Why do I wait so long...

I guess this has been on my shelf for almost two (maybe three?) years now...a book by Jen Wilkin sent to me from someone that I am not even in touch with anymore.  I pulled it out to read it over and over and over again, only to let something else distract me.  Saying to myself, 'maybe next week?'  

A few days procrastination led to a few weeks, which of course led to months and then years...and here I am today.

Lately in my Bible study I have floundered.  I do well if I have a check-off sheet of some kind, a list of verses to map, Scriptures to write, or pages/chapters to read.  But it feels (for the most part) like a fruitless endeavor for me.  

I am floundering.  

I love verse mapping, I love Bible journaling, Scripture writing, and reading by a plan...in fact I am still doing these things...they are very good disciplines.  That hasn't been the problem.  My heart is just unengaged, as it were.  I am gazing around me at everyone else and seeing the fruit of their efforts, and as I read books about missionaries and the love that deepened as the years went on, I feel so incredibly discouraged.  I feel like I am still at the starting gate (after all of these years) and I get discouraged.  

This uneasy feeling began after doing the Sermon on the Mount study by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (workbook by Kari Denker).  I realized after going through just the first part that I had missed what the Word was really about.  I was missing God as I read and studied and wrote and journaled His Word.  And wondered how in the world was that even possible?

This morning I picked up Women in the Word, determined to read it.  Knowing, somehow, that God was going to use this book to show me what has gone wrong...and He did.  Right at the beginning, about half-way through chapter one (page 30) she says this:

"For years I tried to love God with my heart to the neglect of my mind, not recognizing my need to grow in the knowledge of "I AM".  Any systematic study of the Bible felt mechanical, even a little like an act of faithlessness or an admission that the Holy Spirit's insight during a quiet time wasn't enough for me.  But I was missing the important truth that the heart cannot love what they mind does not know.  This is the message of Romans 12:2-3..."

When I walked away from God (more like ran) in my late teens and early twenties...do you know how He called me back to Him?  I kept hearing "Be still and know that I am God" over and over in my mind.  I remember calling up someone and asking them if this was an actual Bible verse, or was it just a bumper sticker type thing.  What was so incredibly sad was that I had grown up in the church, was in church Wednesday nights and Sunday morning/nights, any and all prayer/revival meetings, VBS, church camp, and for the first six years of my educational journey attended a private Catholic school...and still had no clue what was in the Bible beyond John 3:16 and a smattering of stories told over and over on a much beloved felt board.  

Recently, I have again felt that call to know God.  To be still and know Him.  To study His attributes and know that the Word is about Him.  I put it off because I reasoned with myself, you are a Christian of course you know who He is.  And I just started and stopped the 365 Promises because they were pulled out of context, re-written in a way that made "me" the point of every verse. and I really don't need any help making "me" the center of something.

But this morning I realized that the reason I am floundering is because I am missing this truth - the heart cannot love what the mind does not know.  My level of knowledge is only scraping the surface, He is calling me deeper.  I have been approaching this backwards, trying to get my heart to engage on a deeper level, trying to find the love, peace, reassurance.  But the reason why those so often allude me or I so often trip myself up by trying harder is this, my heart cannot feel peace after reading a Scripture promise unless I know the person making the promise can fulfill the promise.  My heart cannot be full of love unless I see God for who He is.  I don't know why but this clicked on a deep level this morning or if I am even explaining this in a way that makes sense to anyone else?  But I now know why I have been floundering and what to do about it.