just a couple of thoughts....

hey all.... i so wish i had a bunch of time to write out all the thoughts in my brain. i also realized it has been a chunk of time since i last posted anything, and wanted to "check in".

i just glanced at the list of all the things i hope to accomplish this year (see 2 posts ago), and at first I was overwhelmed. yes, all the things are good and great and fine and dandy. but something has been poking at my li'l brain in the last few days and i wonder what direction this might go. hang with me (and comments are welcome).... the list is a great source of accountability as i keep focused on things that i always seem to be straying from. already i have had a couple of friends say, "hey, how is such and such going?" or "i saw a couple of your goals, and your recent commitment is honoring that!" that is a great encouragement to me.

but i will be very frank... that list is MY list. many things are spiritual and well-intentioned, but i will be honest -- i didn't ask God if these things were on His list. i can say that a few of them definitely are.... but my point is i didn't ask. which brings me to this:
each new year i have a list or a theme that i try to adopt that takes me on a path for a few months (i mean for it to be a year, but honestly, i'm lucky if it squeaks past february or march). recently on a couple of blogs i ran across a thing that has dared me to give up the list and adopt one word.

it's called One Word 2011 . it originated from a blog www.gritandglory.com when Alece started it last year.
choose one word and live that through this year. be open to what God has for you in that one word.
the last few days i've been chewing on this idea... what words speak to me right now? is this something i want to do? and you get the idea... one word keeps coming back to me. and now it almost taunts me and is just daring me to commit to it.

PRAY


i can go into my list of excuses at this moment, but i will not. i admit it. i do not pray as much or for the things i really need to pray for. i'm sure we can all agree to this. yes, i do pray for the big things in life, and i offer up little prayers at the beginning of the day and at dinner. but this just became very personal.
i was recently struck by some of the things that take up real estate in my brain, trying to sort out the solutions, and realized i am not praying through them. i am not asking and expecting God to work mightily through them. i am not allowing God to be God and do the (seemingly) impossible.

i just started a book today by Steven Furtick called Sun Stand Still. i was a little cynical starting the book and had a couple of reservations -- can God really work mightily in my life and through my life as He did with Joshua when He literally made the sun stand still while the battle raged on? God promised Joshua that he would be successful in conquering the Amorites (see Joshua 10) and He stopped the sun mid-day and fulfilled His promise.
as i'm reading the book there are 3 situations at the forefront of my mind (one is a vision/dream i believe God planted, one is a temptation i seek freedom from, and one is a relationship i desire to be changed). i realize that all three of them demand a miracle. i constantly am trying to figure out how sara can conquer these and what the strategy should be, when it's really only GOD that can do it. and i don't think He wants me to sit idly by just waiting for Him to work. i now realize that He wants me actively involved by asking for Him to intervene and believe that He can and will do it (this is part of the audacious faith that Steven talks about it in his book). and it's not just the big things. it's the little things. the Bible talks about praying ceaselessly. this is to pray about everything. even the mundane and boring and monotonous things. so it's everything on the spectrum. and i was silenced by the lack of conversation i have with my Creator about all of it. Again, not trying to get in the overwhelming category by all that i'm not praying for, but just taken aback by the desire God has of me to share with Him all that is in my mind and heart, and to release it to Him and expectantly watch as He works in all of it.

as Christ-followers, our life is not to be mundane and ordinary. Because Jesus was anything but mundane and ordinary. _____________________________________________________________
*this post was originally posted on my blog "stepping through the journey of life" on 1/20/11