Live Oak Lenten blog - week 3

This is the third week of Lent and I have continued to see a difference in my daily life when I get up early (no, really early) to read scripture and pray. I'm not sure if it's the prayer itself or the tone it sets for my day, but its something that has definitely had a positive impact.

Here are a few things I've noticed this past week:
-As I've spent more time in prayer, more people are asking me to pray for them, so my prayer time is more quickly and easily filled.

-I've also noticed that while I've been able to give God control over some things, I've also re-grasped some old issues.

Sometimes my life feels like a game of "whack a mole" - I let go of control in one area only to be faced with the need to let go in another.  It might just be what it is, a continual process of refinement until my time on Earth has ended. I'm okay with that. I'm wiser and have more self-control than I did 10 years ago and hopefully within another 10 years, I'll have learned even more. I also think that every time an 'issue' comes back around to be 'dealt' with, it has a little less power over me and I can look at whatever it is with more perspective.

But all of that has only happened because God's Holy Spirit is and has been busily at work in my life - so thank you God for refining me even though it is hard and sometimes painful.

-Chesney Szaniszlo