Rain and Abba

Oh my. What a day. Rainy with flats, not the best idea, but an out-the-door-in-a-hurry idea nonetheless. Had too many sweets today to make up for none last week...oops! Can anyone tell me why our gigantic Wal Mart does not carry women's rainboots? There was one style and it was not like anything I see people my age wearing to trod the mini lakes around here. Hmmph! Well, I still think they'd be super useful. Then my rainy with flats wouldn't be such a bad idea after all b/c I could bring them with me and put them on at work...where there are not interior puddles.

Tonight in class, Kevin Johnson came and talked about the Holy Spirit. The passage of the bible he pulled from was 1 Corinthians 12-14, which I am going to read more in depth in my quiet time tomorrow so I can continue processing. Paul talks about love and prophesy, and other gifts of the spirit. He says that we are to desire prophesy over any other spiritual gift. Yet without love, we are nothing.

Think about that. Without love, you are nothing. A clanging of symbols. In this state, we would still have substance (and noise!), of course, but in our relations with others, we are dead. There is no life to speak into another. I'm sure we've all met people that have little love to give. What a sad lifestyle of bondage and despair. For love brings life! It brings growth, connection, warmth, intimacy. It makes us feel known and valued. It lifts us up from out of the quicksand and sets us firm in our identity, making it more natural for us to love others out of the abundance we have received. How can we truly love another when we don't love ourselves?

I want more love and I desire to give it too! I know I can never be loved more by God, for he is 24/7 enthralled with my beauty for my whole life. WOW! But I can certainly work on deepening my love for him. I think it starts with a hunger to know him in unconventional ways. How can you know a person unless you set aside more time (consistently) to find out who they really are? Beyond the surface. I want to push my boundaries with God. To ask more of him, to see how he responds. To ask for more of his spirit to pour out upon me. I want to know the yearnings of his heart, that mine might fall in line. I am confident that each prayer, each acknowledgement of his presence, each praise, each song, each loving thought towards God draws me into a deeper revelation of who he is, thus enhancing my love for my heavenly father. Even when I cry out in my weakness, he does not condemn me. He just pulls me in closer.

I don't know how people call their parents "mother" and "father" when "mom" and "dad", "mommy" and "daddy" carry such a nearness lacking in the former terms. Less blood relation and more relationship. I have heard people call God "Papa." It's so foreign to say that. Even to call God "dad" is new for me. But I like it. And I think it makes him smile. Not that he doesn't want to be feared and revered as well; after all, he is Holy. But as children of the Most High, we have inheritance in his kingdom. Why not call out to him as the coheirs and children that we are?

I was burdened tonight that I need to pray more for the people in my life who I know need a fresh touch from God. Some of them Christians, fallen away, and others seekers, and others, the very ones who think all of this stuff I am saying is hogwash. I want others to experience the God I know. The God I am discovering. The God who is exciting, who has a plan for me and who gently prods me along in that process, refining me with fire and encouraging me with his presence and other believers.

So I will seek Him while he may be found. I pray the same for you dear ones.