vespers

Okay, so tonight was Vespers on campus.  First off, worship was amazing (as always) and second the speaker wasn't so bad himself.  Actually, one thing that caught my eye when he was speaking was about God's conviction.  He used and analogy of God constantly poking you to make you understand that you are either doing something you are not supposed to be doing or you need to get rid of whatever is hindering you from the joy He wants to provide you.  Well, first of all, I thought of everything I have been going through.  Then, he said, "He does this because He loves you."  Now, I knew God loved me before but I now realized that God does not make us feel bad about what we are doing or what we are supposed to be doing, He makes us realize there is a better way for us to choose.  For those of you who are not quite getting it yet, God wants us to choose Him and not what is surrounding us.  In fact, my own analogy that I used during Vespers was our parents' rules.  Okay, as kids we could not stand our parents' rules and we always thought they would set certain rules just to be mean, but they set certain rules to keep us safe and because they love us.  So in comparison, God's convictions to us is like our parents' rules; annoying and painful but necessary.  Now, when I have a conviction, I know it's not because God wants me to give something up to Him because He wants to make me mad or uncomfortable, He wants me to allow Him to be the center of that part of my life instead of what I am filling it with.  Now, that makes perfect sense to me.  It's all a matter of actually practicing it now.