Run

*Just pondering a few things tonight before I close my eyes and rest.  (Special thanks to Meredith Andrews - check out her music.  It will lure you into a bit of soul-searching while you clean the kitchen at the end of the day!)

Where do I run?

I tend to run towards safety.  Towards professionals, and proven methodologies, and things that have been substantiated.  Towards people I love and comfortable networks.  Towards tangible things.

Tonight I realized that only a shockingly small amount of the time, I run to Jesus first.

I am so impatient in my desire for and pursuit of justice, redemption, healing and comfort here on earth - for myself, but mostly for others.  (It is harder for me to hurt for another friend or family member than it is to bear my own pain.)  I see my good intentions now for what they often are - attempts to bypass the journey and administer what is only God's to administer, in His perfect timing.  Peace.  Healing.  Reconciliation.  Faith.  Salvation.  A conclusion.  A happy ending.  

I am also discovering that so often my own disappointment in prayer and it's sometimes lack of apparent effectiveness stems from my own personal confusion over why God is choosing to act differently or move slower than I would in a given situation. 

Hmm.  I'm going to go with because He is God, and His ways are higher than our ways.

Isn't it funny how you can KNOW all of this in your mind, and then examine your life and realize that it hasn't quite made it into the practical-living part of your relationship with Christ?

I'm so thankful for a friend who, without realizing it, by her example has demonstrated her total faith in Jesus Christ by waiting patiently in prayer for Him to move on her behalf before seeking anything or anyone else.  And we really need Him to move.  Desperately.  I'm sure if she reads this, she won't even realize I'm talking about her.  Thank you, dear friend.

Hebrews 10: 19-25 (emphasis mine)

^"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."