... more like this kind ...
I'm going for laziness, here people! Sloooooooow to act, and such.
Okay, so I had the thought last night about just how difficult it is for me to get up early. It all starts with my being a complete night owl, even though I know that is the result of a complete lack of discipline on my part (blogged about that last year, "Holding On To Today").
It's funny how the Holy Spirit can convict a person, and I'm so grateful for His patience! Because I know that my day would be better if I just woke up early. Quiet time, good breakfast, exercise; all could be done, and what a great way to start my day that would be. Alas, it is difficult for me. And yesterday, after browsing through Girl Talk, I came upon this post "The 5:00 Club", and this quote:
"Waking up late means your quiet time is probably the first to go."
D'oh! Yes, waking up late means that, and yes I do wake up late, but whose fault is that... MINE! Grrrrr!
But it's funny, because I'm reading The Enemy Within, by Kris Lundgaard, and came upon a few MORE gems the other night while discussing it:
"The flesh resists with its last breath anything that smacks of communion with God, because it suffocates in his presence....
The first claw aims at your weakness. When they were under attack and under great danger of temptation, just when they should have been praying, Jesus' disciples were fast asleep. "The spirit is willing, but the body is weak," he said (Matthew 26:41). The spiritual flesh takes advantage of the weakness of the natural flesh (the body). "You can't pray now, you need your rest. If you don't get some sleep, you won't be any use to God." This, in effect, is what Satan hit Jesus with when his body was weakened by forty days of fasting: "You've done enough fasting-you're being downright fanatical. Turn those stones to bread. If you don't eat, you'll die, and then how will you save the world!" (Matthew 4:1-3).
If you don't imbed it in your mind that prayer and meditation are indispensable, and seek God's grace every day to resist the sluggishness of your body, you will hit the snooze button all morning rather than kneel before the throne. And if you snooze, you lose." (emphasis mine)
Yes, please just call me a slug bug. I can be pretty good about waking up in time for a quiet time, but if I get off track just a little bit, then it all goes awry.
It all boils down to how I want to be, which first and foremost means how can my life glorify God. And allowing my lazy flesh to control my quiet times just will not cut it. So I'm praying and trying to be better about this. I'm so glad that God shows me these things, through Scripture, sermons, etc.
+++++++++++++++
Now on to the love bug...
Oh yeahhhhh... he he!
Complete nerd that I am, my Christmas list consisted mostly of all things C.S. Lewis. Either books by him or about him. One that I received was Jack's Life, by Douglas Gresham. Gresham is Lewis' stepson, and basically summed up The Four Loves for me (I posted some quotes from this book, "With This All Things Are Possible") ... well, at least Lewis' opinion about how the four loves all work together. I'd like to think that this is exactly how Lewis explained this to his stepson:
"Jack [Lewis] believed that one of the failings of the English language is the fact that we have only one word for love. The ancient Greeks used four. Agape was their word for the love of God, which flows through one person to another. This is also called "charity," and it should be the basis of any relationship between people. Then there is their word for the love of friendship, and that is philia. This is the sort of love that one has for a dear friend that makes you like to be with them and spend time doing things together. Third is what the Greeks called storge. Storge is the sort of love you feel for someone who has been a part of your life for a long time, and if they go away, you miss them far more than you ever thought you would. They leave a hole in your emotional life that no one else can fill. Fourth is the love that girls and boys start to be affected by when they grow-up; the Greeks called it eros, and it is also called "romance." Now in today's world people are always rabitting on about "falling in love," and all they mean is a romantic attraction. Romance doesn't last and soon passes away, and if that is all that two people have to base their relationship on, they are in trouble. Jack was determined that the right way to form a relationship was to start with agape, wait a while to see if philia develops, then wait some more to find out if storge is becoming a part of what is happening, and then finally to wait for eros to show up. If all of these things happened, Jack would have considered that he was "in love."
Of course, Lewis did find this love, with Gresham's mother. It's a very sweet and sad story. Two books that chronicle this are: A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis (which is on my reading list), and one of the books I'm reading now, which was a surprise Christmas present from my roommate Anne, A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken.
So, when I say that I Kissed Dating Goodbye, I really mean it. Sayonara, thanks but no thanks. (what do ya say, I've blogged about that one, too, "Play on Playa/Why I Kissed Dating Goodbye"). I've had enough flattery in my short life to know it for what it truly is - superficial and temporal. My heart is ready, and is being ever readied for much much more.
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