honey, i'm home

click on this link to read the lyrics to colbie caillat's new song, "i never told you."

http://www.directlyrics.com/colbie-caillat-i-never-told-you-lyrics.html

those words make my chest ache.

this post will be kind of quick. it's already 4:00, and i've got a good bit i need to finish up before i call it a day. while on the subject of work, let me just say that i totally believe in the four-day-work-week. i mean come on, people. this is the way to do it. i would even go so far as to say that the work week should only consist of tuesday through thursday, but i'm not naive enough to think that'll ever catch on.

i think i've already mentioned that i've been doing a character study on abram in genesis. last night i was reading in genesis 13, and the lord really spoke to my heart. i was having one of those days where i had kind of relapsed a little into my "funk," as i have begun affectionately referring to the state of mind i've been in the past two weeks. i desperately needed some encouragement. in genesis 13, abram and lot have traveled to a new land. they were both abundantly wealthy - both in money and possessions - and tension had started to build among abram's servants and lot's servants. abram (displaying his character) went to lot and told him that he didn't want the tension to harm their relationship. abram told lot to look at the land around them, and to take his pick of it. lot chose what he thought was the best land. after leaving his home, not knowing where he was going or how he'd get there, abram is seemingly cheated out of some great land. this is what i read next:

"and the lord said to abram, after lot had separated from him: “lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see i give to you and your descendants forever. and i will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for i give it to you" (genesis 13:14).

after all that wandering, all the journeying, all the unknowns and fears, and losing what might have seemed to be the most promising land, father god gently tells abram to lift up his eyes and look around. i love that image of abrams obedience. he was so focused on listening to god, doing the right thing, following god's heart, that when he finally arrived to the place the lord had been leading him to, god had to say, "hey, abram, go ahead and look up now - you're here." ah! i want to be like that! i want to be so focused (heart and mind) on my faithful savior that when i arrive to each new destination he has to say, "hey ashley, we're here. you can open your eyes now."

the other thing that brought tears to my eyes is that god didn't say, "okay abram, here's your land. wait, no, not all of what you see, just that little patch over there in the corner. see that? squint really hard. yeah, that's it over there." no! he said, "it's all your's - every bit of it. i'm giving it to you forever, and i want you to enjoy it." god was giving abram all the fullness of himself and of his blessings and of his promises. he wasn't holding out anything. abram waited for what the lord had, and when it was revealed, it exceeded what abram had even imagined. what joy there is in knowing and believing and hoping in the truth that our god does not withhold any good thing from us (psalm 84:11)! hallelujah!

that's what i want. i don't want to settle - to choose - to desire anything less than god's fullness. so often i am too easily satisfied by less. less than what god wants to give me. less than what i deserve. less joy - less peace - less hope. i want more. i want all of him and all of his blessings and all of his promises. i want to choose to wait, to focus, and to hope in the promise that every destination is revealed at the perfect time.