Well, it's certainly been a great length of time since this blog has had the “new post” button clicked. I'm not really sure why, either.
The
Captivating book study that I talked about a couple of entries ago has finally started. I am genuinely amazed at myself, or rather amazed at how God has been shaping my heart and working through me. I don't do leadership things. It's not my forte. I steer away from the thought any time I can. I also don't do youth. I have little patience for youth. Hanging out with middle and high school girls is not my idea of a great time. But it
has been a great time so far. I've really been enjoying the girls and I've loved hearing their thoughts and ideas on the book.
Something that always frustrated me when I was still in the youth group was that some adults in the leadership positions didn't seem to believe that youth were capable of using their heads and truly thinking through things. It seemed as if many thought we were unable to handle anything more than the basic theological ideas, dressed down to suit our high school lives. One of my main goals with this study is to really get the girls to use their heads. I don't want them to be able to tell me everything there is to know about theology and how this book entertwines with that; I do, however, want to give them questions they might wrestle with, or address topics that might seem foreign or, in some cases, scary.
One of the reasons I love
Captivating is because it deals with the human heart. It doesn't give a three-step plan for a successful Christian life. It doesn't tell women that make-up is evil, that physical beauty is a useless thing, and that they are only meant to be servants. It doesn't address the symptoms, but instead the disease. I think the heart is so often missed in Christianity. So much of the faith has been reduced to a formula.
God has really been speaking to me through Scripture lately. I've been amazed at how He has led me right to particular passages that talk about
exactly what I had been wrestling with. Last night on my way to work, I was driving and just thinking about how frustrated I was. I had been trying so hard to see God, to hear God, to be used by God. But instead of hearing His voice, I got silence. Instead of feeling alive in His love, I felt numb to it. I got to work a little bit early and was just sitting in my car listening to music. Then Psalm 13 was brought to my head. I keep a small Bible in my purse for church so I pulled it out and read. Psalm 13 is David asking God why He seems distant, why He hides His face. The questions David was pondering were the ones I was wondering about, also. In spite of the questions, though, David mentions God's unfailing love. In one or two of the other Scriptures God has led me to lately, the exact words "unfailing love" were mentioned. It's just a reminder for me that regardless of how I am emotionally or regardless of how I messed up spiritually, God's love is constant always. It is there always. And when I don't feel it, it is probably because I have taken myself away from it and instead began to search for it in something else.
Faith is often frustrating for me, but I'm finding that the more honest I am with God the more I learn and the more I feel His presence.
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