many hours later and I get to bring an angry heart to You. Is it really anger that I’m feeling? What emotion is deeper than what the angry mask is trying to hide? Discontent? Disappointment? I’m not sure. But I DO know this is the perfect place to come with it.

Thank You Lord. Thank You that I get to come before You with every single feeling, right as it is happening. I don’t have to wait until I have it all figured out and have properly repented. I get to just bring the whole jumbled mess to Your feet, asking simply, “Help me, Lord.”

Thank You Father. Thank You Son. Thank You Holy Spirit. Even in the midst of the slamming of a door, I was brought to the realization that our time here together had not been finished. Thank You that coming back to You and Your Word immediately settled my disproportioned heart, mind and soul.

Thank You that Your love knows no bounds. There is nothing too great or too small for me to try and keep from You. Not even my annoyance over something as simple as a window having been left open.

Lord, I come back before You now with the truth of Your Word guiding me. Turning again to Ephesians 4:20, where I had started much earlier this morning. “But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to Him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything – and I do mean everything – connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life – a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you.” (21-24)

As the chapter continues Lord, it speaks of being angry (26) and not giving the devil a foothold (27). More wisdom follows, ending with the wonderfully helpful direction of verse 32. “Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.”

Oh most dear and blessed Lord, continue Your work in me that I will truly become the helpful person You have planned all along for me to be.

I love You Lord. Thank You. Amen.

(691 words ~ 11:36 a.m.)