Hour 6 -- Carry over from yesterday: I read scripture from Streams in the Desert after God had encouraged me all day to keep my hand to the plow, and here is what those verses say --

"Arise...for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good; and are ye still? Be not slothful to go and enter to possess the land: for God hath given it unto your hands; a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth." (Judges 18:9, 10)

God has such a sense of humor! I love God!

Here is what Cowen writes: "Arise! Then there is something definite for us to do. Nothing is ours unless we take it. 'The children of Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim, took their inheritance.' (Joshua 16:4) 'The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.' (Obad.17) 'The uprights shall have good things in possession.'

"We need to have appropriating faith in regard to God's promises. We must make God's Word our own personal possession. A child was asked once what appropriating faith was, and the answer was, 'It is taking a pencil and underscoring all the me's and mine's and my's in the Bible.'

Take any word you please that He has spoken and say, 'That word is my word.' Put your finger on this promise and say, 'It is mine.' How much of the Word has been endorse and receipted and said 'It is done.' How many promises can you subscribe and say, 'Fulfilled to me.'

"'Son, thou art ever with Me, and all I have is thine.' Don't let your inheritance go by default.

"When faith goes to market it always takes a basket." (Cowen 374)

In my examen yesterday I noted the positive, but did not come up with what troubled me until night fell. I had a troubling dream the night before. I had a rejection dream by the same acquaintance (a believer that I thought surely I had forgiven). I wondered could the enemy stir up trouble or am I unconsciously still holding people accountable? It bothers me that I might still be holding people accountable for situations I definitely want to forgive them of. So, I asked God to please enable me to battle false narratives, lies, that show up in my dreams and to glorify Himself even as I sleep. Providentially, I had watched a video of an examen in action which enabled me to have words to say each time I moved to a more awake state in the night. I asked God to send His grace into my dreams and whomever showed up there. Now, I admit to having a dream where I was asked to move my vehicle, but there were no people I knew rejecting me. :D
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I love taking showers. I seem to hear God's voice so much more clearly in the shower. I have been pondering...and pondering...this idea of the good and beautiful life. I have struggled in my search to find what it is I want to write in my Dear Jesus letter. I am to answer a question on what the good and beautiful life looks like. In the shower, God illuminated the words "good" and "beautiful." How could I have not seen it before? The transcendental virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty are constantly singing in my head. This discipling apprenticeship I am going through is all negating false narratives and walking in truth. I know what I want to write. I want a true, good, and beautiful life. It looks like this: apprenticing with the Master as I learn how to appreciate and re-create beauty. May what flows from my hands and mouth be beauty. May I hear, see, touch, taste, smell beauty. In a true good and beautiful life, I learn from the Master how to do and be good -- good as He knows good to be -- good in justice, good in play.