The book is "Streams of Living Water" by Richard "Doober" Foster

I couldn't sleep the other night. I was lying in bed, unable to sleep because my mind was racing with thoughts of all the studying I need to do for two huge tests I have this week. I kept thinking that I would never have the time to read all the chapters I need to catch up on and the stress of all those racing thoughts (i guess just the one thought, anyway) would not allow me to sleep. So, since I have been newly motivated to do better in school, rather than lie awake in bed and think about all the studying I wasn't going to have time for, I just got up and studied.

I am reminded again and again of the amazing timing of our God. I really think sometimes procrastination is one of the avenues God uses to teach us. I was up until morning reading one of the textbooks for my Christian heritage class. I read for such a long time because I am cramming. I should have been reading from the start of the class, back in August. But I haven't read anything (which explains the 32% I scored on the first test we took)...(yes, the shame of this is the aforementioned motivation). Anyway, the point is that I really enjoyed what I read. It's hard to explain what happened. I just opened the book, started reading, and couldn't stop (I guess it wasn't so hard to explain after all). I guess the neat part was that the book's not that incredible. It's not one of those books where each page leaves you thirsting for more. (You know, like most of the stuff Stephen King writes, or Stitches, or Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry). It's just not a page-turner. Still, I was captivated by the ideas I was reading. I couldn't put it down, even though I started to get really sleepy sometime between 4 and 5. It was like something in me clicked on when I read about the lives of Abba Antony and Frank C. Laubach, and the relationship of Jesus to John, "The disciple whom He loved". (was that period supposed to go before the quotation mark? or is it fine where it is?) Something about the lives, no not lives...souls, hearts, faiths, strengths, weaknesses, all of it...made me want to be a better person. I was so captivated, in fact, by these new revelations I was reading that I even busted out a highlighter so I can go back and re-read some of the ideas that stuck out in particular. And I don't highlight too often.

But here's where the God-timing thing comes in. I really think that had I read this stuff a month ago, it would have gone in one...uh...eye? and out the other? I would have read the words with a cloudy mind and not thought twice about them (more likely, not thought even once about them). I would have continued on, not having learned anything new. But I didn't read it a month ago. I put it off. I was lazy and selfish and boring, and didn't do anything except for sit on my butt all day and purposelessly read myspaces and xangas and livejournals. (i'm not sure if i made up the word purposelessly. but if i did, i don't care). but just in the last couple weeks, the Spirit has been stirring in me; waking me up from my sleep, in a sense. She has been bringing toward the surface all the passion and energy that my selfishness has been smothering. So I think that because I slacked off and read what I read now as opposed to a month ago when I should have read it, I actually learned some things, and what's more, I want to read more of it. That's how I was reminded this week that God is present, and His timing is perfect. Are you really still reading this? That's why we're friends. Thanks for caring. Or just being bored. Whatever.

Now listen, I'm not going to tell you what it was exactly that I read that sparked this joy in me. Partly because I am still at the point where I am just on the brink of really deeply understanding those ideas and how they apply to me, and I'd like to read it again and get a better grasp on it; let a few more things click, a few more light bulbs turn on...and partly because I'm going to watch Crossing Jordan now.