Emotions pt. 1

I like to think of myself as a person who values open communication. I want to be someone that other people can talk to, and they can show me the real 'them' without fear of rejection. I am not afraid of 'messy' emotions or hard words.

I like to cultivate friendships where people can be truly candid with me, and I always try to provide a safe place for 'realness'. It is because I, myself, like to speak plainly. I like to open myself up in safe circles and show people the real me.

It was not always that way though.

First off, my emotions are a big part of the real me. I'm a woman. Enough said.

However, I remember a time when I use to be embarrassed by my emotions. I was afraid to show people the real me. I was certain that they couldn't and wouldn't be able to handle the real me. It was a very troubling place. I was constantly second guessing myself.

In one sense, I had this deep longing to know people, and in turn, to be known by them. I wanted that deep heart connection.

In the next moment though, I was terrified that if I did allow myself to go deep, to really open myself up, that they would dislike me. Reject me. Because emotions are messy. Could they really handle all of me?

These lies were spawned in my early pre-teen years (unintentionally, I'm sure). They were further enforced by a series of unfortunate friendships in High School.

By the time I was an adult, I was a crazy mix of wanting to be known, but then, terrified to be truly known.

Somehow in that state I got married, and the Lord blessed me with a wonderful husband. Then came the real test. The real me became evident to my husband. I let me emotions out. A lot.

My poor husband was shocked to some extent, I am sure. I was probably nothing like the woman he thought he had married. What happen to that cool, laid back, exciting woman he had dated?

She was a shell; that which I was willing to show him and others, to hide the real, messy me.

To be fair, those first few years of marriage were.......interesting, in more than one way, as any newly wed could probably verify.

Then came the move. Across country. To a new place.

It was in that new place that the Lord began to reach out to me, and I, in turn, reached out to Him at a new level. I began to trust the Lord at a new level. Then it happened. I began to let the real me out of the box..... in more public places.

The first time this happened (that I can recall) was at a new small group we had started to attend. All began well. Everyone was giving their friendly and interesting stories about how they had come to be a part of our church community.

Then it was my turn to share......

Stay tunes for part 2 of Emotions

Nine Month Woes

My son is now 9 months old, and I feel like I have never prayed so much in my life. You would think by my third child that I would be more relaxed, but sometimes I am not.

He is my first boy, maybe that is why I am still so uptight. Everything I thought I learned and knew with the my first two girls, I am now second guessing with my first boy.

From the get go, I could tell he was hard wired different than my girls. His crying was less dramatic, more to the point, easier to decipher his needs from. Unlike my girls crying, which sounded almost the same for hungry or in fear for their very lives. Girls = more drama. Figured that one out quick.

Yet he is just different in so many other ways. I can't even put my finger on it, but I find I am more stressed about how to parent him. So I pray.

One of my most common prayers recently has been for him to poop. He seems to have either a very slow digestive system or a very efficient digestive system. He just doesn't seem to have to go that often. Now that I have introduced solids, it seems even more nerve wracking as I wait for his poops.

Yet he has only been constipated once so far, the rest have been mostly normal. So what is my deal?

Still, I find prayer helps, at least where my nerves are concerned. I don't have the answers after all. I can't look inside his belly to see if he really needs to poop. I can't even make him poop. So I pray, and trust the Lord, and He gives me peace.

My next group of prayers for baby boy have been about his crawling. He's almost 10 months and not crawling. My girls were crawling by now, but baby boy, he is more chill than you know!  I joke, however, that he has three mothers, me and my two daughters. Why would he ever need to crawl, they attend to his every need.

Toy too far away.......let me get that for you.

Tired and ready for a nap...........let me go find mom for you.

Want to look out the window and frustrated...............never mind, let me entertain you with my antics.

The flow of love toward him is almost never ending.

Yet I still pray. Just in case. The doctor says he is fine and strong and all that. All the websites I read say he is still within the normal range for crawling. He just isn't like my girls were, so I scrutinize, and wonder and pray.

