Why are you wasting your time?

Year: 2009. Place: Kenya. Yet the words still ring clear in my head.

"I feel sad for people here," I said to a Kenyan guy close to my age who had become a friend. "I wish that you all had houses and clean water and electricity all the time, and enough clothes and shoes. I wish I could help more and give more."

He replied, "I feel sad for you too. You have too much. There are too many things distracting you every day, and you don't have to rely on God as much."

Truer words could not have been said. Sometimes I get jealous when I hear about people traveling a lot to other countries, cruises, the beach, Disney World, or just around here, because I don't have enough money to travel much. Sometimes I am sad that I'm not living in my own apartment or with friends. I forget how much I do have sometimes. I forget how much I am blessed sometimes.

I believe that the Holy Spirit inside of me is like the nudging in your heart, the conviction, the voice like a conscience that doesn't really come from you yourself. And sometimes I feel God saying, "Why aren't you talking to me about what's on your heart? Why aren't you laying your burdens down at my feet and letting me fill you with peace? Why do you doubt that I will answer your prayers? Why do you assume that you have no say in the way thing turn out in life - I want you to ask me to change things! Why do you sit for hours on the internet, listening to music, being on Facebook, or other random things? Those thing will just leave you empty. And if what is on your heart is so important, why do you neglect to deal with it?"

I read the bible and see endless stories on God's perfect timing, and His plan that is different from ours, but is better. And yet I still wonder if it will be that way in my life. I still wonder if I'll ever get married, if I'll ever have kids, if I'll ever have a job I like or that pays more than minimum wage, if I'll ever have a real job in photography... and sometimes when I talk to God about those things I just feel sad. Sometimes when I pray for the people I love that don't know Him, the realization that they could go to hell makes me cry and ache. Sometimes I look back on things that have happened in my life that still hurt me and it makes me mad that God let it happen or hasn't helped me get over it completely. Oh, yeah... those thing called emotions that run rampant. Sometimes that's why I am distant from God.

But He is real. He loves me. He protects me. He guides me and answers prayers and provides for me. He brings me beautiful friends and He blesses me with so many things, that to only focus on the negative things in life is nonsense! Real emotion is brought forth in any friendship and relationship as well, and it is no different with God.

I don't want to let the noise of life down Him out. I don't want to be complacent and just trudging along in life. I want Him to be so loud that nothing else brings me down.