what am I doing?

What am I doing up?  It is about 2:20am my time and this is the second night I have spent awake...  I just finished my last day of Esther and tears are just strolling down my face.  I can get so caught up in a good study that I don't want to let it go.  I am amazed how the Lord has met me within these pages.  I have had to put the bible study down here and there because of circumstances, but when I have picked it up again, BAM!!!  I am met by the Spirit of God.  There is so much to learn and I have made so many mistakes that I get overwhelmed that some day my story will unfold before me and God and He will listen to it.  The creator of the entire universe, of everything, will listen to my story and care.  Actually, He will love it, right?  Can that possibly be that He would marvel in it?  And if He does, why don't I realize that now?  Daily, realize that?

   As I have shared about the theme being shelter, I have found myself putting everything I read or hear about within the context of that and Beth Moore makes a comment on her last day of the study about the temple of the jews was a marvelous structure to behold, nothing has ever compared to it, to this day.  Yet the "jews in the early first century did what most religious people do when they lack a fresh work of God.  They turned to legalism."  Their temple eventually became a shell because it lacked the divine presence and so it settled for profit.  She was referring to the time of Jesus when he went to the temple and found it a market for profit.  Well, I started thinking about my idea of shelter and where I have scewed it for profit.  Where have I lacked a fresh work of God that I have settled for my own imitation?  Settled for something immediate than HIS MIGHTY SHELTER (I type it in bold because that is how I am feeling at 2:25 this morning) that is eternal.  I know I have shared these similar thoughts before so then I wonder, "Oh man, why is God keeping with these thoughts.....?  Where is he wanting me to see something in my life that I currently don't see so he is keeping this thought fresh until I can put it before him???"

Then my thoughts went to fears again and hard seasons in life.  When I think about life's storms or really when I think about the hailstorm we just experienced here in Jos...  It is when it hurts to be outside that I enjoy and appreciate and experience the shelter of our home more than other moments.  SO, why can I not feel that same pleasure when life's storms come my way?  Run to His shelter and then fully experience it, not after the hard season, but during it?  Or maybe I have and do and don't even know it?  I think I would though....

UGHHH, so sorry to get rattled with my thoughts with you all so early in the morning!!  Maybe it is the busyness of the first week with the interns with training, figuring things out, etc... or maybe it is a little bit too much caffeine, or maybe and this is what I am going to believe in tonight as I go to bed, maybe the Lord wanted to just meet with me because He wants to and He likes to get me alone.  The Lord loves me!