Taking the Initiative

I could not have asked for a more perfect Mother's Day.  It was perfect in the sense that I truly felt honored by my family.  I was missing two of my six children for they could not be with us, but relished my time with the other four in their absence.  I am finding as time goes on, the changes that life brings, our times together need to be savored.  

I helped a friend who owns a flower shop deliver all over town for Mother's Day is one of her biggest days.  She had us going all over the place.  I learned more about the layout of our streets than ever before.  Delivering flowers is a wonderful thing cause everyone greets you with a smile.  Not like a bill collector, doctor or home repair professional who I would guess is greeted with uncertain and fearful faces.  No the pleasure is all in the deliverer who gets to see how loved and blessed others are by the gift.  So true of our Savior.  I imagine His Glory is His grin.  He takes great pleasure in being the deliverer as well when we rejoice knowing how loved we are and blessed by the gift of Himself. The feeling we get when we receive flowers we should feel everyday knowing we are a much loved child of God.  This is how I felt on Mother's Day.  More loved by the gift of my children that God has loaned to me than anything else.  He loves me so much to have given me six gifts. Well actually seven, cause my husband was my first gift.  So my seven gifts from the Lord bless me seven times over.  

They make me want to take the initiative to take  better care of myself.  I read recently in Oswald Chambers: May 10th: "God will not give us good habits, He will not give us character, He will not make us walk alright.  We have to do all that ourselves. We have to work out the salvation God has worked in us.  We must get in the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages it is difficult to instruct yourself in the way you should go".  

For this very reason I must lean not on my understanding, but on God's understanding.  I must train, get in the habit of the way I should go and there is where God meets us. He meets us initially, along the way,  and see us through, all the way to the end. We know the way and really don't need to ask when we know perfectly well.  I have to take the first step in taking the initiative without hesitation especially when He tells me to do something.  If I am calling out to God when a crisis hits then the habit is formed.  "We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not".  I read all this on Mother's Day and have paraphrased some of it. That day I had taken my first step, my initiative and determination to listen to God, to take better care of myself, and to heed His Word even more. How many first steps do we all take in a lifetime?  Each first step, I believe, is a step toward everything.  This day I went on a 5 mile hike with my family as part of my Mother's Day celebration and it was marvelous.  It gave me confidence and I am not alone in the process.  My family is behind me and so is God.  Then on May 12th I read, "The right thing to do with habits is to lose them in the life of the Lord, until every habit is so practiced that there is no conscious habit at all.  Our spiritual life continually resolves into introspection because there are some qualities we have not added as yet. Ultimately the relationship is to be a completely simple one.  Your god may be your little Christian habit of prayer at stated times( that was a hard one to read), or the habit of Bible reading.  Watch how your Father will upset those times if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. 'I can't do that just now, I am praying; it is my hour with God'.  No, it is your hour with your habit.  Love means that the habit is not visible, you have come to the place where the habit is lost, and by practice you do the thing unconsciously.  If you are consciously holy, there are certain things you imagine you cannot do, certain relationships in which you are far from simple; that means there is something to be added.  The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere".  

I am hopeful the initiative taken draws me closer to God that leads me to a simpler way away from my habitual reservations and into full throttle adventure with Him.  I have taken the first step and I know He is right here beside me.