Thankfully the Lord just reminded me today that the doctor said that his head is in the 95th percentile while his body weight and length is only the 25th percentile. To me that says, big head, little body. Maybe the poor thing has to grow into his head a bit more before he can learn to maneuver his whole body around.

Whatever the reason, the Lord has been giving me peace on that front too.

So there you have it. What a mom with a nine month old prays about. I pray about a lot of other stuff too. Things much bigger than my home life, but there is something nice in praying for the small, everyday kinds of things. The Lord is a lover of the small as much as the big.  I can pray for the one while not neglecting the other, and you know what, He is always faithful to answer even my most silliest questions/petitions.

What kinds of small things are you praying about today? Nothing is too big or too small for the God of all Creation. So make your request known.

PS. Took me three months to post this. Baby boy is 12 months now and crawling great. He is starting to poop more too.  The Lord is merciful and kind to those of us who call on His name.

Cottage Gardens

Today I stepped outside of the box, as I got dressed this morning. I wore a coral colored skirt with a raspberry and orange shirt. It may not sound too daring to you, but it was a huge 'risk' for me who is more comfortable with predictable, orderly things.

My style for so long had been just that.......predictable, orderly, matching, formulated.

Example of a formal garden design.

Since I can remember I have always matched colors to the same color or neutral colors. Red skirt can go with a white/cream colored shirt, or a pink colored shirt but only if the pink colored shirt has the same shade of red in it somewhere.

In my gardens I always followed plans and guides. I would look at the way other designers laid out beds and learned their formulas and then reproduced them. I may have used different plants, but the same idea was just repeated and reused over and over.

Then, in my home, I would always pick neutral items, always wanting everything to 'flow' and 'go together'. The few pieces I owned that could be considered 'eye catching' were always only purchased when I had a blueprint of another house to inspire me. I looked at that inspirational house, figured out how to formulate/reproduce it in my own, and therefore, never created anything too daring.

That was where I felt comfortable. That was safe.

So you may find it funny that I love (have always loved)...............cottage gardens, crazy bohemian clothing styles, and eclectic style home furnishings.

Those three don't go with structure or order, and they break all the rules! Yet I love the way those things look. I love the riot of colors and textures!. They are vibrant and alive and they make my heart happy to look at them.

Colorful, yet still very formal garden design.

So when I was younger I use to try and study art like that....abstract/surreal, contemporary, modern. All those colors and textures drew me in. Things that had no order to them, and yet were beautiful. Then I would sit there and try to figure out a formula to reproduce it. Ha!

My point is, that I appreciated the beauty that comes from a lack of order/structure, but I didn't know how to live there myself.

Then I met a friend, Rachel Myers, who naturally did what I could not. Her clothing style was bohemian mixed with whatever she thought looked nice that day. Her gardens were always a menagerie of colors, varieties, and she even mixed veggies and flowers (oh, what a rule breaker, hahaha), and even her home furnishings were so free and creative, yet functional.

I looked and watched and appreciated her so much for those things. She taught me a lot about what my own limitations were. We would go flower shopping together and she would pick orange, red and yellow with pastel purples and yellow. I would say, 'no, you can't mix those colors' and she would say, 'why not', and I couldn't answer her.

Why not?

That simple question is what I ask myself all the time now. When I want to think, create, and live outside the 'box' of rules to make something new and beautiful, then I ask myself that question.
Why not?

For so long the reason 'why not' was because I was too afraid to try something new, take a risk, or let my natural instincts have a chance. Because maybe my natural instincts weren't right......

No! I chose now not to believe that now.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made......including my natural inclinations toward art, beauty, and nature.

Cottage garden....no boundaries.

So now, when I feel that thing rise up in me, that thing that says I can't do something, then that only tells me that it is something that is probably worth doing.

Like wearing whatever creative, vibrant colors I want to wear. Or planting whatever flowers I want to plant together. Or picking out that teal colored lamp for my living room that is decorated in reds and browns.

