Looking Back

As I'm feeling a bit on the tired side tonight, I decided to do a little bit of not very much. One thing led to another, and I soon found myself reading old (OLD) blog posts...like from the first few months that I did this blog.

It was quite a trip down memory lane, and I find that this blog is serving the purpose I was hoping it would serve by giving me a place to look back and see what I had documented - what I was walking through and studying and learning and thinking about. Very cool to see some things that have come full-circle in the past 10 months. Very funny to recall things I had forgotten I had gone through. Awesome to see how God has worked - how He has brought me through some really tough spots and taught me how to get close to Him. It's cool to see where I was at the start of some of the journeys, and where I am now (probably somewhere in the middle).

I think what's the most incredible to me, though, is that it's evidence in my own life of the truth of God's word. His word promises to continually change and transform us more and more into His likeness. He promises that we will learn and grow from glory to glory. That we will advance line upon line...one step at a time, building on what we've already learned. When I really take time to examine some of the areas of my life that He has transformed, I'm floored. I know I still have a long way to go, but I never imagined such change was possible in so little time.

He promises that if we will seek Him, He will reveal Himself to us. If we believe in Him, cling to Him, rely on Him, trust in Him, He will make Himself known to us. If we seek Him first, everything else will fall into place. As I was looking back through my last 10 months of posts, I can remember some of those crazy difficult struggles - times of total confusion and darkness and doubt. And it's so cool to me to know where I am now in comparison to only 9 or 10 months ago. At times then I struggled with some pretty heavy doubts and questions. Because I chose to seek God and do what He asked of me, even though it made no sense to me whatsoever at the time, and I often did it out of sheer determination rather than a real desire, He not only cleared the doubts and answered the questions, but He replaced those doubts with an absolute assurance of all I had once doubted. Too sweet!

Lots of lessons I've learned in the past almost-year. Lots of struggles and trials and moments of failure. Lots of repentance and prayer and LOTS of depending on God to get me through things that were far bigger than me. There have been times that God has totally brought me to my knees so that He could then lift me up higher. But my favorite thing about the last several months is that He has taught me how to BE with Him. How to just sit in His presence and know Him and seek Him and worship and wait on Him. Back in March I determined that it was my purpose to know Him more. I have. And it continues to be my purpose. I hope that next year I will look back and see how much farther I have come. To know Him more will always be my purpose until He calls me away from this life, because I will never know Him fully until I can look full-on into His face.

God is awesome.