I'm Glad You're Back

I had a "come to Jesus" meeting this morning. I don't mean I went to church, sang some songs, heard a sermon, prayed, and then went home. I mean I had a true, convicting meeting with God while sitting in my bedroom, drinking my morning coffee.

The past few weeks have been very eventful for me. I survived my first week of teaching and have had so many others things going on that I've been devoting little to no time to God. It's funny how you can only get by that way for so long before He grabs hold of you and gives you a stern talking to.

After looking through the concordance in the back of my Bible, I went to several verses that pertained to my attitude about life lately. Most of the verses told about how Christians should act, and I was ashamed when I realized that they didn't describe me.

However, the verse that really convicted me was Galations 5:22:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control..."

My life has not been fruitful as of late. This is something I knew, but I kept pushing the conviction away as if that would make it better. I'm sure you all know how that went...It brought me to this place today.

The Lord finally got through to me, and He lead me to write out the following prayer:

Lord, fill me with your Spirit. Let the fruits of Him consume me. 

Let me love those around me purely and sincerely. Make me think about their needs and not just my own. 

Help me to be joyful when others give their lives to You. There isn't anything more important in this world than for the lost to be saved.

When things happen around me that I don't understand, fill me with peace and understanding. You're the Author of my life; You know why certain events must happen, even if I don't. 

Patience. Lord, You know how much of this I need! Destroy "Sarah's Time" and build a "God's Time" clock within my heart.

Lord, help me to be good to those around me. Don't let me tear others down and make them feel bad for serving You and not me. Let my chief concern be for others and not my own selfish "needs" and desires.

It's easy to reamin faithful to You when life is easy, but when times get difficult, I close up and withdraw. I get bitter and frustrated. Allow me to remain close to You in both good and bad times because I've already discovered that life is full of both, and there's no way I'll be able to make it through without You.

Let me be gentle with my words. Psalm 141:3 says, "Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips." Keep that door locked up tight unless I'm going to build others up.

Help me with self-control. Allow me to look at the big picture and not solely focus on what I think I need now. 

Whenever these epiphanies happen, when I remember how much better life is beside God rather than away from Him, I want to hang my head in shame. However, I'm so thankful that the Lord doesn't say, "What took you so long?" but rather, "I'm glad you're back."

I hope everyone has a blessed day!