I have always been an Old
Testament girl.
So many Christians have a hard
time reconciling the God of the New Testament with the God of the Old
Testament, but God is God is God, and He always will be. The compassionate love
that caused Him to die on the cross is plainly evident in the OT, and the wrath
He will unleash on those who oppose Him is often remembered in the NT.
Personally, I have a tendency
to spend more time in the OT than in the NT. Most of that time is spent in
Psalms, which has really been aided by my Psalms class this past quarter, but
there are far more places in the Bible that impact me than just Psalms. For
example…
Have you ever
had a scripture be your heart’s cry?
I could tell you three
scriptures that have defined my last two seasons, and my current season. A couple
of years ago, it was Peter’s words in John 6:68 – “Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.” No matter what I went through, that was my
heart’s cry; no matter how hard, no matter how painful, no matter how long
since I had last felt His presence, there was nowhere else to go, and I would
cling to Him with all I was.
Last summer, it became Psalm
42:11. “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your
hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” When depression
stole my life and my energy, I would speak this over myself. No matter how long
it took or how hard the fight, I would hope in God and come out of depression
praising Him.
This semester, however, was an
interesting one. Free from depression, I jump into a new challenge: night
watch. Waking up at 1 am and going to bed by 4 pm for the sake of worshiping
God in the night forced me to take a good look at why I do night and day
prayer.
Different
schedules have different challenges.
As a student without a car, no
matter what time of day my prayer room hours are, I have to find a ride. That
is a constant. But with night watch, there are other things that make it hard. The
schedule is rough on my body. There is very little time to spend with friends.
It takes twice as much deliberate time management, because there is far less
free time – some days I don’t have any!
It took me most of the
semester, but I finally found the verse for this season of my life. In 2 Samuel
24:24, King David says, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt
offerings that cost me nothing.” I refuse to give my life to God in a way that
does not inconvenience me. I refuse to worship Him from my excess; I will
worship Him with everything, and to worship with everything means to give up
what I want for what He wants.
This semester has been hard,
but summer has come. I pray for grace to give unto Him as well in summer as I
believe I have over these last few months.
