Conversation

Me: Hey, God. Me again.

God: Hello.

Me: So I feel stupid saying this, but-

God: You're not stupid.

Me: Right. Anyway, I'm having the same issues that I've had for what seems like - forever. And I'm really frustrated.

God: What is that, my love?

Me: Well, it's that. What you said there. I don't feel very loved right now. I don't really feel very liked, actually.

God: Why do you say that?

Me: I feel myself falling into these same old ruts of thinking and internalizing things that I know are lies. But I can't help but feel like - You're not hearing me. Still.

God: I'm always listening.

Me: Yeah, OK. Maybe. It just doesn't feel like it.

God: Your voice is beautiful to me. You are beautiful to me. I rejoice over you daily.

Me: Well... thanks. It's just that I don't know how you can rejoice over me when I continue to stumble over trusting you with stuff. I'm just finding it hard to believe right now. And the weird thing is, I've never felt closer to you, but - I just feel mad at you.

God: I can handle your anger.

Me: OK, good. I don't mean to be angry, and I'm not really angry like I've felt before. Maybe sad and frustrated is a better way of saying it. Like you're forgetting me over here.

God: You are never out of my thoughts.

Me: Really? That seems - impossible. But I really like thinking that is true.

This conversation goes on and on, in my journal, on my drive to and from work, as I'm trying to fall asleep at night. My pastor talked on Sunday about listening for the Holy Spirit, and how the Spirit speaks through the Word, through preachers, through the wise counsel of community, and finally through the heart. And where the problem with our listening comes in is where we listen to the heart FIRST before the other things.

It's a sin of pride that we think our hearts are telling us what's really true through our feelings and our experiences. But the heart comes last in that chain. And the heart is deceitful above all things (yikes! I think mine is on speed in the deceit mode.) It's prideful because we think WE know what's going on with our lives and our circumstances above seeking to know what God says about it all. I need to slow my heart and my head to a place of rest where I can receive the true message of the Spirit and not the messages that my deceitful heart drums up from the pain of my experiences. I do not know what God's doing, and I don't know the why's of why He does things the way He does, why he lets me struggle with the same things, why he stands by (seemingly idly) as I do this.

But at least I'm listening. And I'm trying to believe that He is, too.