Awake My Soul

Dear Reader,

What I originally thought I was going to write about got completely turned around. Am I surprised?
No.
While I sit here writing this to you, my heart feels like its heavily beating...rapidly. Words would fail to describe the feeling, so I hope that suffices for an explanation.

As I said in my last entry, this week is Fall Break. One week out of school, with a dear friend, and my mind slowing down from the hustle and bustle of schoolwork, has allowed God to take Himself and open a huge door within my heart. With this door opening, there has been an immense rattling around of what feels like every paramount passion and desire I've ever had in my life. Some of these desires I've shoved under the rug and forgotten about...but not now. God has taken that rug and ever so intently lifted it off of the ground which all of those desires laid and then proceeded in reminding me they were there.

Think of whenever you walk into an attic, or a room, that has been unattended to for some time, and upon entering you start coughing. There dust has been collecting there for so long
because the room has been unkempt;
it has been ignored
so of course you aren't used to breathing in all of the dust.
Thus has happened this week with those same desires. At first, I'd say to God, "What are You trying to pull here? I haven't thought about this in who knows how long. Why now? Why ever for that matter?" I was in my "coughing" fit. I wasn't used to these things being in my face so suddenly.

Then just as quickly as those things were put in my face, was when they began to settle into my heart. That dusty neglected room started being cleaned, and instead of feeling as though I were breathing in dust, I was breathing in air that brought...life...and it felt like all this time I truly hadn't been awake.

Now I am.

So what does a dusty room, desires, and God have to do with anything? A whole lot actually. I realized that in many areas of my life I put limits on God. I left unattended the rooms in my heart that I thought were not important and wouldn't play an influential role in my life. Once I got comfortable in the room I created for myself, where I was used to the desires and dreams I had placed there, and got comfortable, it's safe to say that I started falling asleep. This is not a place where you want to be: sleeping, while there is that place that God wants to awaken. I say this encouragement to you, dear reader, that this awakening does not mean changes will happen overnight. It does not mean that the things God starts to "dust off" won't look like they belong in that room within your heart in the first place.

It does mean, that a surrender beings to take place that is world-changing, life-altering, and Heaven-shaking.

"Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies."-Psalm 57:8-10

Awaken, dear brothers and sisters :)

Blessings,

JB