There has been a lot of activity in the old grey matter
this week, but, alas, not the opportunity to actually get
to the computer to commit the activity into written words
that can be saved for my posterity for all time. There have
been computer issues, internet issues, and time issues at hand,
but, while everyone is out and about, I am choosing to ignore
the clothes to be folded and the dishes to be washed and I am
going to get these thoughts written before they vanish into the
great big basin in the sky that is filled with poor, soppy, never fully
developed thoughts.

The really interesting part of my not getting to actually commit
my thoughts to blogdom is that wherever I have turned this
week in my reading I have come across others going in the same
direction, though perhaps not down the exact same path. For
instance BooMama has this post, and Camponthis has this post.

I know that God created us to be emotional creatures. I love the
Psalms and all the depth of feeling that is expressed there. God
certainly loves it when we feel love and awe for Him. But that is
not the only response He is looking for, and I am not sure it is even
the highest one He is looking for.

Sometimes we try so hard to squeeze out those emotions. Friday
night at camp when they say the line, "We'll never all be here
like this again," listening to a soul moving song at a concert by
one of our favorite artists, at Sunday morning worship when
the worship team orchestrates the music so perfectly, or on a
mission trip during group devotions--these are all so charged
and it is easy to feel that these are the ultimate places in our
relationship with God.

But really, I have had emotional experiences eating an Oreo cookie.
I've had good cries over long-distance commercials. I stayed home
Friday night by myself, the first time in ages, and read for an hour and
a half and cried the whole time. Wow. It was very emotionally
moving. Is it the crying and the feeling that make one spiritual?

No, it isn't.

I Samuel 15:22
So Samuel said:
"Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to
heed than the fat of rams."

Old Testament worship was built around the sacrifices, but God,
even then, wanted something more.

Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

How do we please God? How do we obey? What will tickle Him?

The New Testament makes it so clear. My own comments are
interspersed throughout the following Scripture.

II Peter 1:5-9
But also for this very reason, giving all diligence
(sounds like work to me),
add to your faith virtue (right action
and thinking),
to virtue knowledge (now that is very hard work),
to knowledge self-control (wow, what a kicker,
self-control in what areas? Emotions, thoughts,
words etc.), to self-control perseverance (when do
I just get to, you know, feel things?), to perseverance
godliness (that is just really going too far!), to
godliness brotherly kindness (I can't stand much
more), and to brotherly kindness love. For if
these
things are yours and abound, you will be neither
barren, nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things
is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten
that he was cleansed from his old sins.

The Oreo cookie experience, the long-distance commercial and
the crying over my book did not change the way I acted the next
day. They had no jurisdiction over my temper, my honoring and
loving of my husband, my kindness and wisdom in teaching my
children, my telling my neighbors of my hope in Christ, the way
I treat my mom and dad, the way I resond to those in authority
over me etc. ad naseam. I wonder if the emotional experience
at camp, or for that matter in church last week, left any lasting
impressions in my life. I am not in this for me. I want to be
God's woman and that is an everyday, day in and day out,
journey. I am not my most spiritual when I am emoting. I am
my most spiritual when I am obeying.

And here is the wonder of all wonders. When I line up with God,
when I understand more fully who He is and how He works, oh the
amazement of it, the delight and joy spring up and they flow deep
and they don't leave when the music turns off, but they become
more and more a part of the everydayness of life.