Bee Keeper

This morning I was amongst a lovely group of people who get up early to laugh and eat fresh strawberries and buttery crumpets and drink copious amounts of real coffee then pray together for this beloved city and our neighbors. Today was yet another in a string of positively gorgeous days; therefore, we had the windows all fully open and the curtains drawn proudly back. Because of our exuberance to get some much needed vitamin D, a bee managed to make its way into the flat and decided it'd be a perfect time to show off its flying capabilities and volume of its buzzing. So during our whole prayer gathering, this bee was flinging itself about the ceiling in a very show-off-ish manner.

I kept getting annoyed at the poor thing until God seemed to tap me on the shoulder and said, "Oh, honey, you do realize that bee is you...."

Both in my prayer life and while trying to practice meditation, my mind is JUST like that bee. I am zooming around at 100 mph and show no signs of stopping--even for God. Throughout the day, my mind is just roaming over my to-do list or pondering one person I care about to another...but never He who I love most. During worship, my mind quickly starts to flutter about the ceiling and drag in where I left my cell phone and if my apartment is locked. During prayer, my mind buzzes on and on about that latest episode of SKINS and if I should call my mom since I haven't in over a month and whether or not I would look good in canary yellow shorts.

One of the fruits of the Spirit is self control, and holy crap does that one directly apply to my bee-like mind. As we continued on in the morning prayer, we repeated a few beautiful phrases about all the different parts of ourselves with which we love God. My thought process went a little like this as the whole group was speaking out loud:

I will love God with all my heart... YES! I got that one! I'm a hopeless romantic. Reeeeaaally big, sloppy lover when it comes to the Lord. I could go on for ages about God's love. In this jacked up world?!? I can only cope BY loving God and also accepting His love. Basically the Bible is one big romance novel between the Trinity and humanity!! YESSS LOVE IT!!!! Boom. Givin' my heart to Him.

I will love God with all my soul... NAILED IT! My soul is as strained and shredded as it has ever been in my whole life. So, let's just say, I turned that one over to the Big Man Upstairs a looong time ago. My soul felt like a weeping willow for ages and ages. I give Him my soul every day or else I would've committed suicide a long time ago! *awkward internal laugh* Good thing no one can hear these thoughts anywho....

I will love God with all my strength... Really? Is that even an issue? I'm kind of a pansy anyways so I don't really understand how this applies to those of us who aren't Schwarzenegger...but, hey, I'll go ahead and say it. Jesus, you can have all of my puny little blond woman strength! Actually, wait, I am strong aren't I? God, you spent the past six months teaching me how I can be strong because I'm reliant on Your strength--which never fails. Oh....I almost forgot about that lesson...well, this is awkward...OK YOU HAVE ALL MY STRENGTH! Whooo nice save.

I will love God with all my mind....Shit.

The rest of my thoughts basically deteriorated from there on out as I realized how my mind wanders far from God even when He is trying to pull me closest to Him. I become obsessed with thoughts that do anything but help me focus on the joy and peace of the Spirit. I have very little control when my mind begins to drag me down into the dark, scary pits which rehashes every painful memory and my own soul's ugliness for all it really is. Or, on a lighter note, I have very little self control when my mind begins to uplift me way higher than I deserve; thus, I'm walking around like a proud, self absorbed jerk.

It's very hard to love God with all your mind. We want to focus on so many other things than Him. We are bees fluttering about, making all kinds of noise and bumping into a hard white ceiling that's never going to give no matter how much we slam our tiny bodies into it. There's nothing wrong with having thoughts that aren't 24-7 "religious." The danger is when we have no self control over those thoughts; not to mention, when our mind can never sit still and focus on God's goodness or the things He may be trying to say to us.

So I've decided to become a bee keeper (metaphorically). God gave us the mind and our intellect--we should use it! However, learning to keep the bees in check is the tricky, mature thing. Thank goodness we love a God who is so patient and gracious towards us...cause in all reality, He's the Master Bee Keeper.


On a totally unrelated note, here are pics from Wimbledon haha :) I love my church community!

We were tickle monsters...be very afraid