Enough for God

For the last 48 hours God has been moving around and shaking some things up in my heart. It's messing me up guys, messing me up.
Ben talked on Sunday about love and fear. I'd give some link love but it's not being made available online for download, they want to be sure it's heard the way it was intended. Wholly and complete and out of love. He talked about fear and named 3 things that are pretty common fears:
People- as in the fear of disappointing people, sort of like wanting to please people and have everyone like you. I'm still processing that one, and the surprising depths my fear of disappointing people runs.
Money- having it, not having it, missing out on something because you're saving it and more.
Death- pretty self explanatory, but he talked about the assurance that faith in Jesus brings in the face of death or about to be death
I'm hoping to come back and revisit each one, we'll see if I remember and actually post anything.

But this is one of the few things that God has been kicking my ass over this weekend. I almost exclusively apply characteristics of people I know to God. I mean we all do it, it's what helps us wrap our teeny brains around the massivisity (what?) that is God.
During the money section Ben talked about obedience in 3 areas with money. When you have money God says we should do 3 things with it. Give some to God, save some, and spend the rest within your means. He said that disobedience in 1 of those 3 areas can lead to all sorts of issues with money. But I don't want to delve to deeply into that right now. The point is, I am rampantly disobedient in one of those areas. Oh, I give to God regularly and when the option comes up for me not to I put my foot down and say no, that part of the budget stays. I also live within my means (mostly and you'll see why I say mostly in a second). I have ZERO credit cards. I have no note on my car, I paid for it in cash. I have my student loans and my mortgage, that's it. (sorry a girls got to brag sometimes). But I do not save. At all. If there is a penny to be spent by golly I'm going to find something I just have to have, or something I just have to buy someone else, or someplace I just have to drive so I need that money for extra gas. I spend it all. Well, that doesn't bode well for the occasional rainy day emergency, especially when you own a house.
Ben called us to repent to God for the area(s) that we're disobedient in. So I started right in on it, because if nothing else I follow direction fairly well.
But I never really stopped. I've been grovelling about not saving, which led to grovelling about my past sin and disobedience, which led to me spending quite a bit of time dredging my past for all the mistakes I'd made long before I ever believed God even existed. I eviscerated myself at the foot of the cross, and I thought, rightfully so.
Because when you have to apologize to another person for wronging them, one apology just isn't going to cut it. They have to really know that you're sorry, you have to prove to them just how sorry you are and maybe then they will consider thinking about accepting your apology. But they'll also bring it up again, and they won't forget, and sometimes they'll flat out refuse your apology, especially if it's something you're constantly screwing up on.
The last one especially sucks the air out of me.
Because left to my own devices I much prefer cruelty and snarkiness as a companion rather than grace and patience. Because if I know someones weakness it makes me feel powerful to exploit that weakness. I have exploited many a weakness for years. In the last almost 6 years since I began following Jesus I still slip up. I still say cruel and awful things. I still mock someone into a puddle on the floor. But I apologize, I repent to them, and I repent to God, but I just keep doing it.
Two Christmases ago I did it again. I was in rare form. My cranky pants were on and they were yanked up to my chin. When the battle was over and the other party had retreated I went and I apologized, I didn't even try to explain as usual, I just said, I'm sorry, I know better and I will try to do better. This person that I love and admire looked at me so coolly and said, "I'd like to believe you but your apology is just not good enough"

Sometimes I think my apologies to God are just not good enough, and in a sense they're not really. I have a hard time believing that he truly forgives and keeps no record of wrongs. I feel this unassuaged guilt at times for things that I've done, things I still feel so strongly that I want to do. I feel like if only I were sorry enough God would take these feelings, these thoughts, these desires away.
But that's not really how he operates. I know it, but I sure don't get it deep down. You ask, he forgives, he keeps no record of wrong. That's just so much more divine than I can really grasp most of the time.

I sort of feel the same way about prayer. Like if I was a really good believer I would be praying for hours and hours. I would be like the people whose stories I read that spend the first 4 hours of their day on their face during their quiet time and Lord help me I have no idea what they're saying, because I seem to have this mucked up notion that in order to pray you have to talk all the time. I'm sure you haven't noticed, but I tend to ramble. I don't want to ramble to Jesus, I often think he has more important things to do!
Again, that is just not true. My teeny human brain can not comprehend what God can do, and that's because he can do anything. Even be everywhere all the time.
I think half of the battle for me is to just be still before God. I'm just rarely still. I try to multi task my prayer in while I'm driving, while I'm catching up on google reader, while I'm showering, while I'm cooking. That's all well and good, and those prayers are perfectly valid, but they are all one-sided. It's all me coming at God and requesting things from him and occasionally thanking him and telling him I love him. Rarely is it me, asking him to come and speak to me and then shutting up.

Is it because I say yes to much? Yes (pun intended). Not all of it is that, but that is a good portion of it. So I'm going to try to say no more. I'm going to try to do a few things well, have a healthy balance of relational time, and the rest, I'm just going to try to be still. To sit, to read my bible more, to just listen for God talking. Because if the last 48 hours are any indication he has a lot to say and I just have been screaming to loud to hear him.

We're not good enough for God, but that's ok, because we're not God. Jesus bridges that gap, Jesus intercedes with our Father and he is good enough. What a relief, now maybe I can not only believe that God forgives me, maybe I can forgive myself.