The Course of Time

I'm reading through 1st Samuel right now. I did this extraordinary thing (well for me at least) and I asked my friend to read through the bible with me one on one. We don't meet every week but we pick a book, read through it on our own and discuss it. I asked for help because I get so discouraged and confused reading through the bible on my own sometimes and I just like to have someone to specifically set aside time with to process these things. But 1st Samuel is where we're reading now.

I've also set a goal to consistently get up early each morning and have intentional quiet time as a way to start my day. After Ben's great message (from 10/24) on putting first things first I was heavily convicted that I was being disobedient by not doing so, (me not you) I can't tell you what God is saying to you but this is what he's pressing heavy on me right now.

See I've been dreaming lately. Not just sub-concsious dreaming although I've been doing that a lot too. But dreaming of the future, what I want it to look like, what I want to be doing and who I want to be in it. I've been asking God to show me where he wants me to be and asking him to give me the deepest desires of my heart (and sometimes for him to tell me what they even are).
I'm beginning to see a cloudy picture and I'm trying to set my steps in order now, I'm trying to be obedient and get prepared now so that when the time comes I'll be ready and not so terrified to leap.
(which incidentally is something Ben said in his message Sunday which was alarming and reassuring at the same time that the same message was coming from all over the place...I'm so thankful that God is confirming these things)

So when I was reading in 1st Samuel this morning I got to the passage below and got stuck on the words "in the course of time"

Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. ²⁰ So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the LORD for him."
1st Samuel 1:19-20

See Hannah hadn't been able to have a baby. She longed for one. She prayed for a baby so fervently in the temple one day that the priest thought she was drunk.
Now I'm no biblical scholar but in the course of time doesn't sound like Hannah got knocked up that night. Even though it says Elkanah lay with Hannah I'm guessing that probably happened a few times. Because "in the course of time" sounds like eventually she got pregnant.

I am not pregnant. Just to clarify that awkward elephant in the room. Nor do I want to be.
But there are things I desire. There are things that I have brought before the Lord in anguish and grief and even in anger. So much so that I stopped bringing them before him because I was so pissed at how long it was taking to be resolved.
But this morning I realized the time was not over. The course was not finished.

In the course of time.
In the course of time God will still be faithful.
My job isn't to define the call and purpose God has placed on my life, it isn't to control that call and purpose. My job is to prepare. To fix the integrity of my heart which has been full of hurt, anger and bitterness lately and to be obedient with putting first things first.
Praying. Reading the bible.
Because in the course of time God will provide. I just need to be ready to move and a heart burdened with anger, bitterness and hurt is not ready to move it is stuck in the muck and mire ready to wallow only deeper in itself.

Does this mean I immediately forget these things? Probably not, actually not at all. It means I don't stomp it down, shove the feelings back down my throat with pizza and candy. It means I daily, minute to minute take it before God in my anguish and grief, pouring out my soul and trusting him that in the course of time I will be healed, prepared, and ready to move forward giving the gifts He has given me completely over to Him.

Dream On

Ben spoke recently about Dreams.
He talked about the dreams that you have for your life, the way that God partners your passion and the gifting He has given you into a dream for your life.
I thought about my dreams.
I thought about how I never really had them.
I just drifted aimlessly around flitting from one dream to another.

When I was younger, it was because I never really expected to be alive to make dreaming anything worthwhile.
As I got older I aligned myself so deeply with the dreams other people had for my life there was no room left for mine.
It's only been recently, in the last few years, that I've begun to dream.
Dream about what God is calling me to do with my life. Dream about things I'm passionate about. Dream about the next steps, the ways to align my steps now to meet up with a faster track to seeing the dreams come to fruition in the future.

As I bump into the grossness of life, my dreams are what I abandon first.
My spending habits, my time management, the very words I speak and type begin to drift away from aligning myself with the dream and into the immediate needs. Managing the crisis' instead of dealing with them and moving on.
I shove the dream down and wallow in pits and filth that detract from my dream.

I think I'm going to try to stop that.
I think I'm going to try to be more intentional (or intentional at all in some areas) about putting my dream into motion, saying no to good things so I can say yes to amazing things. Saying no to people that are good people, they're just not good people for me to allow access to my heart anymore.

Even now, I want to delete this. Even now I want to not tell you. Because I'm terrified of failing, of letting you down, of disappointing you and even me again.
But I'm going to try. I'm going to sacrifice and prioritize and move steadily towards the dream. For really one of the first times ever.