Circle of life

It has been over a week since I have taken the time to stop and listen, writing what I am inspired to write. That is because I don't want to report on my lack of progress. I don't do what I have been asked and for that I am so very sorry. I am saying no to Jesus. How can I do such a thing? Especially when what I want is exactly where He is leading? And I wonder why He hasn't been speaking with me!! He is calling me to something and I have been avoiding Him. Forgive me once again, my Lord.

I have realized this before but again today when I was walking the dogs, it came to me that I have been walking in the same small area my whole entire life. My childhood was spent playing where I now walk. It looked different then, of course, but it's the same place.

When I was younger, in third grade, my parents bought a home in a new subdivision in our community. It was out of a bluff, covered with sagebrush; overlooking the river with the mountains in the background. There were three families who bought the first homes out there--quite a distance at that time--from where the homes were built to the downtown area. The road home was cut in the dirt, just sort of a meandering route from the existing roads through the sagebrush and rock to the new house. The "road" was slimey and slick when it was wet.
Below the houses on the bluff were stones, some cut like steps onto a rock projection. A wonderful old dump was below that. It was full of items left from an earlier day. Just left there or thrown out because no one wanted it anywhere else. There were no landfill rules at that time and often junk cars and other metal things were used for fill or to stop erosion along the river bank. Using old cars in the river was a sad thing to do and I delighted when cars could no longer be used for bank revetment. The dump is gone now, or rather covered up and grown over, left for some future generation to excavate.
There was a new golf course on the other side of the railroad tracks which cut a thin line through my childhood playground. Because the river and ditch headgates were also in the area, there were several railway bridges spanning the swampy areas. If you walked far enough north, the largest bridge spanned the main branch of the river itself. When I was a child, it seemed like a very far distance to the main river. I walk it now with regularity and it is not the huge distance I had once supposed it to be.

At any rate, today I have had cause to ponder. Have I have been walking the same route throughout my life because I have not yet learned the lessons I should have learned? Perhaps I am in some endless loop where I spend my life walking the same route over and over. Always seeing a little different view, and perhaps learning something different each day, but still in the same place, physically, because I just haven't "gotten it" yet. However, I am still constrained to walk the same route each day because I haven't applied what I have learned on those walks?

If you looked through my photo albums, you could find a photo of the same view as the one above but in a different month or day. I'm sure I have enough photos of the same place to make a calendar. It could probably be used as a pretty good record of the temperatures of the place.

Maybe everyone has to circle through their lives, learning something new about themselves or their world each day. I don't know if my journey through life is so boring and so routine, or whether I'm missing out on something. Oh Lord, please help me to figure this out.

My sweet child. I love you so very much. Yes, quite often I have to repeat and repeat a lesson because you just don't get it. But you are not stuck in an endless loop. Rather you have come full circle. You began your awareness of me in this place you now walk. If you will remember, those were quiet times when I was in your soul, calling you to me. You were a child then and as you grew and did go different places and take other routes you often forgot the lessons learned from your quiet time with me. You often forgot me.
But, now in your mature years, you come back to the same place. Finding me in your daily walks is sufficient for where you walk. You talk with me now as you did then, and it gladdens me. I miss you when you do not take the time to visit with me.
I do need you to apply in your daily life what we talk about on our walks. I need you to be more obedient to me when I ask you to do something. You feel a wonderful and intimate knowledge of me but sometimes you forget that I am God. Lord of your life and your Supreme Commander. You often think of my commands as "requests," which may be refused. Yes, I am your friend, your savior, your lover. But I am also your God. Know that when I command you to something, I am your God and I expect obedience from you. You get away with much as a friend. Do not take your friendship with me for granted.
But you also know my tender forgiveness of your faults and failings. You know I love you with an everlasting love. Just remember to keep me always in the forefront of your day. If you live with me--a true abiding--then you will have no problem being obedient. You allow yourself to be talked out of doing my bidding because you doubt me.
Do this and all will be well. All is well. Continue to work for me and with me and in me and I shall work for you and with you and in you. It's really very cool. You'll like it. Go in peace.