Friday Flashback #20 - Must...Learn...the...Lesson...

The Flute Player had a huge Social Studies project on the election assigned to her; she somehow thought it was due on Monday, but came home yesterday and announced that it was due today.

And, despite my constant nagging consistent encouragement for the past two weeks, she had almost nothing done on it. I sat up with her until 1 AM while she worked, and she got up at 5:45 to work. It's finished, but if she makes better than a C- on it it will be a wonder. It's gonna hurt her grade; obviously rushed and minimally completed.

So, yeah, I'm tired and cranky and gave her the 'When will you learn this lesson!' lecture on the way to school (it's raining, so I took her instead of sending her on her bike).

Then I came home and began looking for a journal entry to use for today's flashback. And, to my chagrin, here's what I came across, dated March 7, 2003:

[While] skim reviewing chapters I'd already read in Dialogue With God, I encountered the following statement/question that I'd both highlighted and starred:

'Could I actually come to a place where I did nothing on my own initiative; where I only spoke the words I heard the Father speaking within; where I only did those things I saw the Father doing?'

Wow...that would really be the cry of my heart: but that means walking in such intimate communion with God that I heard and saw Him on a continual basis -- not just every once in a while, and not only when I'm on my face with the world shut out. It means looking at a situation unfolding before me and knowing what God was saying about it/doing in it and speaking and acting accordingly.

It is possible for humans to live in such a place: Paul and Peter both did. There are others in history who did; [I believe] there are people today who do.

Teach me, Lord, to pursue you with a passion until I reach that spot and keep pursing with a passion to stay there.

Sigh. That was over 5 years ago...and I can't honestly say that I'm closer to that passionate, constant pursuit, let alone the discernment of what God is saying and doing around me, than I was when I wrote it.

I am like my daughter; putting it off just a little each day and not learning the lesson of what such procrastination costs. Not that I have to legalistically spend hours in prayer...but, when I hear Him call my name to come aside, I need to respond immediately instead of 'yeah...in a minute...just let me finish (whatever)'.

When I learn that lesson, I'll be on the threshold of a whole new level of intimacy with Him...