Cliff Diving

     So here's the gig: I am starting a little project. I'm having trouble keeping God in focus. I've discovered a bunch of things in myself that I don't like. When I measure myself by what I know God wants for me - what He says in His Word - I fee like there's a lot of impurity inside of me. I fear. I worry. I don't love like Christ. I have bad thoughts. These things make me feel distant from God, and I don't like that either. Satan has really been working on me hard to keep me focused on anything but my relationship with my Father. So this blog is what I'm going to do about it. Starting on my birthday, Oct.17, I will begin a year-long project.
I will do three things:
1. I will read the entire Bible. It bothers me that I have not yet read all of God's Word. That needs to change. Now.
2. I will be disciplined in my prayers. I will prayer persistently just as Jesus commanded. I will spend more than 15 minutes everyday in conversation with my Father. Not just, "Hey God, btw..." but serious heart-to-heart talk with my Lord.
3. I will post one way that I see God every day. Whether it be a picture, a thought, an answered prayer, or a revelation. I will seek God with an open heart and share the workings of His Spirit every day. I think that blogging it will help keep me accountable, keep me from forgetting.

     Hopefully, these exercises will help me to focus not just on God but on my relationship with Him, on loving Him, on sharing Him with others, on becoming more like my Savior. It's about time I learned to be disciplined in seeking my Father. God has proved His faithfulness to me over and over. I am the one who is unfaithful. Matthew 7:7 promises that those who seek Him persistently will find Him; and in Jeremiah 29:13, we see that God wants to be found by His children who seek Him with their whole heart. I have no fears at all that God won't be there when I look for Him. However, I do doubt myself. I fear becoming blind because I have failed to pursue my God completely, like 2 Peter warns us. I don't want to create a world for myself where I'm convinced that I'm following an ocean of a God, when really all I'm looking at are the same small, familiar puddles. On Oct.17, I'll be twenty years old. I hate that. I hate that I have to be older, that I have to look at my future and realize that I only have a little while to make these the best years they can be. One day I won't feel this young and hopeful and strong anymore. By the time I turn 21, I want to know that I have given God everything I have, that my life in Him is the one that He meant for me.
     I don't know how many times I've felt like this, cried over this knowing that God wasn't everything to me but that I wanted Him to be. Whether it was the enemy or myself that kept me from giving everything, this time I don't want to give myself the opportunity to back out. This time, I'm throwing myself off a cliff. :)