As I step out more and more, I am finding that my true style is more like the things I have always loved and admired.

Abstract. Bohemian. Eclectic. Cottage.

I was locked inside of a box made of fears. Fears of breaking 'rules', fears of taking a risk in mixing colors and textures, and fears of what other people might think about me if I were to really step out and show the way I really 'feel' through my sense of style.

I am finding that I have always been a lover of rainbows of colors, but had relegated myself to only the use of browns and grays  Here is to stepping out, taking a few style risks, and loving the real me all the more for the journey!

Step out and learn how much fun it can be to color outside the lines!

Cottage style garden....a riot of colors,
textures and forms!

One Mom, Loving God

I have been following hard after the Lord for almost 6 years. People who have known me longer, would say that I have been committed to the Lord longer than that, but I don't really start counting until after I truly decided to lay down all my own desires to press in to the Lord.

It was only about 6 years ago that I, for the first time, became desperate for more and more of Him. Nothing else would do in that season. I had been removed from all that was safe and familiar, and I had nothing else to fall back on. I knew the Lord was real, but for the first time, I really needed Him. Had to have Him! If I was going to survive.

And you know what?

I found Him. Or rather, He found me, and I began the process of giving Him everything. I'm obviously still in that processes, but I am astounded at how much has been accomplished in my heart in 5 years. He is a miracle worker, in more ways than just the obvious.

What the Lord accomplishes in the unseen realm is much more impressive than all the outward miracles. Only He can fully change and transform a heart/motives/desires/personality.

Okay, but that is not where I am going with this.

My point is, five years into this process of transformation, and my heart is so in love with my Creator, that some days I hardly know what to do with myself. Some days, I talk to Him so often, that it is just like talking with a friend all day. Only I ask Him all the hard questions, and press Him for the answers again and again.

He is faithful to answer too, and I can almost hear His fatherly tone sometimes when I hear His voice in my head. The kinds of things He tells me, the kinds of things He shows me, make me feel giddy inside. Not only because the things are awesome in and of themselves, but because the God of the Universe just made some mystery known to me.

He is talking to me.

What a concept.

I always used to hear spiritual people in churches talk about the Lord and they would say He was their friend, but I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know how someone could actually be friends with the God of Creation.

Now I do. Well sort of. I can't explain exactly what it feels like, but He is, and we are, friends.

Yet lately I have been getting frustrated with the way He makes me feel. He talks to me, and I feel His presence.  He reveals the meaning of scriptures to me in a personal way and He answers my questions. I see His hand moving in my life, and He provides for my family so faithfully, but I don't know how to respond.

I can feel His love some days burning inside of me like a fire. Sometimes words that He has spoken to my heart burn inside of me, but I don't know what to do with them. Other times, He shows me something in the Spirit, but I don't feel adequate enough to paint the picture or even describe it with words. Then there are times where He gives me revelation on something, but I have no one to tell. No one that would even understand what I am talking about, because there is so much more wrapped up in the idea than could ever be explained.

Does any of this make sense to anyone else?

Am I losing it?

I hope someone can relate. You know who I think I might be able to relate to. Elijah. With that fire shut up in his bones. Yet for me, it is perhaps more like 'firey love' shut up in my bones.

How to get this love out? That is the question.

Where do I put it all? It's more than I know what to do with. Who can I pour it into? Is there even a way to fully express what He is giving to me to give?

I'm not sure, but I love the way He is loving me in this season. There is such a sweetness on my days. I can hardly comprehend what it is all about, but when I lay my head on my pillow at the end of the day, there is a lingering sweetness to it, and I look to the coming day with confidence, that my God is with me.

We are friends.

Friendships are like Gold

When I moved to South Carolina almost two years ago, one of my biggest prayers was for deep and meaningful friendships with other women. I knew that would happen eventually, but I wanted it quick, because I knew I would need that "iron sharpening iron" thing happening in my life. Mom's are some of the best iron to sharpen other moms.

