Your Rod and Your Staff they Comfort Me

When I started this journey to Walk with the Spirit I was blissfully unaware of what it was really going to mean. I thought I was going to easily give up diets and budgets, and begin making good decision with the Holy Spirit by my side as we skipped on into the sunset, 20 pounds lighter and debt free.
The actual year that followed looked a little different than that.
God started me on a journey that made post it notes and diet plans obsolete. He turned on the light in my dark corners and showed me all the dusty self help books and philosophies covered with cobwebs and spiders. He helped me see how desperately I had been clinging to the hope that these easier man made philosophies would save me from my self destructive patterns of behavior that my life had been living and dying by. Diet plans and budgets were so were so much easier than freedom, I was terrified of the idea that my compulsive self was expected to make good decisions.The saddest part of all this was that a part of me wanted to run to those books and try one more time. He must have known my heart because then He handed me a match and asked me to trust Him.
Would I be willing to walk with His Spirit and not be afraid of failure as I learned to listen for His voice one decision at a time. To teach me what how to handle anxiety, sadness, joy and hurt without running away, to stay with Him and let Him walk me through the feelings.
I took the match.
What I didn't know was that I would have to go through this same process daily for the next 3 months, it was a lot like the movie GroundHog day, but I was Bill Murray and it was real.

In Psalm 23:4 Your Rod and you Staff they comfort me.
Just like a sheep wandering down the wrong path, He continues to gently (and not so gently) lead us in the right direction. We choose to follow his leading or wander off following other sheep that think they know a better way.

The Difference

We have all been there: laying in bed thinking about the habits in our lives that we want so badly to

change: from talking to much, overeating, procrastinating, bad tempers, smoking to getting in debt from overspending. The list of habits that negatively effect our lives could fill pages. We lie awake feeling overwhelmed, depressed, alone and scared. What if I can't change? What if everyone has finally given up on me? What if people find out how bad I really am?

We have read scores of books, spent hours and hundred of dollars on counselors, talked our friends, spouses and sometimes complete strangers to death with our desire to change, just to end up here again.

What really scares us is that this time we were so sure our plan would work; but before we knew what was evening happening we were right back in the same situation, not even knowing how we got there.

Take a moment and read these words with me:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures

He leads me beside the quiet waters

He restores my soul

STOP

He restores me soul.....WHAT?

Is that really true? and if it is, how does it happen??

In a world where we have been conditioned to want quick change; magazines promise us that we will lose 10 pounds in a week, and credit card offers come in the mail by the pound, God's answers may feel intangible and exhausting, however the opposite is true.

God's answer is to abide in Him (period) no tricks, no gimmicks, no apple cider vinegar; just abide in Him.

In Matthew 15:1-5 Jesus tells us "Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much good fruit.....apart from me, you can do nothing"

Do we believe Him? and if we do, what does it look like in our every day lives.

That is the topic I want to explore over the next few days.