Soul Stirring Conversations With God

"All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but he Lord weights the spirits (the thoughts and intents of the heart). Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will and] so shall your plans be established and succeed."

Proverbs 16:2-3 (AMP)

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refesh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and your will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet for your souls).

Matthew 11:28-29 (AMP)

I"ve started a new Bible Study - Soul Stirring Conversations With God - by Priscilla Shirer (Tony Evan's daughter). It sounds pretty inspiring doesn't it? It is inspiring, but mostly I think, it is convicting. I had decided to skip Bible Study this fall, but Beth called me and told me I HAD to go, explaining that the 5 day study focuses on one subject for the entire 5 days. The first week was on the tongue - I'm sure we can all relate to needing work on that one! This week's lesson is on prioritizing your life. My life hasn't been in the neat little boxes I like it in much this year. So when I got to Lesson 2, with the Proverbs verse, I just felt like it slammed my spirit to it's knees (in a good way). This is so my problem my whole life. I like MY life plan, and God likes His. And even when I am outwardly obedient to Him, well...He knows my spirit, so He's very aware of how I'm rebelling inside. This should be discouraging, but in an odd way it's not. As I'm composing whole conversations in my head to have with people about how my life should be, and wondering who I should choose to talk to, when all of a sudden I think - you big dummy - God is hearing everything you are saying right now, and He is the most confidential confidante of all. He has the best answers, and really, Barb, you already know the answer, so just lay it all (or roll it all on Him). What a comfort (even though it seems a long way off) that He will make my thoughts agreeable to Him (AND, successful!) I had to stop my study and set on this a while, it was so convicting to me.

Lesson three lead into the Matthew verse. I've always loved this verse, especially since reading a sermon by George MacDonald:

"Now, what does this "yoke" mean? Many people have the idea that the Lord takes a yoke and lays it upon you, and that He says, as it were holding the yoke in His hand: 'Come here, and take My yoke upon you.' That is not it at all. "My yoke" means the yoke that I bear, not the yoke that I lay upon you, but the yoke that I an bearing. The eternal Son of God tells us that His own rest of soul, His own peace of mind, just comes from the yoke that He Himself bears. We do not often see in this country two oxen yoked together: but where I live you see not infrequently two lovely oxen walking together with one yoke across the necks of both. That is the idea here. . . it means, take the other end of My yoke and walk with Me, harnessed with Me; we will go together and draw the burden of the Father's Will." (Proving the Unseen - I highly recommend this little book if you can get your hands on it!)

Such a good reminder that I'm not in this by myself, He is there walking right alongside me. I love the amplified version of this verse - not just rest (that's too puny for God), but relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet for your souls. That's what I'm wanting, and I keep letting myself get in the way!