This past week has been a week of peeling back more layers of my soul and connecting the dots. God revealed beliefs that I have had which have keep me from being as close with God and others as I could be. I continue to be in awe of how much God speaks to me while I am out in his amazing creation. The revelations and connecting of the dots happened while hiking and out camping in areas of stillness. It is like my soul is more in tune to God when I am taking in the beauty that He has created.
In God's perfect timing he connected the dots of things he has been revealing these last four weeks through His Word and different things I have been reading. One example is from a devotion one morning that started to connect the things I have been learning about myself with a common thread.
" ... Sometimes when you are gripped tightly in the hold of depression, you begin to believe lies that your mind conjures up. You isolate and distance yourself from anything that can bring you some semblance of joy because you believe that you do not deserve to be happy."
Wow! Those words in bold hit pretty deep. It is this common thread that has, in many ways, driven me to strive for perfection, trusting not in God, but in my own abilities, my best, my plans. God continued reaching deep into my soul with words from Isaiah 55:9: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
It seems God's plan for my sabbatical has been to first reveal beliefs I have held for many, many years. Beliefs that are not true. He has already started to deconstruct these beliefs and I know after that will come replacing the old beliefs with new ones. New beliefs that will bring me closer to Him and others. New beliefs that will help me to live in the present with God and others.
I'm grateful for my God, my Father, my Abba, who has shown up in so many more ways than I could have imagined.
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