Yes, Beth Schroeder is back to the blogging world! But am I still living that Abundant Life? That is something to really ponder.
My life is not being lived as it should be. I seem to have this problem of knowing what I want and how I long to live …
yet being controlled by my body and not by my spirit. The Living God does live within me, but I so often choose to live
as if that doesn’t matter. I find myself so easily swayed into the mundane flow of the average everyday life, only to be pulled further and further away from my beloved. As anyone who has been whooed by the Beloved knows, far away from Him is truly the last place your spirit wants to be.
Yet I buck, wiggle, and push myself away as this internal battle wages out in my life.
Paul’s “Do Do” verse (as I so lovingly call, can you figure out why?) it has been my anthem lately:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the Law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.Romans 7:15-25
I know what I have been called to, I have heard the voice of God calling me into the greatness of His plan. I can see it, and I long to live this life He has placed before me. It’s crazy how badly I want to be the woman God created me to be. So instead of doing the logical next step of pursuing God’s calling, I run and hide and pretend everything is “ok”.
It is this custom that is completely illogical and accepted and I just don’t understand.
I have been called to the promise land – Literally. My brother-in-law, sister and myself are starting an all natural farm/retreat center/community called Promise Land Ranch. It is 21 acres of God’s goodness placed before us as a gift, a calling, a promise.
The adventure of a lifetime. Yet I see myself, as Abraham did making stupid mistakes in the “waiting time”; failing to trust this proven God of mine, forgetting who I am and what has been given to me, stumbling over the tiniest pebble in my way and remaining curled up in a ball covered with dust from the road I’ve fallen on.
Only to hear that sweet quite whisper of my Beloved reach out to pick me back up, dust me off and lift me over this ridiculously small pebble along the way. It continues to amaze me how often I can forget the strength and comfort of Christ, to be distracted by the lure and illusion of my sinful nature.
So the battle wages on between my broken, dirty, and distracting sinful nature lead astray by the sirens of this world
vs.
my redeemed, healed and purified spirit tucked securely under the wings of the King of the Universe.
Jesus – Pick me up again today, take me by the hand and lead me in the way of truth and understanding. Help me to keep my focus on you and away from the distractions of this world.
