48- God Is So Patient!

I would not be that patient with me! In my journal are pages and pages of my bellyaching about going to Japan for all kinds of reasons. I had been pouring out my heart because the Bible told me to: Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the night watches; pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; lift up your hands to Him for the life of your little ones… Lamentations 3:19

I was also pleading with Him that I would be more like Him:

Feb 25, 1980 Jesus I crave You. I want to be like You. I am so tired of me—I crave You, You are so precious, You are righteous, You are love. I seek You for Yourself. Not for what You can give me. Not for what You can do for me! I believe I have all things because I have You. Let me live like it. You are so lovely, just touch me. You are so sweet and compassionate, just look upon me for a moment. I want to experience You. I want to lose my life. I want to deny myself. I want to take up my cross. What do those things MEAN? How can they be real for me? There seems to be no cost too much to live for You, to have You live fully in me. I want to grow up into maturity in Christ. I want to accept the mundane worldly things and not fight cleaning and ironing daily. Your light for my heaviness. Your joy for my negativism. Your love for my small prideful, petty attitudes. How? When? Thank You for Dan’s most precious example of Christ in a man. I see it can be done. I see it’s worth death to self. I see I want Christ’s fullness in me. I crave You, Jesus. I must have guidance, power, mercy, love—all of You all the time. You are all that is worthwhile in this life. You give purpose to every thought and task. You are the cement that binds our hearts in love. Without You is vanity. With You is heaven on earth. Reveal to me Your sweetness, purge me, cleanse me, that I might be a vessel You would deign to rest in. Even if we do nothing—just please rest in me.

Growing, always growing in the Lord.

Spoiler: In time I would learn about the exchanged life (Galatians 2:20) and Christ in me, and I would experience a shift in my thinking.