Double Trouble?

(Before I go to my new post, just to let you know I have no update yet on the situation in Haiti. I'll try to find out more and post it by tomorrow - if you want more info you can go to my previous postings)

Do you ever feel like you're not getting anywhere? I mean spiritually. Sometimes change seems so slow, that I get discouraged. Well, this last week was really encouraging. The reason is that a good friend and confidant with whom I have been working through alot of "stuff" this past year had a meeting with me. It was time to set a marker or milestone she said. She told me how much growth and change she has seen in my life in the past year and encouraged me to keep going. Then one by one she listed all the different battles I had faced, different tests I had gone through, and new freedom that she has seen me walking in. Well, you know what I blurted out of my mouth before I could think?? Well, this coming year I want a double portion, double the growth!! She said, "double the annointing too?" "I don't know what that means", I said, "but sure." I just know that its risky to say that, because God will take you up on your word. But I really can't live any other way. Growth and pain go together. Growth and testing go together. No pain, no gain. Not that I relish pain or testing. But it seems that its God's way of refining and bringing us closer to him. More of Him and less of me. My life needs to be hidden in Christ, then Christ will be revealed in me. His love, his compassion, his gentleness, his patience, his kindness, his Spirit control. I can't do it. But He does it through me as I yield my spirit, mind and body to Him. Then I can be truly led of the Spirit, becoming mature and complete, not lacking in anything!

John 15:4-6 (The Message)
Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.