A Slightly Different Arbor

June 13, 2015
Post 334

Knowing by experience what and where I am to be in order to continue this work, I am finding it frustratingly difficult to actually get there. The issue, I believe, is that nothing remains exactly the same, and things have a different angle the second time around. Therefore, though familiar, each approach has new complexities to figure out.
Unavoidable circumstances have forced my setting aside this work in order to again take up pursuing mammon in the need to pay the usual expenses of life. In the exclusive dedication to my writing, I long ago ran out of savings, then possessions of any useful resale value, and so I was left to abandon my writing and go about scratching the earth again to make ends meet, which in my world has rarely afforded much beyond living paycheck to paycheck. Having had abandoned my construction trade to take up the ministry some ten years ago, it’s not something that one can just walk back into.
Fortunately, the Lord enabled me to finally sell my half-finished house, which has set idle for many years, and that sale paid off my bills and eliminated all my debts, leaving me with very little monthly expenses and a little banked to continue my commission in this work for a bit longer.
Finances being finally addressed enabling me to turn back to the work of writing, but my problem now seems to be that once re-introduced into society and the working world, I am having quite a struggle shaking it back off without being an offense. The nature of my writing requires a significant level of single-mindedness before the throne of God that the distractions keep at bay.

Now, after so long a time delayed, I have lost track of what I have actually written vs. what I have studied but didn’t write yet. The Lord never stopped talking and I continued forward, but the cares of life have made it harder to hear that still small voice (I Kings 19:12), and made it even more difficult to study it out to written conclusion.

As I attempt to spool back up to my work and search out a few points that I thought I had already covered in Posts, I came across Post 296 “Sleepless Arbor of Rest.” I find it very applicable to my present situation but nonetheless not the same. I have not been “resting” this time per se but occupied in other necessary obligations, that, in my case, are akin to I Corinthians 7:31-33=35:

“And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction” I Corinthians 7:35.

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The concept of the Grand Tapestry design has so many fascinating facets; I find it difficult to organize them into a linear theme for writing. I keep re-reading the last several Posts to pick back up where we left off, but about the time I am ready to begin, I find myself drawn away by ongoing obligations necessarily acquired, and return later to start again.
My desire remains firmly anchored to continuing my work, but the tendrils of worldly cares cling like octopus legs. Shaking them loose is not impossible, just laborious.

I believe that the concept of the still small voice, in relation to the dramatic surroundings in the passage, is both profound and applicable to our study still in progress. Perhaps this may be the launching point from which to continue the work.
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