jargon.

I do believe I will strike the phrase "I think the Lord blah blah blah..." from my vocabulary. I do believe I will replace it with "I feel the Lord x y z's." The alteration may seem Lilliputian, but its impact is more thank skin deep in that it reminds me to relinquish control of my faith.

My point is this: yesterday I talked to a friend about worry, I talked to a friend about "boy trouble," I talked to a friend about her loss, I talked to pretty much everyone about Haiti, I talked to my roommates about our impending "futures," I talked to a friend about her wedding. In every one of these conversations the Lord was a dominant figure in the discussion. If you word searched a transcript of these chats, His name would most likely been frequently sprinkled throughout. I know that the words I spoke about the Lord were genuine, born out of a genuine desire to share what is on my heart for them, but as I reflect on my days I am realizing that I periodically talk about the Lord before talking to Him. In addition, by virtue of the fact that I am so often surrounded by individuals possessing staggering faith, I find myself leaning on them as if they were crutches as I hobble my way down the road to Heaven (sometimes quite literally hobbling, as in when I get tendinitis in my left foot and become a gimp, as in right now). And this has to stop.

What's funny about this to me is that literally nothing I say after "I feel the Lord..." has to be different from what would have followed "I think the Lord..." and in no way do I have to begin ignoring those who have embraced me, challenged me, confided in me, questioned me, and loved me well - - I can have the exact same encounters and experiences. As usual I simply need to be more conscious of the source of my speculations - because all I say will only ever be speculative until I cease looking to myself for words first. When I put aside what I think or what I hear from others and begin to rely more on what the Lord is whispering in my heart, I believe He will use my tongue (and my thoughts) to serve Him more fully. I feel like Camus' Sisyphus, pushing my rock back up the same hill every day, but it is a continual struggle for me to look first to the Lord.