So I prayed for deep friendships to be made quickly, and I had a hope for a supernatural provision from the Lord concerning the request.

Oh, and did He ever provide!!!

The odds were stacked against me. We attended MorningStar Fellowship Church the last Sunday in June, before they took the whole month of July off for a church wide Sabbath month (by the way, I think that is such a cool thing for a church to do). One Sunday to make a few new friends, before the church shut down for a whole month. Wow. The Lord is awesome.

He did it!

That first Sunday my husband introduced me to two men he had met in his previous visits to MorningStar. They both had wives. That is not where the Lord stopped though. That same Sunday, in the nursery where I dropped my daughter off, I met a third woman. Another mom with a little boy in the nursery and a Tuesday mom's coffee group that met at her house weekly.

It was perfect! That mom, her name is Bree, turned out to be a real 'gatherer'! You know, one of those women who just naturally attracts people to her. She in turn, connects people with other people, while encouraging and literally breathing hospitality to all she meets. She might blush if she read this, but it's true Bree, you are amazing! God used you in a mighty way in my life, to fill a need that I had no idea how to fill.

So, that first Sunday, Bree gave me her cell phone number in the nursery and the rest is history.

However, I did have to do my small part. Miracles happen, but not inside a vacuum. I had prayed for the Lord to help me make friends, but I still had to step out. I went to coffee at a woman's house I barely knew, to meet other moms.

Out of my comfort zone? For sure.

Was it great? Yes.

That next Tuesday I met a small group of moms and to this day, those moms are still some of my dearest friends here. In fact, they are some of the dearest friends that I have ever had in my whole life. That is saying a lot, I'm almost 30 years old.

So it really was a miracle! Especially when I consider the depth of our relationships, which has been accomplished in such a short amount of time (two years).

Yet now we are moving again.

Part of me is crushed. It will be a very big sacrifice to give up living my life with these friends. I am not one of those people who walks into a new season blindly. I am always acutely aware of what I am sacrificing (what it will cost) to move in obedience to the Lord's voice. Sometimes it is a job, sometimes it is friends, sometimes it is a house I really like, sometimes it is a church I really like. I have given up all of those things before, and now I am giving up some of those things again.

Is He worth it?

I already know He is. Yet in the midst of my last big move the Lord taught me something. When you are so connected to someone, it is painful to move away from them. It is okay to be sad, and miss them terribly. There is no sin in loving your friends well, and the truest friends last, no matter how far away you move.

To all my friends, both in Kansas City and Charlotte.......I love you all so dearly.

With all my love. I wanted to honor you all for what you have been to me. Iron. Encouragement. Strength  Wisdom. Entertainment. Laughter. Real Life Love.

Now if you would all pray with me, that the Lord would raise up additional women, who will step in, and meet me where I am, in Texas. Supernatural friendships, relationships, and spiritual mothers, that would be raised up to strengthen me in this new season.

Reading a Book

My husband is a great reader and writer. I look at how much he reads and feel a bit of intimidated. Mostly because reading informational books, even books about Jesus and/or spiritual topics are hard for me to read. I plow through them, always with the feeling that I am reading the words, yet not really getting the depth of what the author is saying. It feels so labor-some, and even overwhelming to get started sometimes.

Lately though. I have been making some lofty goals. One of them is to read 2 non-fiction books this year. That may not sound like much, but to me, it is like pledging to run a marathon, at least in my mind. I love stories, so biographies are big with me, and those are non-fiction, but that is not what I felt like I was suppose to read.

Now, so far I've already read one non-fiction book called Spiritual Warfare by Derek Prince. It was really, really thin, which was part of its appeal.

Yet seriously people! It took me over three weeks to read a 139 page book, which I might add was broken up into bite size chapters.  In January I read a Christian fiction book that was 417 pages, and read it in 2.5 days. Make the comparison. I am not a fast reader when it comes to non-fiction.

