Ah boy. It's been awhile.

Things I've encountered and have been chewing on (metaphorically) this week:

As I was walking to dance tonight, I found that I was genuinely excited to go hang out with my girls. My excitement isn't an unusual occurrence. We laugh, and joke, and be silly and of course dance our butts off. It was just that I distinctly noticed how excited I was tonight.

One of my immediate next thoughts was that I wish I was as excited about reading my Bible and spending time with God as I am to go and dance for two hours.

I have been the worst this week at making time in my mornings and afternoons to commune with my Jesus. Time and time again people seem to be giving me advice about taking the time to seek God's face without even knowing that I've been slacking big time. Weird. Yeah, I know. God's doing a thang in my life again.

The second immediate next thought I had was of all those years I spent in ballet training, stretching and working my body and constantly going to class and participating in the forms. That was 15+ years of my life. There were definitely times that I did not want to go. I cried and debated and argued with my grandma about how pointless it was for me to attend one more class this week, but in the end, my grandma would give me a swift kick in the pants (again...metaphorically) and make me put on my tights and go to dance.

Now, I am reaping the benefits of all those years of discipline. I can go and dance with my friends competently and with satisfaction because I can dance, I am very practiced at dancing and it's not hard any more.

The last thought that seemed to end the revelational thoughts and swiftly lead to musings was that it's a good guess that reading my Bible and taking time to talk with God needs discipline also. I always think that I should be super good at Jesustime, and if it's not feeling right then I get bored with it and leave it and go do other more instantly gratifying things (like watch 30Rock...)

However...wait for it...it was a dosey for me...Doesn't it make sense that garnering instant joy and soulful gratification and reaping the benefits of living in communion with God Almighty don't come instantly? Doesn't it make more sense that I would need to practice clearing my mind of things and focusing on the One and opening my ears to the Holy Spirit?

So rather than the problem being that I suck at truly opening my heart and ears to the Lord, it is more that I don't practice it enough. (Huh. Well, maybe it is because I suck at being with God, but it's only because I don't practice being with Him. I think.)

I didn't perform beautiful, jaw-dropping, tear-evoking ballet after the first class I ever took. (For, the record I don't think I've ever had the jaw-drop/tear evoke combo happen at one of my performances, but for the sake of comparison let's go along with it)

Nor, should I expect myself to start seeing visions of heaven and start speaking in tongues the first time I try to knock on the gates of heaven.

Hope it what there is. Hope that someday, while I keep pursuing my Love, my Creator, I will find a level of communion where He speaks wondrous things to me.

Yes, this is what I've been finding this past week.

Another chapter in my search for practical living as a Jesus-follower.