Gnawing on the Inside: Part 2

Now where were we (since it's been forever since I wrote that last blog post)? The women's event... Downpour... Aha moment.. I think I remember now.

The struggle was real. For months I'd watched people I knew and saw regularly struggle through their days, just waiting, hoping for a Word from God, desparate for someone to come and tell them what they felt they needed to hear. I thought my heart would burst most days and I could not figure out what my role in any of this was. Why did it bother me so? Deep down I knew why - because the word they needed, the message they grasped for in thin air was in front of them the entire time, or maybe on their night stand, or perhaps their mantle or coffee table. The Word they longed for wasn't necessarily one to be delivered from another person in God's stead, but from the Father himself, through his Word. They just didn't know it - the cause of my ache. 

So now what? That day at the women's retreat, I had an encounter with the Lord that opened up flood gates I thought might never close. When the Lord began to show me how he woud answer my prayer I started to cry and then continued on that way for the rest of the retreat as I wrote page, after page, after page of downloads. 

His answer was simple but a bit startling. "You need to write a devotional." Huh? What Lord? You mean like a blog? I already have one and I'm not very consistent with it. (Funny how the Lord often asks us to do things which we know we need to become more disciplined at in order to become more profecient at them.) That and the fact that I've been "working" on writing a devotional book for several years. I just don't have enough material written that "I like" to proceed past the writing stage.

Feels like I'm being pushed, kind of like others must feel when I push them to step out and do things they should already be doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah... What goes around... I hate it when your gift comes back to bite you! 

Another thing I found interesting in all of this is that often, the very thing we're praying for ourselves, God uses through us to touch someone else. He likes that humility thing which I tend to I struggle with. One of my consistent prayers when I stop to spend time in the Word is, "Lord, wash me today with the water of your Word." My prayer - his answer, "...and call it Wednesday's Washing." Then the devo ideas started  coming and they haven't stopped!

To be clear, I have no vain illusions that Wednesday's Washing will fix the problem I see. I am simply responding to the Lord's tug on my heart which ultimately originated in his own. I want to see every believer around me, the women that I lead especially, become people of the Word. When they need one, they go there first! They seek God's Word before they seek the words of men. I want to see us all become people who respond to others, not out of a place of urgency or driven by need, but instead out of wisdom that comes from being immersed in the Word and connecting with the Lord through his Word. How differently would our lives look? Growing deeper in love with Jesus, by going deeper in his Word. Will you come on this journey with me? 

Wednesday's Washing
"...Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word." ~Ephesians 5:25-26