new year...new prayers....

i am drawn of recent to the basics of my faith - really the basics of my relationship with God. the simple disciplines that i have in my life; that build my paradigm.

as is so often the case i am frustrated with me. i tend to be so hard on me - i know - i've read that it's pride, or control or fear or over-analytical...who cares. its still the truth.
i long for the raw, young, exhilarating "trust and obey" of old. i've been in a funk lately - feeling like i'm going thru the motions and knowing that God is unimpressed. i have become a statue of rituals; a memorial to the mantras of an American Christian life - frankly i'm unimpressed.

i saw this Tozer quote on another blog tonite "always life stands beyond death and beckons the man who is sick of himself to come and know the life more abundant". i am sick of me and of this particular ride - the commute is the same; the destination is actually virtuous - but it's not alive and breathing and infectious.
i'm going to need "alive and breathing and infectious" to make it - i'm really going to need it to draw my kids to this Jesus I want them to love. i've grown so busy in leading others i've failed to notice that i'm going in a circle. no wonder i'm dizzy.

i've used the illustration of jeff and flight training before because it works - he says if you're flying a plane and it starts into a flat spin (a terrible danger) then you run the checklist - walk thru the fundamentals. i could use the checklist - not more do's and don'ts - but a real focus on the things that ignite my heart toward God.

oh how i enjoyed the way i thought that worked in the past - more church, more service, more rituals - that was a pretty simple checklist. it normally ended with me "standing" before God in my sunday best surrounded by my silliness wondering where the cheering squad from heaven was.

it's harder now - but it's effective. the things that truly ignite my passion and love and heart for Jesus are gritty; things like
fasting not for an hour so i'll feel good about myself - but long enough until i can't "feel" all my hungers, worshipping until the tears erupt from my toes,
reading His word until He speaks...and i hear,
walking a quiet and intentional route until my mind is clear and my heart is open,
repenting until the weight is lifted
restoring that which is broken until the glue dries
obeying - going back to the last thing i know He asked me to do and obeying - all the way, right away, the happy way...without dispute, without distration, without delay..and then doing that over and over and over again.

it's time for those hard things again...i'm an idiot for letting them fall by the wayside for things like teaching Sunday School, or sending cards every week. isn't that harsh and ugly and unacceptable to say that?
the truth is - i've done those things faithfully for the last few months and enjoyed every minute of it knowing that the tank in my life was well past "E" and i was running on fumes...so i ask you - who'd i really help, or bless or serve...did God use it - probably; but He also used an ass. it was never about me - it was about His need to reach the other person - if it hadn't been me, He'd have made it happen somehow.

what is about me is this stagnate, stale, unfragrant thing i've got going with Him now...and that's an infection i need healed.
that's my prayer tonite - God please forgive me for leaving you for service and self - please pursue me and strengthen me to find you in the deeper places. i long for the deeper places where i feel Your breath on my cheek and know that You are mine and I am yours.

wow - what january does to me.