Does this ever happen to you - you're reading something, but your mind isn't even there? Then you get to the end of the page or paragraph or whatever completely clueless about what you've just supposedly read. So you have to go back and read it all over again. This happens to me a lot lately. In fact, it happens so much that this used-to-read-at-least-2-books-per-month gal hasn't gotten through even one book this year. I haven't found anything to capture and hold my attention. I've reverted to my health and nutrition books, but even those can't keep me for long.
But back to what I was saying - so I was trying to read last tonight, and nothing is making sense. I'm going from sentence to sentence just getting through the page. Then one phrase catches my eye so much that I actually make sense of the entire thing. "...knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty."
It was talking about the whole seek, knock thing. I was seeking tonight. I wasn't searching inwardly or doing self-evaluation or anything like that. I was looking for something totally different. Something inspiring maybe. Something encouraging. I mean that stuff is everywhere, but it was this 'cleanse your hands' part that made me stop.
And then it came - "Oh my goodness..." I said it out loud and didn't finish my thought because I was busted. To make a painfully long 15 minutes short, I literally was taken from one verse to another about clean hands, pure heart...intentions, all that.
Seeking God means knocking at His door. Psalm 24:3 asks who may knock and have the door opened. Verse 24 says, "HE WHO HAS CLEAN HANDS AND A PURE HEART..." It's not talking about perfection. None of us would be able to come. It's not about getting our act together before we come. No, otherwise there would be no need for Jesus. No, I think it's talking about integrity, motives, character.
You know how we do this thing that we call 'venting?' I do it, and I allow others to vent their frustrations with me. I mean, we can't keep them bottled up; we'll go psycho, right? I've been in positions where venting was a natural part of what I had to listen to, and I was fine with that because I had this policy. If you wanted to vent, fine, but that's where it ended. As long as that was the end of it, and I didn't hear about it anymore or it didn't go anywhere else, that was fine. It had to end there, and sometimes it meant action - like confrontation, etc. When it comes to listening, I can pretty much deal with it and stay neutral.
The thing is that it doesn't always end there. Can I just get real here? In the name of venting, I realize that I recently almost took it too far. In fact, from what I was reading tonight, God might call it slander. Thus the "Oh my goodness!" *sigh* I know, I know, I can be such the drama queen sometimes, and no, I'm not telling lies about people, nor am I outright calling someone names. BUT the way I made someone appear to someone else that doesn't even know, was no better. It was wrong of me, and I have to make it right. Ugh. That's the yuckiest, most humbling part.
My friends, I'm not telling you this because I want you to think that I'm blessed with humility or have even a false sense of humility. If anything, it's the opposite. The thing is that I've learned and grown in the past from the honesty of others when they've made mistakes. The other day I was talking with a friend who challenged me to be completely real when I write, when I blog, when in conversation, when everything with everyone. She challenged me to be completely vulnerable when I was really weak and allow the world to see that we all have very real, doubtful, crazy moments. It's definitely hard for me to show weakness because I'm supposed to not be the weak one. Says who? *shrug* I don't know.
I do know that I want to 'find.' In order to find, I have to seek and knock. Knocking doesn't always bring about what we think we're looking for, but what our eyes are opened to in the process is always what we need. And that's when we find what we're truly looking for - or WHO we're looking for.
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