This weekend I finally completed a project I've wanted to do for some time now. It's simple, but important to me. I wrote a bunch of Scriptures on index cards and taped them up all over the house. In the kitchen, in the bathroom, by the computer, in the bedroom.
I've started attending a small group at our church that focuses on intercessory prayer. I thought it might be a bit "weird", but it's been perfectly normal and welcoming. In fact, it's been just what I need in my spiritual life right now. A place to be still, calm, and connect with God. Each week, it's like a treasure trove is opened for me to interact with God and hear from Him. I've started looking forward to what He will talk to me about each week.
I've been asking, and blogging my asking, for a while lately, for God to change my heart. To break my heart for what breaks His. To be more compassionate, more focused on others, on service, on bringing people to know His love. A couple weeks ago at our prayer group, I was asking Him what it was going to take. How was this going to happen? The answer that resonated inside me was, "Time with Me. Change your saturation."
What that meant to me is that we are surrounded all day long, by daily life. Household chores, email advertisements, Facebook chats, store windows, magazine covers....they pull on our hearts. To be frustrated, to be greedy, to be opinionated, to be caddy, to lust, to want, to need, to desire.... what temporal life has to offer. It's around me, in me, on me, surrounding me to the point of saturation. And thus is life. If I want to do something, or be something, different, I need to change what is saturating my heart.
Pinning scripture cards around my house is a baby step in the direction of surrounding myself, saturating my heart, with the person I want to become.
I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
Be completely humble
and gentle
be patient
bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:1-2
That one is next to my computer.
Cast all your anxiety on Him
because He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7
That one is on the bathroom medicine cabinet so I can see it before I go to sleep (which is when I tend to get anxious and have trouble sleeping).
I found it interesting that God used the word "saturation." It's a meaningful word to me as a photographer, because a black-and-white image is technically called "desaturated," or "unsaturated." A color image is "saturated."
I think it would be easier sometimes, to just stay away from places or people that distract us or tug on our hearts...ie to de-saturate. But that's not what we're called to do. We're here. Life is life. In the midst of it, we have to work on our saturation. Work on what surrounds us, and therefore tugs on our hearts. If I never went clothes shopping again, I'd have a hard time overspending on clothes. That's desaturation. But that's impossible. I will need clothes; Jax will especially need clothes. I have to change my spirit's saturation, so when I go clothes shopping, I'm not filled with lust and greed and need, instead I'm filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to find good deals and spend appropriate amounts of money.
Just like our friends will inevitably "rub off" on us, shaping our opinions and choices, so our physical surroundings "rub off" on us, shaping our heart desires and values.
Time with God. So seemingly hard to define or "do." Time in His word is a place where I can meet Him. Listen to words He says that I don't have to manufacture or "hear the voice of God" in my head. He has spoken. And His words are already written down in time-tested format and available in a language I understand. And they're true for my life and my children's lives. So I write them down. Surround my home with them. Read them. Try to let them re-saturate my heart. Baby steps.
