Closer to Christ - Day 1

I recently bough a book called "21 Days Closer to Christ from Deseret Book. I'm a very task oriented person, so having an outline of things to do everyday to work on the relationship is really appealing to me. It came in the mail today, so I gave it a quick start. Each day has some suggested scripture readings and a challenge for the day (or week or however long of an interval you want to give each section). I think I am going to define day as a period of time, not really specific, and just move on when I feel like I'm ready.

I'm also going to share my journey here because writing about it helps me reflect and meditate on it, because it will help me stay motivated to keep trying, and because I am grateful for the opportunity to bear testimony of Christ.



So, day 1:

Mark 1:16-18 and John 1:38-39: The Master's Invitation.

My Nets

The chapter talked about how Simon and Andrew were fishing when Jesus invited them to follow him, and "straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him." The challenge was to think about what fills our nets that we are not leaving to follow him. What holds us back from developing a relationship with Christ.

I want to say time constraints fill my nets. I do seem to find myself being busy, but I think a lot of that is time management. My boys do keep me busy, to be sure, but I do have free time that I too often choose to waste on playing on my computer.

There's something much deeper than that, though. I think maybe it is my perfectionism. I know that He wants us to come unto Him in our imperfect state. I have complete faith in the atonement, and that fact that He loves me just the way I am (which is very imperfect!) I get more hung up on the method of coming unto Him. I don't read and pray and think enough, and then I get caught up in how I do it "wrong" and get frustrated and do it less.

And even more than that, I think I'm afraid of what it really means. I can see so many areas in my life that need to improve, that I get really overwhelmed by what coming unto Him with my whole heart really entails.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

That's my problem, I think. Is it laziness? Is it being scared of really knowing and becoming because of the work it would take? Whatever it is, I am aware of myself conciously holding back. What an awful thought!

Come & See

The second part of today's challenge was to "listen for the quiet invitations from the Lord to come and see." She talks about being led to places in your life where you can come to know Christ more fully, feel his peace mroe, and know how to better incorporate his attributes into our character.

For me listening more carefully comes back to training my mind to come back to Christ. This has been a goal for a long time, to try, in every moment, to always remember Him.

So for this first "day" of my journey, I am going to add more things to my day that remind me of Him. Tomorrow I will listen to a conference talk as I sort laundry (maybe two, I have a lot of laundry to sort) and listen to uplifting music as I clean the house.