A Borrowed Life and yet another Recurring Theme

As I've experienced many times... God likes to make themes of events and sermons and such. However - this weeks theme was Living a life on loan. or Live like its your last day (sort of)
There are cookie dough prints all over my keyboard right now - I was using it for baking recipes last night.
off track =) Anyhow... I'm sure I've already touched on this several times, but I guess that just means it is important. So often I find myself wasting time. Whether it be on the internet downloading, lounging around, contemplating studying, or just plain stalling. So many moments are wasted doing our own thing. I speak for myself on this more because that is what I have been doing lately. I wait for God to speak, move, do something spectacular, or something because my life feels empty. I am irritable, quick to judge, tired, and not on my game.

I am quick to try and convince myself that tomorrow I will try harder, tomorrow I will start doing the right thing. I want today to myself. Just one more day for myself. The sermon hit home.... because I know what I have to do and yet I honestly try and avoid it at all cost. God is waiting for me right now. Our lives are borrowed time and a gift from God. There are opportunities to serve God everyday. He is with us every step of the way and yet I am the first to exclude him from so many things. Things would be so different if I tried to walk every moment, not just when there is time. It is actually quite selfish to waste time - the more I think about it. If we claim to be christian then time is precious and we should be seeking for Gods best in every single moment.

- kind of a brief unedited version - =) I had to write it or I would forget

The Lament of a Believer in Exile

Ah, Jesus!

Where have you gone?

When did we lose you?
Was it when we became so certain that we possessed you
That we persecuted Jews,
Excommunicated doubters,
Burned Heretics,
And used violence and war to achieve conversion?
Was it when our first-century images
Collided with expanding knowledge?
Or when biblical scholars informed us that the Bible does
Not really support what we once believed?
Was it when we watched your followers distorting people
With guilt,
Fear,
Bigotry,
Intolerance,
And anger?
Was it when we noticed that many who called you Lord
And who read their Bibles regularly
Also practiced slavery,
Defended segregation,
Approved lynching,
Abused children,
Diminished women,
And hated homosexuals?
Was it when we finally realized
That the Jesus who promised abundant life
Could not be the source of self-hatred,
Or one who encourages us to grovel
In life-destroying penitence?
Was it when it dawned on us that serving you would require
The surrender of those security-building prejudices
That masquerade as our sweet sicknesses?
We still yearn for you, Jesus, but we no longer know where
To seek your presence.
Do we look for you in those churches that practice certainty?
Or are you hiding in those churches
That so fear controversy that they make "unity" a god,
And stand for so little that they die of boredom?
Can you ever be found in those churches that have
Rejected the powerless and the marginalized,
The lepers and the Samaritans of our day,
Those you called out brothers and sisters?
Or must we now look for you outside ecclesiastical setting,
Where love and kindness expect no reward,
Where questions are viewed as the deepest
Expressions of trust?
Is it even possible, Jesus, that we Christians are the villains Who killed you?
Smothering you underneath literal Bibles,
Dated creeds,
Irrelevant doctrines,
And dying structures?
If these things are the source of your disappearance, Jesus, Will you then reemerge if these things are removed?
Will that bring resurrection?
Or were you, as some now suggest, never more
Than an illusion?
By burying and distorting you were we
Simply protecting ourselves
From having to face that realization?
I still seek to possess what I believe you are, Jesus:
Access to and embodiment of
The source of Love,
The ground of Being,
A doorway into the mystery of holiness.
It is through that doorway I desire to walk.
Will you meet me there?
Will you challenge me,
Guide me,
Confront me,
Reveal your truth to me and in me?
Finally, at the end of this journey, Jesus,
Will you embrace me
Inside the ultimate reality
That I call God
In whom I live
And move
And having my being?

Read with Care....

Its funny how stubborn I become sometimes. I have nothing to write about and I wonder why this is... but when I think about it I already know the answer. I love to write about you. God. I easily and quickly become so caught up in things, busy with life, with things, thoughts, dreams, worries and forget that you are right there along with me doing those things with me and sometimes even for me. I let people, circumstances, events, things get in the way. I keep adding to my schedule and everytime I do I squeeze a little bit of you out. and now, here I am - back in the same place where I started last time. Wondering where you are - when in actual fact you are probably asking the same thing. I have forgotten how beautiful life is. The roses have not been smelt for a long time. I am kind of in a suspended mode right now. and i know that when you are not moving forward then you are not growing at all and with God we need to always be growing. This I have not been doing. I find it so easy to fall into a routine and forget the heart of the matter. I hate being considered a person of routine - yet so easily I fall in to that category. I go to church and see my friends and sing my favourite songs - I can even do harmony to most of them and i know the bible. sort of. and then you are forgotten. Even amongst all these 'godly' activities. I have forgotten how to love you and to love others as you loved them first. You are so beautiful - let us not forget. Show me your beauty new everyday.