Transparency

I read a post by Skip Moen today, and these are the thoughts that it triggered (to understand the Greek words, you’ll need to read the article).  I’m posting them here, because this is where I keep my thoughts, both public and private.

Can I be brutally transparent for a moment?  It’s a bit scary, to tell the truth.  I don’t always know how to be akolouthein.   With two small children and a full-time job, I don’t even have time to have a life or friends.  The brief (and often interrupted) moments of quiet I sometimes get at 5am are the only time when I have to even open God’s word.  And then I read but often don’t know how to apply.  It’s awesome and eye-opening to see new things in the Bible, but I can barely remember my name sometimes, much less what I read in the early morning darkness.  This site provides a huge amount of insight, and one thing that it does it keep me thinking about what I learned through the day… but I’m still stuck at manthanein.

How do you do it?  How does a person go from being a hearer to a doer?

I will say that I am more sensitive to those still small whispers, and I am more often able to rely on God’s strength and provision, but is that what this means?  How awesome it would be to be a follower, to know people deeply enough to be able to bare my soul and actually have the time to sit down and talk (does this count?), and to learn to live what I learn.  I crave this sometimes, but at this point in life it doesn’t seem to be possible (to find time to “get out,” not to live out what I learn).  But I also recognize that being mommy is definitely something that God has called me to be, especially with my oldest’s special needs.

And yet, God is holy, and He above all others knows the longings of my heart – to be a doer and not just a hearer, to have true friends and not just acquaintances, to be both a follower and a leader (which is a terrifying, possibly ludicrous, thought that someone, even my children, would look at my life and think I know enough of anything to follow my attempt to learn and imitate Yeshua’s life), and to fit all the information I gather into a map for life instead of a collection of fascinating facts.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels that way – that being mommy has consumed my life to the point where I don’t always know how to step outside that role and be Amanda (or rather how to find the time to do that), and that more importantly, I am at a loss as to how to move from being a gatherer of information to a true follower of Christ.

*End of scary soul-baring moment*  How do you do it?  I’d love to know!

Sightings

My goal is once a week to list any God Sightings from the week (at least as far as I can remember).

• a nudge to pray for a family I don’t know who recently lost a child, something any parent fears and which rips my heart into pieces to hear about
• the beauty of  a man praying at a cross outside a church (picture to follow)
• amazing provision for our family’s needs
• the working of God’s scheduling in arranging a guest speaker for my classroom
• building relationships and sharing small bits about Yeshua with my students who ask
• I know there are more, but my memory is SO bad!