Tuesday's In Other Words: Intimate Issues

BONNIE over at the INK IT BLOG is hosting this week's "In Other Words." Pop on over and check out what others have to say, "In Other Words."

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As I read and re-read this quote, nothing in particular came to my mind except that I strive everyday to live this sort of life with my Lord and Savior, with my God and Father, and His Holy Spirit. I want Him to be so much a part of me and for me to be so much a part of Him that one could scarcely tell the difference. To be fully, completely and totally His.

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Then comes the morning, the new dawn of the next day and I want to get it right, but my head hurts and my body is tired. I used to plug myself into people and avoid being alone with God. Being intimate with others is not the problem, definitely not my problem... Being intimate with God... that is where I found myself falling hopelessly short. You know how it goes: That show I love just came on television and the laundry is piled up from a week ago. Today, I just don't feel good, and tomorrow I have a schedule overflowing with mundane, ordinary routine things to do... I don't feel like taking a shower much less cracking the binding on my Bible and spending time with God in my "prayer closet." Which reminds me, I really need to clean the bathroom. Then, before I know it my husband walks in the door and my kids are awaiting dinner. The books are piled on the kitchen table waiting to be read and I have spent a whole day reading about other people's relationships with God and severely neglected my own. This is the quandry of how my life used to be.

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I must admit that the preceding paragraph is like a whole week's worth of distraction and interference rolled into one episode... but it is true just the same. I know that I get it right most days. That I have really rich moments of intimacy that are mine and His alone. Every day I find those moments draw me back to Him, they woo me back into that secret place, that hiding place and sometimes I cannot get away from Him for hours. Like a first love, a new love that has come into my life He just keeps calling me forth. His Word reveals Him to me, and I find myself there, too. I come to the end of myself in those moments of laying my heart and my soul bare and being filled, brimming and overflowing with His rich, beautiful Spirit. His flowing, overwhelming and unconditional love begins to swirl all around me, wash over me and in those moments I open my eyes and see Him not as movies and pictures or paintings portray Him, but I see His glory in creation and my own life. I feel His love become manifest in my own heart. A deep, bubbling passion begins to rise within me and I cannot get away from Him even if I try. Even in my darkest moments when sin weighs heavy on my soul, those moments that are mine and His alone drive me straight to His feet, to confess in ugly reality the misdeeds of my heart, my mind and my body and to cry out for mercy in an honest desire for freedom, forgiveness and grace. All of which is won for me when my Savior died on the cross and rose from the grave. The moment I confessed Him as Lord, all of my past and future were completely forgiven. Confession is to drive me into Him, to seek His cleansing power and the purification and redemption of my soul.

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Even confession brings deep awareness, deep awareness breeds reality of change and I feel myself plunge deeper and more fully into the reality of my God. I weep as I realize He truly is my infinite, eternal All-in-All. He is the I AM of my days and the comforter of my nights and He is the Lover of my soul and I am so glad He pursues me this way!