Today, I realize that in three days I will have been officially in the prayer movement for one year, and committed to Christ for one year and four months. One entire year of daily prayer for hours, of asking God to come and open up my heart, of asking God to make me dependent on Him, to let me hear His voice. Honestly, it doesn't feel like it has been that long - feels more like I just started. Thank the Lord that I never make any "progress", that I'm never "good to go," that I never get a revelation that enables me to move beyond the dependency on Him that I had at the beginning of my walk! Here is a confession: So many times in the past year, I've gotten caught up in thinking that by now I ought to be good on my own, that now I'm righteous enough and that things should level off from here on out, or that I've got enough of a feel for God that I won't fall anymore. Stupid? Yes. I will never be good to go! I hope someday I will be able to quit thinking I am! I guess I have learned one thing: When I realize I'm thinking that way again, it's time to search my heart and whip it into shape before I get so dull from trying to do everything on my own that I do fall. It's the Lord's kindness to me that I get a daily realization of how horribly not good enough I am for His love. Otherwise I would think I could deserve it. Of course, that's coupled with the knowledge that He loves me anyway - Why? I ask Him all the time and I still haven't figured that one out, but I'm really, really glad. Depending on God even to have any scrap of love in my heart, for any bit of righteousness, and for everything I own - that is what this year has been all about. It's a wonderful humiliation, realizing I need Him so much; realizing how little strength I have on my own. It's an agony that leads to real love.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. Psalm 84.
