I think I am learning that in this journey most things really boil down to man's motives.

Oh, This Place...

It seems I am just a mess of contradictions lately. That is how I feel. This place where I am at spiritually is so confusing for me - anyone else? In the process of being refined, of God taking away those things that are meaningless to Him, I seem to have lost my footing, and I'm longing for a strong rock to stand on. Not like I've lost my faith, but I've lost all that I've known as far as what the church has taught me about having faith. I know that God is my "rock"...and that is ultimately what He is doing...causing me to only stand upon Him...not religion, not the motions, not the things that other "christians" say to stand on, not even on the Bible, but solely on Him (whoah - getting ready for some backlash on that one!). But a friend and I were discussing how meaningless, how void His word is without His interpretation of it...if all we know are words from the book, they are only words from a book, and we can make them mean whatever we want them to mean.

In my small little town, there is a ladies Bible study that I have attended on and off. It's always a Beth Moore study, and I'm so TIRED of Beth Moore studies, BUT every time I go, God seems to speak to me in an unexpected way. I was struckby something I heard on the last video I watched of this particular study...BM was giving some background information on the timing of this study - history of the Israelites - and I know I'm going to botch this all up terribly...but she told about how the people of God (before Christ) identified themselves with hearing audibly the voice of God - God communicated with them on a daily basis...but there came a time that He stopped communicating with them. He never broke covenant with them, but His audible voice was no longer heard...this time in history was a pretty intense time - the translation of God's word into Greek, the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, cruel rulers over them, etc... The Bible says that people were searching all over the earth for someone who had heard from God, and though there were people who had claimed to hear from Him, the Israelites knew in their hearts it was not true. And this was a time when legalism truly invaded God's people...they did not hear from Him, and so in order to "feel" like they were on the right track, they came up with the rules and regulations, the traditions, etc...that they could act out in order to justify the silence in a way. This is so funny, because it goes right along with Isaiah 1, which God has continued to put on my heart - all of those things He is telling His people that He did not require of them..."your foolish festivals," "...meaningless sacrifices," etc..

So, I have to wonder...if we got rid of all of our ceremonies, our church buildings, our dresses and suits, our Sunday School classes, our rigid rules about who to hang out with and how to act...about what our doctrine should sound like, and how we should worship, how we should pray...how we should view God, all of the things that man has put into place...I wonder if we may really know God any better? I wonder if we might just clear a path to His voice? And when we finally do hear Him, will we still need all of the rules, or would we fall so deeply in love with Him that we would discover our only purpose is to love Him and let Him love us?

I have heard this over and over...that we were created to love Him, and for Him to love us. That is a hard thing to do...to just love Him and not have to prove something to Him, to not perform for Him or complete a checklist "for Him." I so long to be able to always remember to just love Him. Unfortuantely, that is not what we are normally taught to do by our parents or by our church or by society...

Okay...Sam is hungry, and Mayah needs a nap, and I haven't even gotten to my point yet! Blah, blah, blah...I'll have to finish this little tangent later.