His Means

We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.
-2 Samuel 14:14 (ESV)

There is clarity , when one is left alone with oneself.
I've been meaning to withdraw for some while now, and the time to withdraw I aloted myself never seemed to be enough. Trying to find ways to get away etc. But God's time was now. His aloted means and way. I see this very clearly now.
There are so many things I understand and that I see clearly now thanks to God's provision in this time.

As a few know, I've been home alone for almost a week and a half now. My grandmother passed away two days ago and my parents have been in Indiana for a while now in respect to her failing and now wilted body. It's just the dog and I. Elise is back in California. And everyone else is well...beginning their various respective journeys back to school. So here I am Sammie and I.

And I'm not going to try to articulate everything here that this time has done. Cause their is no way I can give you the backstory unless you have a few hours or so to sit down for coffee or even better tea.

So I'll try to give some scripture and some thoughts that I have come to as God has led me to with them.

...

...and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him.Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.
- Numbers 20 :7-13 ( ESV)

Moses, the great Moses, who parted the Red Sea, saw and brought the plauges on Egypt, saw God himself in a burning bush, met God on a mountain who gave him His law for the history of mankind, who appeared beside Jesus in the transfiguration refuses to obey fully and as a result denies himself entry into all that he has worked for because he did not obey fully.

God as holy wants all and if all is what we refuse to give we are not entitled to the promises of God.

Many do not realize that when we accept Jesus it means a total denial of oneself. At the moment of our salvation and every day after we should wake each morning in a surrender of ourselves to God's will alone making him Lord of our lives. If we refuse to I'm not sure it discounts our salvation but discounts what we get to see of God and leaves the haunting question " if we want more of God, than why are we still willfully sinning? And if love is wanting more of someone, do we really love God?"

I like moses have witnessed miracles, things that don't make since apart from my Father, walked in intimate communion with Him. Seen him make ways through the seemingly impossible that only He can make.

Yet this section of scripture reminds me that any sin in my life, is serious no matter how small the detail ,which this time of clarity has revealed a few rather large ones. I need to fully obey or I will not get to experience what God has for me. And if I refuse in the littlest detail I will deny myself his promises.

God's anger burns against my sin...and is only quelled in Jesus. God is still angry with me.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
-Isaiah 59 :1-2 (ESV)

I need to remind myself of this

His ways are because he loves me with a love I don't deserve and loves me enough to not leave me where I am at, through means I would never try but nevertheless are the better and best ideas.

Obedience is joyful because of what comes from it. If we see God's love than we will obey. Or we have not known God nor his love.

Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
-1 John 2 :4-6 (ESV)

JG