Orange

Today I got to spend about an hour with a little 1-year-old girl who I just think is fantastic.  She early on decided that we were going to read books, mostly because she can say "books" and knows what they are.  Many of the books were about colors, so I would say the color and point and she would repeat.  After a while I started asking her "what color is this?"  Her reply was "orange."   Always orange.  So then I would say "no that purple."  She we repeat "purpa".  Then I would ask her "what color is this?" staying on the same page, and her reply would be "orange."  The I would correct, she would repeat and it would go on and on.

This made me think of our relationship with God.  I just imagined God sitting there pointing to a book trying to teach me.  I would sometimes get it right, because orange is a color, but if He tries to move on to purple I can't get it, because I still haven't wrapped my mind around what orange is.  But when He tries to move on to purple, and I get it wrong, He looks at my dimpled 5-tooth smile as I answer and thinks I'm just too darn cute to get mad or frustrated at.  Isn't that what Papa God is like?  He is simply delighted that I am engaging in His endeavors to teach me. 

Smart water

"We dig our own wells, don't we?  Looking for something to satisfy our thirsty soul, we dig and dig and dig for a few dusty drops of water.  The desert is a wasteland of our own making.  It's like trying to drink from the garden hose that isn't even connected to the spigot.  We get tired of the futility, and our lives dry up.  Things might actually be going well on one level but feel completely empty and pointless on another.  We are so busy digging we don't realize an endless fountain of cold clear water is waiting right there all the while...and the fountain is Him!" ~Lisa Weaver

My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Jer 2:13

I so badly want to do.  There is this deep seeded belief in me that I become of value when I do something of value.  I just know if I dig that hole and finally hit water, I would be so valuable.  But who brought me out to this desert?  And why? 

God brought me here. 

So many times we say that we are of value to God.  We say that He wants relationship with us, but we run off trying to gain value instead.  Instead of sons we act as orphans.  Instead of loving God, we love what we can do for Him. 

I'm just as bad as then next person, I LOVE being used by God.  What an amazing feeling it is to see lives changes as He moves through me.  To be continually challenged  and see the fruits of my labor blossom.  But He knows my identity was found in being used by Him instead of finding it in Him.  So what does He do?  He takes it all away and says "I want you, not what you can do for me."   It's then that I drop the shovel.  It's just me and Him in the desert and He's the only water I need.

I was made to love my Bridegroom first and most, then to love other people and pursue other things out of the overflow of His love and life in me. ~Lisa Weaver