To set the stage: Edy was four, and would have looked about like this:

JPH_3185

It was bedtime. She was upstairs and already tucked in, but called down to us in the kitchen and so began the following conversation:

Edy: “Daddy?”

Josh: “Yes?”

Edy: “Can I ask you a question?”

Josh: “Yes.”

Edy: “My towel is still up here.”

Josh: “That’s not a question, Edy.”

Edy: “I don’t feel so good.”

Josh: “Ok. What do you feel like?”

(Pause for dramatic emphasis.)

Edy: “I feel disappointed.”

~

I don’t think we ever actually heard why she was “disappointed.”  

But we did have a good laugh.

The girl knows how to stall at bedtime.

Nice try, kiddo, but your tricks ain’t workin’ on us.

~

I’m a bit unsure how to start off this week, except to just get straight to the point.

I’m taking July off from the blog.

I know what you’re thinking…didn’t you just do that a few weeks ago?

And you would be right. I did.

But something is rumbling around in me that I can’t put away until I deal with it properly.

The thing is, and you may not know this, but I am an excellent faker.

Surprised?

That’s because I was faking.

See, I told you I was good.

~

I stopped writing for years after college because I had so disgusted myself. 

I had been in and around church and churchy-words enough and could speak Bible-talk so fluently that my senior year I was assigned a weekly column in my Christian college newspaper.

I got to dribble on about any old thing I wanted, and you can bet I did.  I knew the right things to say and how to say them so that all five or six people that actually read that column (that number includes my parents and my editor) might seriously get the impression that I was some kind of Christian.  

Unfortunately, God and I knew the truth.

I was a fake, and we both hated it.

Rather than deal appropriately with what the Holy Spirit was convicting me on in my life, I ran away from writing.

I would not write again until I could be real.

God and I had some work to do.

~

So I think I have been stalling in my own spiritual life.

Yes, the things I write on this blog are absolutely true, and I am so grateful that God gives me words to say and, for some crazy reason, people who will read them. He has definitely been at work.

But in the process of pursing this writing business, I have been busier than I meant to be and more distracted than I realized.

I am putting off the work that my own soul needs, and it needs more Jesus.

I want to be so full of Him that what I write on this blog and how I speak to my children and the way I minister to my husband comes from the overflow of Jesus in my life, not from the scrapings on the bottom of the barrel.

I don’t want to just say the right things. Nothing fake. No tricks. No churchy-words.

I want to know the Truth and believe it with every ounce of me.

I want to hear when He speaks and move when He calls.

I am hungry for Jesus, and I need to take this month to get filled up again.

Will you take it with me?

~

Let’s do this. 

Seek God in His Word. Intentionally spend time with Him everyday. Memorize a verse. Pray continually.

Feed yourself with Him.

Wake up every morning ready to die so that you can finally live.

It’s hard, but, dadgum, if our souls aren’t worth it.

~

Who knows? Maybe this is blog suicide, or maybe I’ll miss it so much I’ll be back early. Either way, I promise I won’t be fake.

I won’t do that to myself again, and I sure don’t want to do it to you.

So forget this blog (for now), and feast on God.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalms 34:8

 

What about you? Do you ever find yourself spiritually dry? What do you do to fill yourself up?