the experience of being caught off guard for a good reason

This week, even in its relative infancy, has been incredibly constructive and it brought me back to the blog even as I was considering whether or not blogging had any future for me. Too much pride in me, too much conceit, but is there anything to offer? I think the best thing I have to offer this morning is a thought from Leighton Ford from his book The Attentive Life that simply floored me today."When I find myself as a being before God, as a physical being in a world irradiated by light, as a moving creature, urged on but able to say 'Whoa', I am not ruled by urges, as a temporal being living in the I Am Eternal One, reminded by the clock to live here, now, I can be content with whatever I have. When I am still, compulsion (the busyness that Hilaryof Tours called ' a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him') gives way to compunction (being pricked or punctured). That is, God can break through the many layers with which I protect myself, so that I can hear his Word and be poised to listen." (137-138)

This week has found me peeling back layers of my own pride, protectiveness, noise, self-promotion and desire to talk and be heard and simply to find the core of who I am in Christ. I hope to want nothing more than that in every avenue of life, but that will take some time. It is a difficult thing to chip away layers that have been laid over the past 30 years, and I don't propose one author's words or one time of meditation and prayer will be enough to do so.

That is why it is called "discipleship" or "spiritual formation" and not "spiritual completion". The state of movement matters o so much more than the final destination. 

That felt a bit heavy. But it is, but it is also very very good. I hope it makes sense.