The Sky

What color am I?
Why of course don't ya know?
Your blue, the greatest of all the hues.

In the evening and in the morning too?
As day breaks and slips into the night?
No I think thats a different hue.

Well now I'm confused.
When the edge of Earth hits our source of light,
The black of night is broken with a haze of blue.

I thought I was more than than hue.
Slowly coming forth with the shyness of night,
The sun splashes rose in the sea of blue.

I feel brand new!
As the great star rises in the sky,
The rose swims away and the blue flows through.

How refreshing it is to be a sea of blue.
The sun basks us with heat as it shines,
Waking us to a new day with its bright white light.

Won't the clouds prevent its light?
Not even the puff in the sky can break its shine.
It streaks through majestically in rays of might.

Am I just red and blue?
As the sun glides away it mixes the two,
And paints cotton candy clouds of purple, pink, and blue.

I am the sky, a sea, and a canvas too?
As the sun approaches the finish line it makes its last stand a fiery sight.
A ball of orange light it graces the horizon line,
Splashing its colors across the edge of our sight.

How majestic are the colors of light.
As the fiery rays fade away,
Dusk emerges as a deep blue hue fading into gray.

What will I do without the source of light?
You will be glittered with stars of light.
And though the sun is gone its presence remains reflecting in the moon light.

The Spirit

I've been thinking lately more about prayer and I have been reflecting on my study on prayer. It was a very long study (so long I didn't finish it). But this helps you get to know me better as a person.

When it comes to studying something on my own or doing research I go all out. I like to find all the possible information (that is worthy) about the thing i am researching and once I have gathered it all I evaluate it. I am the same with online comparison shopping. I will find many many options for one particular type of item that i want; I like to know my options and I like to find the best one. With this prayer study I found a lot of verses about prayer, because I wanted to find out how prayer is used in the Bible so that I would be able to use prayer better. I found a lot of great verses but i discovered in my research (b4 i started to write the study) that prayer is used for everything. I probably should have stopped there, but because of my personality I decided to press forward. I am glad I gathered all those verses about prayer so I can refer to them later. But if you asked me, "what did you learn from doing you study on prayer in your blog?" I could give you a good answer but not an answer that I would be able to implement in my daily life. And that was the purpose of it - to see how prayer is used in the Bible so that I would be able to pray better.

I do not count it all as lost. I learned a lot. But through my personal time with God and in my prayer life. I have grown to use prayer in the way that it should be - through the Spirit.

Romans 8:26 In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express. 27 And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will.

A couple times recently I have been able to pray through the Spirit. And I say I have been able to because to pray like that I have to be void of myself - and that's not an easy task. But its beautiful. I reason why it is so beautiful is because there is passion. When I prayed I was praying about other people and the reason why it was special was because I had compassion for the people I was praying for. I had that compassion by the way of the Holy Spirit. My heart ached for the people I was praying for. When I am not in the Spirit when I pray it can sometimes be as if I were going to God as if God was Santa and I was sitting on his lap saying "God I really want that person to be saved. Please break them of their sin and remove the rebellion." ---I was just asking, in a normal emotional state. When I pray in the Spirit I am emotional. I am crying and yearning in my voice. Another thing to note is that both times when I have prayed in the Spirit I was praying out loud. [if some of you are wondering how do I get the Holy Spirit and how to I let him flow through my prayers I will talk about that another time]

That is my experiences with praying in the Spirit. What are yours?

I am sharing this with you because I want to acknowledge the importance of the Holy Spirit in prayer, and I think the best way to show someone how to do something is by example.

Now I want to contrast the two different approaches that I have taken to this prayer study.
The first time I was very methodological about it. I did research and studied the scripture looking for an answer. There was a lot of insight in it, but how do you take that and personalize it. How do you learn from that and apply it when you are praying? The answers that i came across through that way may be helpful. But I think it just filtered as head knowledge.
This time I approaching it from a different way. I coming to the heart of the matter. What does God want from us when we pray. He wants us to give Him our heart. He wants us to pour our heart out. So that he will be there to comfort you. Also When you ask for something and you show how much it means to you through your emotions are you not more likely to get your request, than if you asked without emotion?

