Spending Time Away From the Word: Disastrous

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man reamins in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you ramin in me and my words remain in you, ask wahtever you wish and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Fahter's glorid, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (NIV)~John 15:5-8

The past three and a half days have been a complete blur of activity. This is not in a good way. It has been so hectic that I am not three days behind on my 21-day consecration. How sad is that? I mean really. 21 minutes of quiet time so that I can pray and focus on God has been so hard to come by. That basically means that for the last few days my priorities have been way screwed up. I feel it too. I feel it in the way I react to certain situations. I have no patience and I get frustrated so easily.

Last night, I was in a state of utter frustration and annoyance when I actually had absolutely no reason to be. I was rushing and put all this pressure on myself for not reason at all. I have so much to do this week that I left work early in order to get some grocery shopping done because I could not manage to get it in during the weekend. My husband wanted me to pause for a few minutes and get a pedicure. I about flipped out. I did not want to and gave him a hard time about it. Finally, I agreed and actually enjoyed the time … until, I was getting ready to leave.

I looked down at my watch and notice how late it was. You could have pour water over me to get steam. I still had to put gas in the car and go to another store and get home to feed the kids and blah blah blah. Instead of being grateful, I was cussing and annoyed. Then when I went to the store, I saw two acquaintances riding around in these beautiful luxury vehicles. A bout of envy and ungratefulness hit me so hard that I had to stop cold.

I don’t even know what got into me. For a few moments, I forgot about all the good stuff I have in my life and focuses on the material things of another. What was that about coveting? I walked to my little “raggedy” car and sat there for a few minutes asking God to deliver me and get these negative feelings away from me. They were just ugly.

That was only last night. I can’t even go into what was going on in my head while I was in church. I could not even bring myself to partake in communion.

Seriously, I feel like I am going through Word withdrawal. Everything good and peaceful and joyful that I was feeling when I was reading seem to be somewhere far far away from me. I am, by no means, oblivious to all the good things in my life, I just seem to be walking around blindfolded for a moment, unable to focus on them and appreciate them.

There is comfort though, knowing that all I have to do is decide to put God first and He will be there.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever ... it is good to be near God. (NIV) ~Psalms 73:26,28

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