There are times when I feel really close to God, I hear him and I feel so connected to him. There are other times I feel so far away, and I hate it when I cant hear God.
I was discussing this with a friend, and they asked me why I think this might happen. I said that I think when I put in the time for God (praying, reading his word,meditation…) I feel closer to him. This is quite logical I guess, but i didnt realise just how significant it was until my friend recomended that I read a book called ‘Celebration of Discipline’ written by Richard Foster. It is a very good book, and I recomend it to anyone look to deepen their relationship with God.
This book is teaching me the importance of putting in the time to deepen my relationship with God, to get past the superficiality and the material and to explore a deeper spiritual relationship with God.
Through reading the first few pages of this book I realised several things, the great importance of discipline, to notget caught up so much with the busyness of life and to focus my mind on what is important to God.
These are things that I have been trying to do for the past few months, specifically with my Church. I wanted to be more commited and serve God and others. So I prayed about it and asked God to reveal to me how I should do this.I started to tithe my time, by being commited to attending Church atleast once a week, attendingmy house group/bible study and I took up a duty within the Church. Through reading this bookI have realised the spiritual significance of these things.
One of the questions I often asked was why do I sometimes feel close to God and other times I dont, Richard Foster answers this by saying it is a gift that God gives to us by his grace, we cannot earn it or achieve it ourselves, we can ask God to give us this gift and through developing disciplines like meditation we can deepen our closeness with him.
Filed under: flittering words, thoughts and memories | Tags: fun, intense, joy, meaning
Ok, that might be a bit of a dramtic title, but it has some truth to it as well. I love being intense, what do I mean by that, well those who know me the most and who are similar to me will recognise this. I put great meaning into everything, analyse and constanly search for meaning in my life. The thing that means the most to me is people and relationships, as I am sure I have written a post on this before.
I also hate this part of my identity because I think sometimes i am too intense and search for meaning to much, that I might actually miss life itself and the meaning might be right in front of me and i cant see it or It might be round the next corner but I will not see it because I am too intensly searching for it. What a pain!
I think I sometimes just need to let go and as people say ‘get over it’ or make light of it. I love just having fun and laughing, this brings me so much joy and so I think I should just try sometimes to ease up and just live life.
Filed under: Discovery
I havent written in a few months, or even logged on. I think this is because I can sometimes over anaylse my life, instead of just living it!
But I have remember just how much I love to think,rationalise and analyse myself and the world. So its ok to occassionally do this. I think I have to maintain a balance though, between thinking and just doing.
I loved philosophy at University, I just loved trying to answer the big questions in life, searching for the answer was such a delight even if most of the time i didnt find it,that is the frustrating thing about philosophy.
I am such an intense person, my family and close friends have advised me to let up a bit,take some things less seriously,dont always think something has happened for some mystical reason, or that everything in life has to be analysed and I have to figure it all out. I think this is good advise, to focus on just living life sometimes. I have kinda been doing this the past few months(just didnt realise that was what i was doing untill now), but life actually just got to busy. So christmas and new year at home has been such an opportunity to escape and just chill. Its been wonderful, baths, food, wine, tv, reading, thinking, music, sleep ins… the lot. well life has to go back to normal sometime eh! and although I will maintain just living life I will also login ever now and again write something and read something, afterall analysing and being intense is my passion!
