It was 5:00am and I was running on the treadmill. I put on some Praise and
Worship Music and the Lord began speaking to me. "Not now, God - I'm running,"
I thought. But thankfully, He didn't listen to me (and why should He?)
"Heidi," He lovingly said, "you spend all this time faithfully training your
body. When are you going to get serious about making time for me?"
I'll
be quite honest and admit that my initial thought was, "Lord, it's hard enough
getting up this early to work out and now you're going to add spiritual
conviction on top of that?" However, as I continued to plod on for a few miles
and listen to the music that played sweetly in the background, I knew He was
right. It was time for me to obey.
I don't know where the
thought came from, but it certainly hit me hard and it was something that I
instantly knew I needed to do. I needed to memorize the book of
John. In those first moments, I felt a closeness to God - an intimacy
with Him that I had been missing. ....Missing for a long time. His presence
surrounding me was more real than the sound of my feet pounding on the
treadmill. He was there. I spent the next several minutes thanking God for the
challenge as well as for the desire and strength to do it.
Fifteen
minutes later, I was in the shower. The beauty of 'the moment' had faded away
and my mind was filled with the schedule of the day and all that I had to
accomplish. Then, right there between the shampoo and conditioner, my second
realization: "What on earth was I thinking?!" I rationalized and reasoned in an
attempt to let myself off the hook. He couldn't really expect me to do
that, could He? How on earth would I even begin doing such a thing? Who has that
kind of time? Certainly not a mother of 4! ...Who just recently decided to start
homeschooling!
Over the next few days, I couldn't get the idea out of my
head. I calculated how many chapters and verses there are and tried to
realistically think how much time it would take to accomplish such a monumental
task. I realized that the task was indeed great. However, I also noticed that my
motivation was great - giving me a sense that this desire was not coming from
me, but was truly a divine inspiration from God.
"Yes, Lord, I will
obey."