I challenge you to let your heart spill at the altar of the Lord.

Jehovah Jireh

I wanted to take a break from the prayer study. Because it is such a long study with many verses, I thought a break would be good. I'm the kind of person who gets an idea and runs with it and is organizes it well but I don't necessarily realize how the end product might turn out. I'm beginning that is how the study on pray might be turning out to be like. I got a lot of verses about prayer and am discussing them, but I'm not sure how productive the study has been hopefully by the end of it I will be able to incorporate the many verses into a large conclusion statement.

But In the mean time I wanted to share a psalm that I wrote.


Jehovah Jireh means the Lord will provide.

God the way you work is amazing. I am so thankful that you gift us with so many blessings.
You are my Lord.
You are my Lover.
You are my Savior and redeemer.
You are my Sustainer.
You are my Provider.

You provide all things.
You provide time.
You Provide life;
And breath for me to live.
You provide everything.

You provide peace.
You provide knowledge.
You provide in me a sound mind.
You provide friends for me.

You provide opportunities.
You provide jobs.
You provide money and food.
You provide a dwelling place for me.

You provide all my happiness.

God you are the provider - Jehovah Jireh.
You Are.
You are called I am - Ehyeh.
And you always will be.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:24

I have heard this verse many times before, but often times when this scripture is quoted we forget the "God is spirit" part. I noticed it in a new way, it is telling us that we must worship in spirit and truth, because God is spirit. Almost like another language, or species. Just like we can't communicate with animals, because we aren't their species. We can't communicate with God unless we are speaking his language.

Spirit is such an abstract thing sometimes, so I wanted to see how it is defined. Answers.com's first definition of spirit is: The vital principle or animating force within living beings, also our soul. Spirit is our animating force, what gives us life, and allows us to move. Without it we are simply like any stationary object. From that I would say that verse would mean that we are supposed to worship God with our whole life, with everything that is in us.

I pray that the Holy Spirit would guide you in your times of worship, that you would learn to worship will all that is in you. - in spirit and in truth. That you may realize the wonder of God's glory and that His glory demands praise and worship.

Truly?

^{John 13: 36}Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are You going?" Jesus answered, "Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later." ³⁷Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You." ³⁸Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.

Different times in my Christian walk I have committed my life over to Christ. I told Jesus that He could do whatever he wanted with my life. But did I really allow him to take control of everything? Was I like Peter who said that he would die for Jesus one day but hen denied Jesus the next day?

An Intimate Relationship

As a child I had a best friend that I spent all my free time with. We would go to each others house every day of the summer. Some times we might do something interesting like play a board game, but other times we would just sit and talk. When we didn't do much of anything it was good just to be with them. I remember when her family would go on vacations and I wouldn't see her for a week, I got so bored, I wanted her home as soon as possible. I wouldn't know what to do with myself, because I did everything with her. As we got older we saw each other less. I no longer spent everyday with her. I might call her once and a while, but only long enough to see how she was doing - nothing too deep. It got to the point to where years would pass between talking. It was strange that I was no longer friends with a person whom I was so close to. It's not as if the opportunity wasn't there to continue the friendship. We only lived a few miles apart. I could have easily have became friends with her again if I cared to; if I would have called her, visited her, wrote her, anything.
A lot of times that is how our relationship with God can be like.

In the past couple of months the Holy Spirit has been telling me I need to spend more time with God.
It's as if He is like "Why havn't you called its been 3 weeks. We havn't hang out in awhile. Will you ever have enough time for me?"

The Holy Spirit has spoken this same message to me through many ways and people, and given me many helpful analogies. One pastor said If we treated our friends like we treated God we wouldn't have any friends (like my story above). Another pastor of mine said that he would go on adventures with the Holy Trinity, he would hike the woods and when he would rest in a spot he made 4 places to sit one for each: himself for the Holy Spirit, God and Jesus. Physically putting a chair out for them showing explicitly that they are there.

