Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Ok I got it now.

Here's what inspired the last post:
Book, Devotional Classics by Richard J. Foster and James Byron Smith. Chapter...i don't know. Excerpts from Frank Laubach (a missionary to the Philippines in the early 1900s)'s letters to (doesn't say)

he saaaays:
"Two years ago a profound dissatisfaction let me to begin trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half hour. Other people to whom I confessed this intention said it was impossible. I judge from what I have said that few people are trying even that. But this year I have started out trying to life all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, 'What, Father, do you desire said? What do you desire done this minute?'"

One week later
"For the past few days I have been experimenting in a more complete surrender tan ever before. I am taking by deliberate act of will, enough time from each hour to give God much thought. Yesterday and today I have made a new adventure, which is not easy to express. I am feeling God in each movement, by an act of will - willing that He shall direct these fingers that now strike this typewriter - willing that He shall pour through my steps as I walk - willing that He shall direct my words as I speak, and my very jaws as I eat!
You will object to this intense introspection. Do not try it, unless you feel unsatisfied with your own relationship with God, but at least allow me to realize all the leadership of God I can.  I am disgusted with the pettiness and futility of my un-led self. If the way out is not more perfect slavery to God, then what is the way out? I am trying to be utterly free from everybody, free from my own self, but completely enslaved to the will of God every moment of this day."

He goes on to talk about, over the next several days/weeks, how he seems to be simply floating along at the leading of God, the way a "violin responds to the bot of the master"

I have always wanted to do this - be like this - just stop doing all the other stuff in my life and hang out with God. There have absolutely been times in my life when I've been closer to that or farther away from it. Missions trips and retreats and random "really good" weeks, when I am really focused on God and really good about spending time with Him.

 Part of me has always wanted to just quit life and become a hermit, but even if I spent all my hermit time talking to and studying and thinking about God, I don't think that's what He'd want...I think He'd want me to do more restructuring my current life - strengthening my connections to Him and things of Him at the expense of other connections the way my brain stores information at the expense of other information.

I can really only do that to a certain extent if I want to at all pass my classes. But it's an interesting thing to think about, and good food for thought, and something to lean more towards than I have been, even if I cannot actually adopt this "spend a majority of every hour meditating on God" sort of thing. I do it more. I can strengthen that connection, until it becomes easier and less effort to recall that "information". Until, as Laubach said "Now I like God's presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of mind - as he does many times a day - I feel as though I had deserted Him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life", and "to (merely) see someone is to pray for them"

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