Quit Studying Me
Baby Girl,
Quit studying Me. You know Me. You know My heart towards you, My character, and My expectations of you. I want you to relax and enjoy your relationship with Me.
You just finished responding to a text message from your friend who was concerned about missing the formality of telling you goodbye after church last night and thanking you for letting her sit with you. She was concerned that she had been rude or ill-mannered. Tell Me what you thought as you began to respond to her.
She has quickly become one of my best friends and I felt a little sad that she isn't relaxed enough in our relationship to understand that those sorts of formalities aren't super important anymore. I know her, I know her character, and I know that she is thankful for our friendship and is thankful to sit with me at church.
I'm laughing because I see what You just did there...
Anyways, I was thinking that if not saying a proper goodbye to my friends before I left made me rude or ill-mannered, then I'm probably almost always being rude or ill-mannered to all of my friends. I'm very casual and relaxed with my friends because they know I know and love them, I know they know and love me, and it is always assumed that has not changed, no matter how much time or space there is between us.
When this friend and I first became friends and I didn't know her mannerisms or her thoughts towards me yet, I would not have known that she enjoyed sitting with me if she had not repeatedly thanked me for sitting with her and told me she enjoyed it.
Many people come and go in our lives. Sometimes people sit with you until they become comfortable in their new environment, and then they slowly pull away, find new friends and you become more of casual acquaintance types of friends. When this happens, it's natural for me and not at all concerning.
I have a lot of friends, and I am just as excited to greet the ones I have more casual relationships with as the ones I have deeper connections with. For me, it is really important that I am very clear and vocal about my depth of affection for friends I feel closer to because by outer appearances, it seems I value everyone the same. It is important to me that those I feel closer to are VERY clear that I feel that way.
Why?
I care about a LOT of people. I love them. On some level, I really truly love them all. That word “love” can be tricky, can't it. I love Jets pizza because it is delicious, not because it is good for me. I love Kiefer because it is good for my gut health. I love running because of how I feel later, not because it's enjoyable in the moment. I love some people because they make my life richer and more meaningful. I love others because Your LOVE in me wells up for them with compassion.
I first loved this friend with compassion. She was timid and I knew that I needed to be gentle and careful with her heart. I gave her a panic attack within weeks of knowing her because I approached her casually and thoughtlessly in a social setting. She didn't know me or my heart enough to trust me and I didn't know her well enough to know that I was putting her in a very anxious and vulnerable feeling position.
Over time as I have learned her story, heard her heart and come to understand how she shows up in the world, what was once a curiosity about a new person and a compassion for her difficulties in processing life has become a deep almost maternal love for her and desire for her well-being, but with that maternal love there is also an absolute enjoyment of how she thinks about people, life, and God. Being her friend truly has changed and continues to change how I am as a person. I believe being her friend is making me a better person day by day.
Spending time talking to her I am learning the difference between being a nice person and being a kind person. I've always been a nice person. Nice people aren't always honest. They are more concerned with being liked than being transparent. Kind people aren't rude, but they are direct and honest knowing that even if there is an uncomfortable situation due to that honesty, it is always done in love.
She is incredibly humble, always willing to learn and desires correction so she can do better. She is very intentional about forgiveness in a way most of the world is incapable of being. She speaks with the LOVE of God, Your LOVE, so naturally that as she is learning who You are, everything about the Bible just makes sense to her.
She expends a LOT of time and energy trying to make sure she understands. She doesn't make assumptions about things and move forward with faulty understanding. She is witty, funny, and looks at life through a lens that often makes me smile.
Baby, that's how I feel when I spend time with you.
I DELIGHT in spending time with you. Sometimes I think you are delighting in spending time with Me and then, all of the sudden, I turn around and you're studying Me again.
When you start to study Me again, I wonder what we're missing that you feel the need to analyze a book about Me.
It is My Word and it is so important that you read it, re-read it, meditate on it, and spend so much time with it that it becomes the thoughts you think; but when you get caught up in STUDYING Me, you lose the joy in fellowship. I become a task. Spending time with Me becomes something you "should do" rather than something you delight in doing.
The moment a friend becomes someone you "should" spend time with is the moment that friend becomes a weight in your life. You see them coming and hope they won't notice you today because you really don't want to talk, but you don't want to be rude. Sometimes I feel like I have become that friend to you... the one you know you "should" spend a little time with. When you feel that way, it's because you've turned fellowshipping with Me into figuring Me out.
Stop worrying about "teaching" My Word. That calling on your life is causing you to miss the incredible opportunity you have to know Me intimately.
WHO CARES if you can tell anyone else what a certain passage means?
Remember what I said about ministry? You're not going to stand out on the street corner shouting, "I know where you can find some water!" Pull up a chair, sit with Me and your glass of water, and invite whoever is walking by to sit down and have a glass, too.
Burn your Bible study notes. Don't put them in the computer and save them for future reference. When you read your Bible, sit down on the couch, curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and read it like a mystery novel where you can't wait to read what comes next! When you discover something new, you don't always need to write it down. Close your eyes and meditate on the thought. It's going in the well. When you need it, it will float up.
When you are delighting in My Word, it's like discovering a wonderful movie. You want to tell everyone about it and encourage them to go out and watch the movie, too.
You're not going to catch fish by telling them about the sport of fishing. You're going to catch fish because you're hanging out in the net, eating the bait and LOVING the Fisherman.
That's a terrible analogy! All the fish in the net are just going to die when the fisherman pulls them into the boat!
Not these fish, Little One. When these fish die... they get a new and better life in the boat.
Eat that bait. You're not luring people into a death trap, you're welcoming them into a better life.
Back to bed.
LOVE you,
Daddy
Psalm 37:4