12 days to go... I can't believe this is really happening!

Some days it just strikes me that this is for real... I'm really getting married! God has given me the woman who is absolutely right for me, and I for her, and He has ordained that we get to spend the rest of our lives together. How amazing is that! Even on days like this, it still seems to be some really great dream. It's more real than other days, but it still seems like it's at some distant point in the future. Not less than two weeks away! I suppose it will all finally sink in on our wedding day.

I get to see Naomi and most of my family tomorrow. They're driving up here to visit, so Mom and the kids can see the apartment and school and stuff. Dad will still be in Texas, and Trevor needs to stay in Waxhaw for some other things, but the rest of them will be up. I'm excited!

I was looking through some of my stuff I've saved since PNG this afternoon, and came across one of my journals from Encounter. Encounter was a yearly retreat for high schoolers in Ukarumpa. We would spend three or four days at Summit Interface, a camp owned by New Tribes Mission in the mountains near Goroka, and worship God, learn from a visiting pastor (usually from the States or Australia), and share with each other in small groups. It was a great time of refreshment in the Spirit, but what I remember most is how much of a let-down it was to leave there. It seemed like God was more real when we were at Encounter. Like He wasn't as present in our daily lives in Ukarumpa, when we had the business of school and work and planning for the future.

It's hard to translate a 'spiritual high' into daily living for God. Almost every Christian has probably had at one time or another a very real encounter with God. Whether it was at church, some sort of retreat, in a day spent somewhere quiet just worshiping God, or wherever, we've all had those times. We feel so close to God; nothing can shake our faith, nothing can get in the way of our intense desire to worship and serve Jesus for the rest of our lives. We learn so much from Him during those times, and we feel closer than ever to His glory and majesty.

And then we leave. Sometimes it's not even a conscious change. We just get busy with other things, and while we still read the Bible and pray and sing songs at church, the experience we had fades into the background and we can no longer recall the vigor and intensity of that time with Him. What happened?

I think that we lose the fear of God in those times. We start worrying about the daily pressures we face, and what others think, or what will happen in the future, and we stop focusing on the Almighty God who desires our all. We put Him back into the corner we've cleared out for Him in our lives, and we go about our daily business. I do this all the time. Sometimes I recognize it right away, and sometimes I don't. And it's sin. We know that God desires every facet of our lives. He longs to be in a real relationship with us, not one that just gets attention in between the stuff of our lives. And knowing that, we make a decision instead to worry about the deadline at work, what we're going to cook for dinner, whether we'll have enough money to pay all the bills this month.

So what can we do? What things can we change in our lives to help us keep that relationship with God alive and burning with the heat and intensity of the 'highs?' I think the first and most important thing is to recognize and confess our sin in not putting Jesus at the head of our lives. Pour your heart out to Him. Tell Him that you want Him to be Lord over all of your life. Confess the times when you put other things first. Ask Him for the insight to be able to see the things that cause you to begin falling away from Him. Ask Him for the daily strength and motivation to put Him above all else even when the pressure starts mounting over the other stuff.

Back to my Encounter journal... I found a bit of my notes from one of the messages from Scott Vawser. This was from my junior year, 2001. A few ways that he sees that could help us learn and maintain a fear of the Lord:

• Ask God to teach me. Psalm 86:11 says: "Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." (NIV) God wants our undivided heart, and He knows that we cannot give Him that on our own. Ask Him to change you.
• Be in God's presence. Take time out of your day to spend with Him. Really worship Him. Take in and meditate on God's attributes. Deliberately spend time each and every day alone with Him. Shut out the other distractions. Get away for a few minutes. Be with Him.
• Bring your sin before Him. How many times have I repented and confessed my sin in the last month? Week? Today? Allowing sin to remain in our lives destroys our relationship with God. He knows about it already, but if you don't confess it to Him and ask for His forgiveness, He can't do anything about it.
• Make friends with other people who fear God. How do we choose our friends? Are the people who will encourage us in our walk with Him? Or are they people who try to drag us down to the world's level again? Surround yourself with people who are real in their walk with the Lord. It is great to have unbelievers as friends so that you can witness and minister to them, but the majority of the people you spend time with should be encouraging you to get closer to God, not dragging you away from Him.

Make your daily walk with Him deliberate. Don't assume that you will keep growing closer to Him, or even maintain your relationship with Him, if you don't put the effort into it. If you want to bring that closeness and intimacy with God into your daily life, it will take work. Lots of work. You'll have to reorganize your time, your priorities, and your commitments. You'll have to let some things go. But if you are a Christ-follower, you have no choice. God is not satisfied with a half-hearted commitment. In Revelation 3:15-16, John is recording a prophecy to the church in Laodicea, and he says:

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (NIV)

Take the time to evaluate where you are with God. Are you on fire for Him? Or are you just lukewarm? Take a close look at your motivations and desires, and see where God fits in to them. Is He at the top of your list? Do you put in the effort every day to develop your relationship with Him? If not, why not?

Lord, I desire You above all else. Father, You know that I am guilty of putting other things above You in my day-to-day life. Lord, I confess that I don't spend the time I need to in developing my relationship with You. I waste my time pursuing the worthless things of this world. You see the things that I do with my time and You are grieved. I am sorry, Lord, and I ask for Your forgiveness for this sin in my life. On my own strength I cannot truly desire You above all else. I want to, God, but I need Your strength and grace to do it. Please guide me in every minute of every day, and turn me back to You when I start to fall away. Keep the fire burning bright and hot in my soul. Ignite a passion for You, let me pursue Your holiness in my life. This is my desire, to honor You. Lord, with all my heart, I worship You.