i meant to type this out yesterday or the day before, but didn't...so the words and ideas aren't as fresh...but, i need to try...

i was thinking about, i dunno...the perpetual question of where i am now. spiritually. mentally. and where God had planned for me to be. and how i've fallen so short, i'm sure. and how it seems i've let these past few years slip away...how i've fallen far too often into mediocrity and appeasement...how i've spent far too long playing in the mud....

then i think about all the great heroes of faith that have come before...and i have some hope that God can and still wants to use me...

i think of moses, and how he was living in rebellion and hiding in the desert for many years when God spoke to him through the burning bush.

ah, yes, the burning bush. that was where all these thoughts started yesterday.

how it seems way too often i find myself waiting for the next burning bush encounter to come along before i do anything. i can think of one time in my life that was very much a burning bush experience. one of thsoe god was so real moments that it almost felt like i had to ask him to back off a bit or i couldn't take it. but that was a long time ago. since then, there have been scattered moments of clarity when god's realness and presence in and around my life were tangible. moments where direction and clarity provided direction. but there hasn't been one of those moments in a while...and i find myself wondering if it always has to be that way. i think not.

because i have been wondering here lately that God still does have great plans for me. a friend recently sent me a word she felt God had for me, and this further confirmed that.

and so i think again on what you might call god's whisperings in my heart. thoughts that show up every now and then in such a way that make me think they are not of me but of God...

i won't write them out specifically here...but they are very much real...and maybe even true...

so, we'll see where this all goes...

but all those thoughts brought me back to my original comments...which were on the state of my life and how it seems i'm woefully off track for these seemingly far-reaching visions...

and, of course, that bings me back to moses.

or maybe peter, who denied jesus 3 times before becoming the true cornerstone of the church.
or paul, who didn't get his burning bush experience until after he had killed and persecuted who knows how many christians.
or maybe abraham, who took things into his own hands and had to wait 13 years for God to fulfill his promise...
or maybe david, who wasn't given the heir that would father the line that brought jesus until after he had messed around with bathsheba and began to see the manifestations of god's punishment for that in his life...

so...yeah, the bible is full of people like me, who denied god and turned their back on him in their own way, only to see Him and His faitufulness and his goodness shine through in the end...

and not for my glory...or theirs...oh no...but if all you want is to be used by God, then this grace and mercy and love and forgiveness is a very good thing...otherwise, i'd be condemned to living this life as a mediocre christian fit for being vomited out of my father's mouth....