It is because I stress so much about 'getting it all'. If I am going to labor through a book, it is because I want to get something out of it. I want to grasp fully the overall message of the book.  I want to be able to take in the deep messages or instructions, but I'm not sure I'm actually wired like that. Sometimes I can read a whole chapter and not really know what I just read.

Yet, the Lord has been showing me something.

When I read that book about Spiritual warfare, I read it slow and tried to 'savor' it.  I took the time, and tried to really 'get' it. In the end, however, I only walked away with a few little nuggets of truth that stuck out to me and really stuck with me. They were really great little truths that have revolutionized the way I relate to the Lord in a few areas of prayer.

Still, when I put the book away I felt as if I had failed somehow. I couldn't tell you all about each chapter, and I didn't know if I really understood everything I had read. Then the Lord whispered to my heart, "you got just what I wanted to show you."

I felt silly.

"Lord, you mean those two little nuggets?" I asked Him.

"Yes, that is all I wanted you to get, so don't worry about the rest."

I thought, "seriously, I just spent three weeks stressing to read through this book, when the whole point was really just those two little sections that nearly jumped off the page at me. I couldn't have missed them if I had wanted to. They (the nuggets of truth) related so exactly to questions I had already been talking to You about. Could reading non-fiction, spiritual books really be so simple Lord?"

"Yes."

"Oh, so I guess I don't have to stress so much about reading them, huh?"

"Nope," says the Lord to my heart, "enjoy."

Ah, yes. Joy. Well, the joy of the Lord is now my strength when reading non-fiction books. I no longer am feeling stressed about trying to 'get' or 'grasp' everything I am reading. What the Lord wants to show me in these books (books I have prayerfully listed to read this year) He is big enough to show me what I need to know out of them.

How freeing, how refreshing!

I wonder, has anyone else ever felt this way when trying to read 'heavy' books? I feel as if what I am writing about will sound like a 'duh' moment to everyone else. Then again, I have been around the church long enough to know I am nothing unique. If I am having a struggle, I am pretty sure I am not the first to have it.

I should have realized sooner that the stress I felt when reading these types of books was not from the Lord. It was a lie of the enemy, along the lines of me not being 'spiritual' enough to grasp what I was reading, or not 'focused' enough to really gain anything of value from these sources.

What a lie!

I am smart enough, I know how to focus, and I have Holy Spirit on my side, therefore I am unstoppable (when it comes to reading).

Another thing I feel like the Lord pointed out. It is all about measuring the end result for me. When I read a story I can tell you the whole story, and that is how I measure how well I did in reading the book. Yet information books are not set up that way. You measure by how much it helped you in the end. How much you learned from it, and that determines whether you successfully read it.

Those two little nuggets I got from the Prince book were worth reading the whole book for, therefore I successfully read that book, and got what I was suppose to get. How simple.

Thank you Lord for the revelation. Amen.

No Formula

In my recent pursuit of reading through the Bible in a Year (a reading plan), I have been plowing through the Old Testament like a champ. I am not one of those deep thinkers, that stays on a particular chapter and verse for a whole months. I am more of a 'big picture' kind of gal.

So here is one of the 'big picture' the Lord has been showing me.

There is no formula.

That's it, the end.

I repeat. There is no formula.

The reason this is so profound to me? When I was a young Christian, I thought that there might be a good formula to follow for those who wanted to get closer to God.

I like organization. I like to know what is expected of me, and I like to make goals. I like it even better when those goals are able to be easily crossed off as I accomplish them.  So where is the "one, two, three step" program in the Bible. You know what I mean..... the "do and don't" list. Oh wait, I think it's called the Law, but in modern language, we might call it something like, The Formula.

Well there isn't one. Like I said. Or at least not a working one.

In fact, the glaring truth that the Lord has been emphasizing to me, is that this is exactly what the Israelites wanted. So He gave them the Law. They wanted a formula instead of a relationship with God. God offered them a relationship with Him when He came down on Mount Sinai and spoke to the people directly, but they couldn't handle that. It was too scary, with boundaries and warnings, and there was lightning and smoke and thunder. Who knew what was going to happen next!

