Where are the still waters? I need them!

I've fallen into that trap again - the one where I start to feel comfortable and in control of my life. Where I let my desperate need for God fall to the side, become less desperate. Where I get frustrated easily and nothing seems to go the way I want it to.


And then factor in an upcoming marriage. We're not even married yet, and I'm learning so much. Dave is my spiritual thermometer. When my heart is not right with my Father, the relationship Dave and I are building gets prickly, and there are tears and angry words and disharmony.


This morning, I was reading Oswald (surprise!) who simply asked, "Why do we doubt God? He has proven Himself. We have no room to fear." And then I was lead to James 3: 
"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness."


Looking on at my life, you wouldn't see these characteristics, you wouldn't feel the quiet assurance these verses emanate. Inside my heart there is a clear awareness of this lack of peace, and my heart literally quails at the thought. I am desperate for confidence in my Father that sings, "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well." It's there. I've seen the effects of trusting God with everything. It's just in hiding, weakened by my selfish desires and sinful nature.


Father, draw me into Your heart. Renew my thirst, my desperation, for You.

Unveiling more layers: Psalm 103.

I love Psalm 103.  I always find myself back there when I'm confused or tired or frustrated, reading it again and again.  I've been sick for days with no real signs of improvement, and I had a few minutes to myself this morning, so I turned to 103 (out of weariness and frustration).  I love how my Father follows up on what I'm learning!


Vs. 9-10: "He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever.  He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."


Peace with God, abundant grace.  A reiteration of the things I learned Sunday.

And they are asking this of someone who finds it endlessly mysterious.

I spent my lunch hour perched on a rock by the river, a book open in my lap.  But I alternated between the lazy scrolling of words on the page and the black butterflies drifting through the kudzu.  Leaf-shaped, silver-sided fish glinted along the fallen logs in the shallows below me.  Three turtles scrambled up on a half-submerged tree, and I spent a lot of time watching their backs dry in the sun.  A secretive rustling in the leaves at my feet eventually materialized into a long, blue-tailed lizard who clawed delicately over a neighboring rock.

I was struck by how still everything was - almost as if the river absorbed unnecessary sounds and swirled them off downstream.  Even the traffic up the hill from me was hushed.  It was a beautiful christening of the first day of autumn, a cool drink of the peace I crave, a tree-filtered sunshine afternoon.

**Headline taken from Ann Beattie's essay, "Melancholy and the Muse" in Unholy Ghosts: Writers on Depression, by Nell Casey (2003).