I Am Starting To Feel Bad

About my lack of posting lately. But, apparently not bad enough to start up actively and semi-regularly. I am not sure why this is, if it is an extension of my blog hiatus of the summer, making the activity of September to November something of a dead cat bounce. An interesting comment given the picture of the pooch. Whatever, it is an extended dry period. And the picture is designed to elicit some comment, even if not about the blog topic itself.

In any event, it is not for a lack of activity in my life, there is much going on. Maybe it is for a lack of time to devote to blogging and musing over topics. It is not due to any crisis of faith that I am not blogging, I am going as strong as ever and seeking the Lord daily.

I am just not in the mood or right frame of mind to write about it. I apologize to anyone who enjoys seeing my posts (it is possible you know). I will spend some time in prayer, thinking about why I am off the grid for so long. And I will pray for guidance to start writing again. Your prayers are appreciated too. But whatever I do, I give it up to Him to guide me in my faith.

Technorati Tags: Prayer, Blogging, Faith

Keeping Busy

As you might have been able to tell from the frequency of my blog posts lately, I have been busy and it has cut into my blogging time quite a bit. The old me (the pre-summer blogging hiatus me) would have obsessed on this, the new me says, it is what it is, and that is all it can ever be.

Having been retired for nearly two years now, it is a novelty to feel as if one's schedule is full, and still filling. Lots going on, but there is a definite peace to it. I attribute a good deal of it to my focus on listening and waiting on God. People and projects are not filling my schedule, He is. And I am OK with that, even more so, this is what I wanted.

The study we have been doing at 121 Community Church on Experiencing God has helped me really keep one thought in front of me.

Wait.

So I do, waiting for His direction and guidance. And waiting contains a control issue, as in giving up control of your life to God. I have never been much of one to wait on things. But that is what I am doing now, waiting and allowing Him to work His will.

It can feel incredibly fruitful and productive to wait on God, because waiting on Him means just that: waiting for God to move, waiting to follow where He is going, trying to keep up. What can be better than that? Chasing after God's heels because He is out in front with your captured heart in His hands. But waiting for Him to start that heart of yours racing.

So I wait, busily wait, doing what I think He wills, waiting for the next God sized program He will have me pursue with Him. And soon I get to do this with a two week break from classes and a wrap up of another semester at DTS. (Not sure the credit load I am taking qualifies as a semester. Semi-mester is closer to the truth).

Meanwhile, I am learning to enjoy being engaged and waiting at the same time.


Technorati Tags: Experiencing God, 121 Community Church, waiting, busy

Channeling My Steam

I seem to be having a problem lately keeping up with all I wish to do. It appears to be a problem of directing my energy, my steam in several directions, that are going off in different ways. I think as I get older I need more focus. The problem is that it is all stuff I am feeling called by God to do. Makes for steam on a cloudy day. Hmmm.

So I go back to the one word God spoke to me several weeks back as I was working through the Experiencing God study at my church. Wait. And as I think about it another word comes to mind. Control. I have to wait to let God control what I do. So I will. The waiting is to be quiet, listen for His direction, locate where He is in and around my life, and then to move to the center of that point. I will keep moving forward on the various things I am doing to see when God points me at one specifically. Then I will pursue it, because chasing after God is the only way to be close to Him. And if it is that I am to keep my steam moving in many directions. That's OK by me as well.

It's His stream to channel, my steam to move along as He sends it. Steam on a clear day, that's all I want, whever He chooses to send it.

The Anvil In Our Lives

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
The, looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.

“How many anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he, and then with twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”

And so, thought I, the anvil of God’s Word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed – the hammers gone.

Author Unknown

A good friend of mine read this poem in a sermon he preached a few months ago. I listened to it recently and loved the imagery of the poem, as he spoke of the Word of God, the Bible. People have been hammering out the Bible for years and years, going way, way back in time. How many have worn themselves out. It is true, it has held up, it is the Word of God. Would you expect anything else?

Technorati Tags: Bible, Word of God, God, Telos Bible Chirch, hammer, anvil

Jesus Wept

Every once in a while, I feel the need to lay down something that vaguely resembles a poem. Here I go again. I am never sure when this all will show, but only that it comes from when I spend time with the Lord thinking about Him and His Word. This one comes from meditating on John 11:

Jesus Wept

Tightly bound within my sin,

No earthly struggle set me free.

Cast down in sinful gloom,

No earthly light reached within.

Jesus wept to see the sinner that was in me.

A mind so clouded could not think,

Of anything but life lived yet lost.

Darkness the blanket that covered me,

Weight too heavy to overcome.

Jesus wept to see the sinner that was me.

Calling forth, He burst the bonds,

Sunlight’s shaft cleaved my tomb.

Rock split wide, prison released,

Sin is no longer spellbinding.

In gladness now my own tears fall,

Because Jesus wept and died and set me free.

A. Coticchio - 11/09

Technorati Tags: Poetry, Jesus, Lord, God, sin