I'm calling out, light the fire again...

Last night at bible study we were given the task of spending half an hour in solitude to attempt to hear from God.

If you know me at all (if you read this blog you probably do) you understand that this is not my fortè.

As a person with verbal A.D.D. (and prob some of the actual disease running around inside of me) I cannot sit still and shut my brain off very easily. Songs start running through my head, images of people (boys), and the random fake conversation just take over and to silence them is not easy.

But last night was a small success as I was guided to a passage and felt like it related to what I am going through.

I opened my bible to Mark 4 and was met by The Parable of the Sower. If you attend church you have probably heard this Parable many times, it's about a farmer who scatters seeds and some lands on the path and the birds come and eat it, some falls on the shallow soil and although it springs up quickly it then gets scorched by the sun. Others fall among the thorns and although it grows up it is choked out by the weeds and does not produce grain, but nevertheless some falls among the good soil and grows and produces crop in multitude.

It then goes on to describe how people fit in to these categories and although I'd like to say I'm among the good soil, I'm not. I'm among the thorns, verse 18 and 19 say "Still others, like seed sown among the thorns, heard the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."

Further along in "A Lamp on a Stand" it says in verse 21 "Do you bring a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open."

Until we got together with someone and shared what was revealed to us I had not even made the connection that I was doing this mere hours beforehand. I was sitting in the living room waiting for my ride and highlighting verses in my bible. Mom comes along and asks what I was doing and I was immediately closed off and didn't want to tell her. My own mother, who is a christian, I was too intimidated to share a simple bible verse with her, I told her it was none of her business. It has a lot to do with the dynamic between my mother and I but I find it is spreading out in to my daily life too. I find I am too scared to speak out, to use my voice, that I am being choked out by those around me.

If you're reading that you are probably like what? For I am not a quiet person, I am never at a loss for words, but my obnoxious, loud rants are superfluous and without meaning and are never what I am really wanting to say.

Further still in chapter 4 it says "Why are you so afraid, do you still have no faith?" v 30

This question is sitting heavy on my heart.

Yes I have faith, although it's not dead, it's definitely on life support, being aided by the great christian friends I have, living vicariously through their actions, sitting on the edge, not diving in with everything it has.

In James 2:14 it asks the question "What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?"

If you read on the answer is obviously no, so what do we do about it?

Much love and new pondering- Amy