Transitions

So it has been a few days since returning from Getaway and there are some things on my mind and heart in the way of transitions.

Most obvious to me is my feelings of loneliness.  Whenever I return from a trip that involves being around people almost all day, whether it be a week or 7, I almost always feel lonely.  I miss people and the intimacy that I usually experience every day on trips like that.

At Getaway I had places to go every day and people to love and disciple - I had purpose.  Coming back home seems like such a stark contrast to that and I am struggling with feelings of purposelessness.  Without many interactions with people I feel like I do not have much purpose to my days.

Overall, I think I am struggling with the basic fact that I am trying to fit a changed person into a home, an environment, a world that is not changed.  While at Getaway, I had experiences that do not fit into my "normal" life back in the "real world".  I am changed, yet the world I have come back to is no different than when I left and I struggle to be the different I have become.  It is very tempting to just return to the person I was and the ways I went prior to Getaway.

...

As someone so recently and so clearly noticed about me, I am a doer.  I struggle with resting.  It seems a theme that has been spoken into my life by two godly women the past two days.

As I read my thoughts and struggles above I wonder if my heart is even in the right place, for if I were finding all my satisfaction and worth in my relationship with and identity in Jesus, then would I not be okay?  There are such fine lines between love and idolatry that I feel like I am walking.  I pray that I do not focus on God for his benefit in ministry, for that would make ministry an idol.  I pray that I do not focus on God and his character for the benefit of knowledge, for that would make knowledge an idol.  I pray I do not focus on actions for or with God, for that would make work an idol.  Can I be satisfied with just him?  I pray that I can come to a place when and where I seek God just for him.

I am beginning to see that maybe my challenge for now is to rest - to rest in the presence of my Lord, to rest in the truth that he supplies EVERYTHING I need - that he is my company and provides the intimacy for which I long, and that so long as I am in union with him, I will remain the changed person he is working in me to be, despite in what environment I am.

I guess I am feeling the tension between my renewed spirit and my sin-stained heart and mind.

Romans 7:22–23 (ESV)

22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Galatians 5:17 (ESV)
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

But praise God for Romans 8:1-11 and Galatians 5:18!  What a wonderful God that loves me!