...robbing them of life.

Our pastor just delivered an amazingly inspirational sermon about new beginnings. Before I went to church I read the daily readings, and was most touched today by Proverbs 1:19. As it discusses the trap that people fall into by being "greedy for gain," the author reminds us that such behavior is a trap that ends up robbing us of life.

I've prayed for something that will bring me closer to God. I started this journal/blog as my mitzvot to achieve that end. In the past two years, I have struggled under the weight of a crushing financial debt that I am starting to overcome, and I have seen how it has robbed me of my life. But any greed for gain will do as much. Any desire to feel "safe" in a way that appeals to our own selfish center will do the same. I know this empirically, because I have lived it, and I see how it has robbed me of a life I could have lead otherwise. In the setting of new beginnings, I am encouraged to begin to do things differently. I see the admonishment not to live as "greedy for gain" but to live in a way where I ask God to let me know what I can do for Him instead.

Part of the cerebral intercourse of the assessment of biblical validity, relative to post-modern deconstructionism, legalism, and emotionalism is what spurs me to write. But at the end of the day, what does it do for God, and what will I do for God in this?

There is something about which I have prayed over and over, and I have always been given the same response. But it is not the response I want to hear, so I have ignored it. The response I was given made me feel unsafe, unsure, and like I would lose everything if I did what He informed me to do. So, greedy for gain, I have ignored it, and tried to keep myself "safe" in my own selfish terms. And in so doing, the pain from getting what I want has spurred me to read about some of my issues and learn why I do what I do. But it is not "life." My greed for my selfish gain has robbed me of a life that God has chosen for me.

I don't know that putting things in such personal terms goes with the intellectual walls I had been building with my initial thoughts, but maybe it is time for a new beginning, after all. God has a life in store for me. It is not the life I would choose, but the life I will follow when and where He tells me to go. What can I do for Him?