The first day...

May 31, 2013

“Today is the first day of the rest of my life…” on earth.  (I don’t know where that quote is from.)  I have fallen behind in my blogging and in my reading of the Bible.  I intend to pick it back up but change my course a little bit. I will write/journal for me and if someone else wants to read it – fine.  I was reading the Bible this morning and have a challenge for myself:  give up the mindless Solitaire that wastes so much of my time and replace it with reading or writing for God with the ultimate purpose of searching for guidance and truths.  (Guilty pleasure: reading Oprah's "What I know for sure," so looking for a few of my own things that I know for sure.)   

I have used Solitaire to reduce anxiety at the end of the day so that I can sleep – as I said, its mindless.  However, I have been feeling very unsettled lately, almost depressed sort of, and know that I need to read the Bible and seek God more often.  I pray daily and try to recount my Gratitude for the day every night, but I still feel lost; like I’m floating or waiting for something to happen. I watched Eat, Pray, Love last night and it reminded me that I don’t have enough balance spiritually in my life.  I believe it says something about 50% for God and 50% for me and I’m nowhere near that. (Don't judge me, lol!  I know it’s a movie and probably a random suggestion by a character!) Although I think about God quite frequently, I’m pretty sure I’m not living a "balanced" life.  So, I read the Bible this morning, instead of playing the Solitaire game that I had opened, and decided to just read what pages came in front of me.  I had tabbed some previously, although I didn’t remember what they were or why I would have tabbed them and when I read them, they didn’t look familiar, but I started there.  

“Certain things no one can do for you. And one of those is spending time with God.  Listening to God is a firsthand experience.” – Max Lucado, Just Like Jesus.  So this is for me....and what I draw from my readings is strictly my own.  Anyone reading this and feeling otherwise or that my interpretations are somehow flawed, needs to re-read the premise (the quote)....you can't do it for me; its my own experience. 

The second piece I read was from Max Lucado’s interpretive notes, titled Heaven (2).  He talks about how we yearn for Heaven and don’t feel comfortable on this Earth because it isn’t home.  He quoted 1 Peter 2:11, “like foreigners and strangers in this world.”  He said we’re not supposed to be happy here, that Earth is not our home.  That we will have glimpses of heaven and happiness but that we will not be truly happy on Earth because we were not made for Earth.  That made me feel a little better…maybe that’s why I feel like I’m floating, lost, although I have plenty of purpose or things to do (responsibilities), I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.  It doesn’t help that I feel foggy in the brain many times during the day and honestly wonder if its early Alzheimers.  I say that I feel “dizzy” but it isn’t a spinning dizziness, it’s a foggy, out-of-focus feeling.  For one that always felt pretty driven and focused, it’s very unsettling.  I was blaming the new blood pressure medicine as one side effect can be dizziness but that’s usually upon rising and I feel this way at any given time.  Anyway, that will be for the doctors someday.

Psalm 119:105 – “Your word is like a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.” And so it will be....

I also get daily scripture interpretation from Joel Osteen.  It’s amazing how many times it’s pertinent and I wonder, “Did everyone get this or is God playing with social media?”  Today’s lesson was to “excel in giving”.  He was using 2 Corinthians 8:7 as the scripture base and he says although you excel in everything, he really wants to “see that you excel in this grace of giving.”  Joel ends his interpretation with “Let that be your desire, too, to leave people better off than when you met them.  Excel in the grace of giving and Glorify God in all you do.” And this, too, is something I try to do always but fail at miserably.  I always think of things after the fact or encounter that I could have done better.  Why is that?  Then it haunts me and I feel guilty....

So for today, I will journal for me and share because maybe, just maybe, this is what God wants me to do.  I believe he can direct us to interact for each other and maybe there is someone out there who needs to read this. Meanwhile, I will continue my own "search for truths" through my journaling.