With any relationship you have to talk to the person relatively frequently. But with an intimate relationship you would need to communicate even more - usually daily and sometimes talking hours at a time. I can think back with my boyfriends, talking to them for an hour was a regular amount of time, and I would try to see them everyday and if not, I would see them at least once a week.

Why is it that I struggle to spend time with God for even 15 min a day, or every other day. It simply doesn't make since. God is holy of holy, all powerful, creator of the universe and I don't want to spend time with Him? That would be like having Albert Einstein at your disposal all the time and ignoring him. Most people would want to be around him if they wanted to try and learn all that they could from the world's most renowned genius. But there are many reasons why a person wouldn't care to spend time with Einstein.They might not know that Einstein was a genius - or they knew that people thought he was a genuis but they thought he was dumb and his discoveries were false. Or maybe that person knows Einstein is really famous and smart, but something else is more appealing to them. They might find it more interesting to play a video game or watch a movie than talk to Einstein. Those same reasons could be why we don't spend time with God.

I also find myself feeling that I don't care to spend time with God. I know God is special, and deserves attention, but I don't think I realize it in my heart. This could be because a lack of knowlege of who God is and what He did, why He did it, and how it changed our lives. Just as if someone heard about the many scientific breakthroughs Einstein had but since they only know that Einstein created the equation E=mc^2 but don't know why that equation is important, or how it effects our daily lives; then the equation is just numbers and letters. We have to learn that God created the universe in an exquisite working manner, and also came to Earth as a human, healed many, died and ressureced by which our sins were washed away and enabled us to be made pure so that we would be able to be in the presence of God. Look at the ways in which God has affected your life. Now think of those same thing but instead of God imagine a person doing those things. If you knew a person like that wouldn't you want to spend all of your time with them?

Often times, Instead of spending time with God I tend to want to do other things. When I have free time I have the defalt desire to spend it browsing the internet. I need to realize the magnificence of God, so that everything else would be pale in comparison. I have to change what I value. I need to value spending time with God more than anything else. I want to be going through the day thirsting, thinking, "when will I be able to talk to you God, when will this day finally be over so we can have some alone time," instead of "the next free minute I have I'm checking facebook". I don't want it to be a chore to spend time with God, but right now it kinda feels that way. It makes it a struggle. Just like chores I do - it's just because I was told to, if I ever manage to fit it in my day to spend time with God I'm not delighting in it, it is dry and empty. It's discouraging to think that I will never get to that point of intimacy. Where I feel like I am one with God and I can feel his presence and I can hear his voice. I don't know maybe I have to go through quiet times where I don't get anything out of it before I can be at one with God.

My prayer is that I (and anyone who struggles with this) would seek God with all their heart, because as scripture says when we do we will find God. That we would value time spent with God above time doing anything else. That we would have a greater realization of His glory, his power, his majesty so that we may worship Him in truth and realize how worthy He is and that we would develop a reverence that drives us to take advantage of God's invitation to spend time together. That we would not get discouraged when we don't feel like we are getting anything out of our time with God, but that we would persevere and have faith that we are growing and strengenthening through this time and that there will be better times in the future.

Disconnected

I feel disconnected from God. I feel an inability to create an intimate relationship. I feel discouraged. Please keep me in your prayers.


Follow up: (09/4/09)
God has shown me a few times. If I want to have that intimate relationship. I have to put in the time and effort. He has shown me what I need to do, and is basically like 'this is what you need to do, go do it'. Which makes me feel worse because it is my responsibility, and makes me feel like a terrible person that I don't spend time with God to create that relationship. So continue to pray for me about that. So that I would have the desire to spend time with God, that it would be something that I look forward to rather than something I see as a requirement like chores or a hw assignment.
more about this in my post 'an intimate relationship'