If the Israelites had experienced this in our modern times, they might have made the complaint "well it was just too unpredictable to try to be that close to God", and of course, they would be right. God is so unpredictable! So awesome! So not fitting into any kind of box that we could fashion. The very opposite of a formula.

All that to say, my quest to discover if there are certain things that I should or should not do in order to get closer to God is now a mix of yes AND no. The Law is still inspired by the Lord. He didn't just make a bunch of rules for the sake of rules. He told the Israelites exactly what it took to be close to Him and to be His special people. Wanna hear more about my ideas about the Law, check it out here.

Yet if the Law was enough to bring the Israelites closer to God, then they wouldn't have failed again and again, but the Law was not enough to inspire them to live rightly before the Lord. Fear of the Lord was good, but not enough to keep them living correctly, to abstain from sin, for the long run.

What was missing was relationship. The heart connect with the Lord. They didn't understand the why behind the rules. They didn't understand God's great big love for them. They didn't understand Him as a father, and at that point, He hadn't really reveal Himself as such.

But I wonder if He might have wanted to reveal Himself as the Father, but no one ever pressed in close enough to discover that side of Him. Except maybe David. It is the delight of the Lord to hide a matter, in the hopes that we will search the matter out and discover more of the Lord in the process (Proverbs 25:2). Anyhow, that one there is just a theory.

Yet He wanted to be close to them. He wanted them to be His own special treasure from among the nations.

The problem. He is a HOLY God, and not just anyone can come to Him. Sure, He accepts us as we are, especially when we receive salvation thru Jesus, but He doesn't expect for us to stay the way we are. He is looking for a transformation, and thankfully, He's the God to do it.

Since Jesus came, we now have:
A)the blood atonement for our sins, forever! score!!!

B)the Holy Spirit, a gift from Jesus to help make it easier for us to connect with the heart of the Lord and be more and more transformed into the likeness of Him. Yeah for us!

When we know and feel and can understand the heart behind all of the rules and commands, it makes it so much easier to live a life holy and set apart to the Lord.

Here is an example to show the difference between relationship and the Law. When the government tells you to stop drinking alcohol, you do it, because if you don't there is a big scary fine to pay. You could even go to jail, and that is bad, so you try to stay away from alcohol. Yet the Prohibition of the 1920s is a great example of how a law is not enough. The hearts of the people were the same, and fear of the government was not enough to stop them from breaking the law. They did break the law, a lot. But then, what if your mother (on a personal level) asked you not to drink and explained how worried it made her when you drank and she hugged you and cried over you and begged you not to go out and drink with your friends because she loved you and wanted the best for you. I bet it would be a whole lot harder to go against your mother's word than the word of the government. Why? Because you have a relationship with your mother. Same issue being addressed, but different approaches applied. When you understand the Lord as a Father, it makes us more prone to want to please Him with our 'good' behavior. We don't want to disappoint. He isn't just some distant judge waiting to punish us, He's our Dad. Make sense. I hope so.

So back to the story. Understanding the heart of the Lord makes us want to live a life Holy and set apart for His purposes.

That is my ultimate goal by the way. My desire is to be holy and set apart to the Lord as a special possession to Him. I want to be pleasing in the Lord's sight because I am so grateful for all that He has done and been to me. Salvation is the greatest gift, but there is so much more to the Lord than just that. He is so amazingly awesome!!! Those words don't even do Him justice.

Even still, let me be real. I know I can never be perfect, but my goal is to attempt to get as close to 'perfect' in this life as possible, as a gift to the Lord. The smallest attempt at saying 'thank you for who You are' in my life.

So do I accomplish this by following the Law, or do I rely on the Grace of the Lord to bring about the transformation? I feel like the answer is Yes and Yes! Both.

