I've come to realize...

...that I am not a person God created for idleness. For the first time in at least the last two years, I've had a chance over the last week and a half to rest, pay off a little of the massive sleep debt I've been carrying around, read for fun, visit with friends, and just generally relax all I want...

...and it's really beginning to drive me nuts. I realize now why I hate being in this state. I finally have the time to do so many of the things I've wanted to, but instead of actually motivating myself to find the starting point for so many of them I end up frittering away my time instead. Sure, I'm starting to take the first few tiny steps toward getting outside of my self-imposed comfort zone spiritually again; sure, I'm actually reading God's word every day again...but it's not enough right now. Someone else I know and love seemed to be in a similar kind of boat recently, and told me about something God had said to him:

"You have 'enough' right now to keep going and to make some progress, so why should I pour into you just for that? There is no outflowing of Me right now...why should I be continually pouring into you if it isn't going anywhere?"

*Sighs* And that's where I am. I am craving God with everything that I am, but He's gently telling me that I can't have more until I use what I've got now. I feel like a child being told I can't have dessert until I finish my dinner, or something. I want to start working in my little corner of the world, and there are a few "projects" He's given me that I could start on...but what it boils down to is that I'm scared. I'm scared of starting something I can't handle. I'm scared of just getting into it and finding that it's more than I've bargained for and that I really don't have the time it needs. I'm scared of possibly being told to take the time, then--to give up what work I will have by then and throw myself full-force into something that definitely couldn't be called "stable" or "steady" income-wise. I have to be able to support Stephen and I for the first few months after we're married...until he can legally work in this country and then find a job, and for the first time in my life I'm starting to realize what a big responsibility that is!

But if God says do it, do I not know, then, beyond any shadow of doubt, that He will provide all that is needed? I know in my heart, but my head still has some catching up to do.

Maybe I'm just afraid that this project won't get to that point, and that it will fizzle out and never make any difference at all. Maybe that's at the root of why I haven't just begun.

*Sighs* I'm tired of being afriad. Fear and doubt go hand in hand, and if I'm fearing then I'm not believing all that much, am I? The strenght of the mustard seed's faith lies not in the amount of faith, but in the lack of doubt and fear.

God, make me a mustard seed.