I learned a lot today, and it's only 2:08pm. Check out what I learned in a less than beautiful description of what it really was like:

I (can we say "we"?) don't sacrifice ANYTHING for God. For example, I told God I was going to get up earlier this morning and spend time in prayer with Him. The alarm went off, I stayed in bed for another fifteen minutes. Did that extra 15 minutes REALLY make me feel less tired? Nope. Would that 15 minutes with the GOD who created everything made a difference in my day? YES. Do we REALLY understand what prayer is? We're communing with GOD... that's pretty much a HUGE deal... do we realize what privilege we have?? How about we start sacrificing for our Savior. I love that second snooze hit, but doesn't my Savior deserve that time instead? Doesn't He deserve my entire day???

My relationship with God affects every area of my life. When I realize my great need of my Savior and pursue this Need, every relationship I have in my life is so much sweeter. However, the opposite is also true. When I forget how much I need my Savior and look to other people, thoughts, or obsessions to fulfill that need, every relationship is strained, with problems, and tested. When will I get it? It seems like I don't get it until after it happened...

My mood/attitude/personality greatly affects the mood/attitude/personality of the people around me. Now, of course I'm not queen of all things, but really, all of our moods/attitudes/personalities affect the people around us. When we are contented with Christ, exuberating Christ's Joy and unafraid to love God's love, it is sooo much more likely that the people around you will be like that, too. the "How are they different?" question will rise in their minds because of your Christ-like attitude. But when we express the mood/attitude/personality of our flesh, we do the exact same thing. When we are "ourselves," meaning we express our sinful traits to other people, we encourage those around us in darkness. I am SO sick of doing that when Christ can flow out of me!! I don't want to be myself any more. Being like my Jesus is the only way... Why am I depriving people of Jesus? I have Him! Am I so selfish as to allow my sinful, fleshly qualities dominate my actions, words, thoughts? Lets be selfless and surrender our flesh to the Holy Spirit. It is when our flesh is able to be permeated that Christ's qualities will be made real in our actions, thoughts, words, love.... everything. We are so selfish as to hold Jesus all to ourselves.

Gold is really, really ugly when it is first discovered... really ugly. It takes hard work to even getttt the gold. The person that wants the gold has to really want it and work hard to get it. So when this digger actually gets the gold, he is so proud. He loves the gold even though it's dirty. He knows that there is lots of work ahead to make the gold shine, glimmer, and sparkle... to be ready for purchase. Despite the excitement of finally getting the gold, there's a little discouragement seeing how dirty the gold is... there's all sorts of junk on it: it's covered in its surroundings, yucky dirt. This digger, however, smiles because he knows how beautiful it will be after it goes through purification. The purification is is brutal, but it will make the gold beautiful. And it's worth it, too. All the heat, hammering, cooling... it all is extremely brutal and would hurt if the gold could feel. All the work the digger puts into making the gold beautiful is really hard and sometimes he might think it's not worth it all, but he holds onto the end goal and strives towards that. After all the hard work, the gold is so beautiful. Gleaming, catching the Light, sparkling in all the Digger's glory. It is worth something now because the Digger worked soooo hard and didn't give up.

Praise God for a Digger who doesn't give up on ugly gold... Praise God.

So why did my Savior let me breath today? Maybe to remind me that He won't give up on me despite all my filth...maybe to give me an attitude check...maybe to tell me that it's not all about me...maybe to get the point after all this to just praise Him... I don't know. I just praise my Savior.