I could probably write a REALLY long entry tonight, but I'm going to try to keep it fairly concise if I can. The sermon I watched today was another really good one. "Jesus Is More Than Enough Part 2." What stood out the most to me was when he said that Jesus isn't after getting us to do all these things and fulfill commandments. He's after our hearts. Because if he can get our hearts, we'll WANT to do the things he's commanded. For example, don't steal. If someone's heart had been totally won over and they were absolutely devoted to Christ, are they going to take something from somebody else? No. So love fulfills the law. On the other hand, if someone could do every action required by the laws of God, they could still lack love. And there's a phenomenal difference between someone who's driven by love and someone who's doing all the right things but whose actions are empty.
The reason this one part stood out to me so much was because it made SO MUCH SENSE to me as a horse trainer. The difference between natural horsemanship (which is all about gaining the horse's heart first, and then using that bond as a basis for all other training) and other schooling or training methods is huge. You can teach a horse to do all the right actions, but you can see such a huge difference in the horse that has a genuine bond with the trainer. Everything is... just fuller. That's what Jesus wants in us. Not empty actions. Heart.
I didn't actually get to the end of the sermon. The computer was having trouble downloading the whole thing for some reason. But I'm glad I got that part.
As far as how my day went, I haven't felt particularly lonely today, but I have felt unfocused and kind of shallow. I prayed a couple of times today, and that really helped me organize my thoughts a little. Also, it helped me come to an interesting conclusion about my "shallowness." I don't remember ever being deeply impacted by anything growing up. Every time I read about someone who remembers something from when they were like four, and they tell you exactly what they felt at that time and how it influenced them, I think... is something wrong with me? I just feel like my whole life things have only kind of scratched the surface. Stuff doesn't affect me a whole lot. Internal stuff does, but not external. I want to have a crazy passionate love for God, but I don't think I have the capacity for crazy passionate love. And that's something I'm gonna have to let him work on in me. Because here's the conclusion I came to. I don't feel "shallow" because I'm actually shallow. If I were a glass, I don't think I'd be a super shallow glass. It's just that something can only go so far into it because the bottom of the glass is full of all kinds of junk that gets in the way. If you tried to stick your hand in and touch the bottom, you wouldn't even get close. When I say junk, I'm thinking of all the stuff that I've been trained. All the actions that I learned that were empty and un-motivated. All the proper responses. All the time I spent doing activities and playing games and feeling like nothing really meant anything.
When a horse has been overly "trained" and seems to have no heart left and all kinds of emotional problems and fear reactions and stuff, before they can start doing any natural horsemanship training, they have to give the horse a long period of re-naturalization time. Time for it to just learn to be a horse. To be free. To be itself, not just what it was taught to be. I think that's what I need right now. I think that's what God wanted me to understand today. I need to somehow simplify my life enough that I can really slow down and just learn how to be me. I'm so distracted trying to get things done that I really can't focus very well on that right now. So I need to try and get organized, 'cause I need to figure out who I am, particularly in light of who God is. I need to let God get all the junk out so that I can become deeper and have the capacity to love and worship and serve like he wants me to.
So. That was kind of long, and that's not even everything that's going through my mind right now, but it's pretty good, I think, so I'll sign off. Plus Wes just got home. :) Gotta go spend some time with the hubby.
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