The Word of the Lord (Thanks be to God!!)

I've been having a really tough time getting back into the habit of daily quiet times with God. I'll be honest: I'm doing well if I've done 2 or 3 in a week...some weeks I'm stoked if I get 1. The worst part is that there is absolutely NOTHING stopping me from doing it every single day. I'm just really good at completely forgetting to do it, or remembering to do it but only once I'm really cozy watching something on Netflix and I convince myself that I'll be no good to God in my current lazy state....like He won't be able to speak anything into my heart because I'm too pooped to hear it. Or sometimes I just don't want to do it because I know there's gunk in my heart and I tell myself that if I don't come before God, I won't have to face it and maybe He won't even notice. Or sometimes I feel like I have to do it, not like I want to, because I'm a youth group leader, I attend Bible study and church every week, and if I'm going to label myself as "Christian" I'd better be doing something differently. But here's the thing about things I have to do.....I don't want to do them. It's like cleaning my room: I don't want to because I have to. But if I'm at my brother's house and see that he has a lot of dirty dishes and I don't foresee him having sufficient time or energy to get them clean, I'm more than happy to wash them for him. I guess I'm weird that way.
So here's how I've (hopefully) tricked myself into getting back into the swing of things: I love books! Really, you should see my bookshelf. It's not that I have millions of books, it's just that I have such a wide selection....and that I haven't read a lot of them. I haven't read them because I buy them faster than I can read them and then just when I'm about to get to one that I bought, someone buys me one that sounds more interesting so I start on that one, or I get a good one from the library and tell myself that I can read the ones I own anytime and I only have the one from the library for 3 weeks. So basically, new books = new excitement. So this morning I marched myself over to the Bible bookstore and bought a new devotional. It's by Beth Moore (I always hear great things about her), and I'm excited. It's a year long one about breaking free. I told myself I'd start tomorrow morning, but we all know what that means, so I started today while I had some cookies in the oven. Here's today's devo:

I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91:2

Life's way of reacting to a crushed, broken heart is to wrap tough

sinews of flesh around it and tempt us to promise we'll never

let ourselves get hurt again.

But that's not God's way. Self-made fortresses not only keep love from going out;

they keep love from coming in. And He knows we risk becoming captives

in our own protective fortresses.

Only God can put the pieces of our heart back together again,

close up all the wounds, and bind it with a 

porous bandage that protects the heart from infection

but keeps it free to inhale and exhale love.

Ha! I read that and can only think that Beth Moore has been spying on me for the past 8 years of my life. In fact, I remember a conversation I had with a good friend a few years ago where I said something like, "people in my life kept letting me down, so I learned to stop expecting anything from anyone, that way I'm not disappointed when they don't come through." I can't imagine what I would say if a 16 year-old girl told me that now. My heart would break for her, I think....but I wouldn't know how to give her advice because I'm still not completely out of that boat. This is why daily devos are hard for me to stick with: they don't usually give me warm-fuzzies about God and His plan for me, they usually show me some yucky part of my heart that I haven't fully given over to God yet. I don't like yucky parts of my heart. 

So that's my plan to get myself to start spending time with God everyday again: I bought a new book, I had a love/hate relationship with the first page I read, and now I'm putting it out in public that this is my goal. I think we're more likely to follow through with things if people know our goals....that's why I don't really tell people about my goals, because then it means I either have to do something or I'm full of empty words.