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Horrible Miserable Failure

             Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Hebrews 12:2)

             And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

 

            These verses came to mind summing up my thoughts on seeking God.  One of the big things that has to happen is that I must throw away my pity card. When my prayers come around to me, I tend to get too busy whining to God about what a miserable failure I am for Him to get a word in edgewise. And then I assume that His “silence” means I’m a horrible, miserable failure.

            In Hearing God, Dallas Willard provides a process for working truth into our lives:

1.     Information.

2.     Longing for it to be so.

3.     Affirmation that it must be so.

4.     Invocation to God to make it so.

5.     Appropriation by God’s grace that it is so.

            I have the verses listed above. But I can tell you that the part of me that longs for control may say it longs that my mind may be transformed and renewed, but when you’re weak or a failure, you can’t be blamed for anything. It’s a form of control.

            So, part of what I’m learning from the verses of the day is that to hear God, I have to shut up and listen, and I have to take responsibility and stop using God as my excuse or “out.” I’m thinking these might be my verses for the next year. 

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