WORKS FOR ME VIII

A DEEP CHANGE WITHIN ME

More than ever I feel more and more like a stranger and an exile on this earth.  I am an alien in this world, seeking a homeland not of this world, like many of the folks that have gone before me spoken of in the Bible.  The Kingdom of God has captured my heart, mind, and soul and I have no desire to be anyplace else except in the Presence of God on His Holy hill.

          “The zeal of God has consumed me, it burns in my soul.

            A driving force that cannot be stopped,

  A fire that cannot be quenched.”

Sometimes I just want to avoid this world altogether.  Sometimes I get angry at the way the world is and want to fix it.  I identify with Jesus when he went raging through the temple expelling the money changers, or when he addressed the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees.  I have spent many years being mad at the church for all the same reasons, and then some.  I have come to see that much of that is a reaction to being wronged by people in the church, and I need to repent and forgive those folks.

Something deep within me is changing.  Spending so much time with God and reading through the Bible, it is becoming clear to me how much God loves His people, even when they mess up.  Spending so much alone time with me, it is clear that I have allowed the bad church experiences of my past to build up calluses caused by those hurts rather than allowing them to heal.  What is coming from these revelations is an opening up to a healing of past wounds and a new vision of the Church of Jesus and my relationship to it.  What better time for this work than this week at the beach and time spent with ole Fellowship friends?  It works for me.