We do our part (try to follow the Lords commandments and instructions) and the Grace of the Lord does His part (the impossible transformation part, breaking down walls and mindsets). I heard someone put it this way once and I liked the picture: I put my one dollar worth of effort onto the table, God puts His millions worth of grace on the table, and we mix it all up, and call it a partnership. We are partnering together to bring transformation into my life. It wouldn't be a partnership if I didn't have to invest anything into the deal. Does that make sense?

However, I know some people are probably looking at this post and seeing 'religion' all over it. I've talked about the Law not being bad, and about 'holiness'.....but what is religion, really?

Religion is just holiness done with the wrong heart motives. Holiness is very pleasing to the Lord, but religion is not. Religious people are following a formula (pharisees), but there hearts aren't connected to their actions. Holiness is when people allow themselves to live a certain way because of a deep heart desire to love the Lord through the way they live their life before Him. BIG DIFFERENCE! But sometimes it can look very similar in the natural. Only the Lord can fully see our hearts motives.

I am totally not talking about earning anything here people! It isn't about earning, or striving, or even taking all the right steps. It's really about Love! I love Jesus so much, that I am willing to live my life in such a way, so that I can be as pleasing as possible to the Lord. I want to position myself before Him so as to receive more of Him, and be able to feel more of His love. Ultimately I want as much of Him in me as possible, in this life. The short version = I want more God.

So how does one do that? Well that is my whole thing. It isn't a formula. The Law isn't enough on its own. With only the Law, the Israelites fell into religion, and then sin and more sin. It takes relationship with the Lord to really live for Him. It takes the Lord, period, to be able to love Him properly.

We are so imperfect, there is no way we can do it on our own. It took Jesus dying, it took Holy Spirit coming, it takes dying to our flesh daily, and yet we still come up short in so many ways.

However, the Lord values the process as much as the end product.

My point, and I hope I am doing it justice, is that just because we know we can't be perfect in this life, doesn't mean we should let that deter us from trying to live holy unto the Lord. What we can do in this life is pay attention to the Law (not as a rule book, but as a list of ideas of things that are pleasing to our Father in Heaven). We can also dialogue with the Lord, and ask Him what He thinks we should try to do. He has some great wisdom that can be tailored down to our specific needs; wisdom that can help us to overcome the major 'sin' obstacles in our lives.

Because the way we live IS in direct proportion to how close we can get to Him.

He is a HOLY God, so people who are living in compromise and rebellion and sin, and not repenting of those sins, are not pleasing in the Lord's sight. Therefore, they may not draw near to the Lord. His very nature forbids it.

Repentance is big, but my goal is to get to a place where I can live (at least most of the time) in such a way that I have to repent less and less often for the same offenses. I'm not just continuing on in my sin and compromise and then throwing up a quick repentance prayer every week or so to cover myself.  That might work if the Lord was human and couldn't read our hearts like a book. But He can!!!

To continue to sin, without real repentance (repentance = owning the sin, asking forgiveness, and then making war against that sin in our life by taking real steps to try to keep from sinning in that way again) means those sins are not forgiven, even if you are a Christian.

Whoa, that was even heavy for me to read, and I just wrote it.

Back to the main point. It isn't a formula.

So when my life is built on relationship with Him, then there is no formula of how to get closer. I can't look at so and so's life and then do what they are doing to try and get the same results. I can't follow every letter of the Law in hopes that my 'good behavior' will get me closer to the Lord. It is through sitting, and talking, and learning more about the very person of God. Allowing Him to lead and guide me in a tailor made adventure with Him (called life). And it is about doing my part, whatever the Lord tells me to do (that is my part). He tells me to do it, and then He gives me the grace to do it well.

There you have it. The working relationship between holiness and grace. I do my part in pursuit of holiness, and God's grace fills in the gaps and makes my effort enough to accomplish the goal. Together we talk about my progress and get to know one another better, and in the end, my reward is being able to experience more of the presence of the Lord. To be able to draw closer to Him.

Let me tell you, it is worth the effort for the reward!

Be blessed!