Find Rest

Wawee Coffee.  I suppose it is a coffee chain here in Thailand, maybe other places.  Being that I'm staying with avid coffee drinkers, I was there today.  Order, and they tell you to sit, "I bring it to you" they say, and motion to the left, my right.  Couches.  Comfy couches.  I sit on an armchair, and lean back as my iced cocoa is brought to me.  Feeling a little too privileged, but I suppose it's part of a learning experience. Oh boy is it rich cocoa, if it was hot cocoa it would be that type that slides down your tongue, so it is delicious iced as well. I sit back and continue to read Shadow of the Almighty. Momentarily distracted every time a new song begins over the speakers, being that it is all cover songs of early 2000's music, and then a random cover of Fearless by Taylor Swift.  I want to laugh, but there isn't anyone to laugh with so I go back to reading. It is a time of rest and relaxation.

I reread Jim's convictions from his Wheaton years, convictions of being of a pure mind.  Mind you, that isn't sexual purity, because, as I've been learning, purity shouldn't always be associated with that.  Instead to be of pure mind is to be solely focused on God - not divided between God and this world. So this begs to ask the question, am I of a pure mind?

I should be determined to eliminate non-essentials and exclude myself from activities that distract me from the will of my Father (things Jim wrote about).  Yet, as I read what Jim wrote, and as I contemplate what it means in my life, the shops outside of Wawee Coffee beckon me.  I sneak a peak outside the window into the brightly colored walkway, where shops laced with pastel colored skirts, frilly dresses, and eccentric pieces of accessories catch my eye.  These scream for me to go, look, buy but my soul seems to scream back, who am I?

Why must the world seek to draw me in so deeply and I be so distracted? I wish to be rid of if all, that I may be of pure mind, that I my focus only on my King.  I wish to say, with full conviction, I surrender all - for to Him may I live my whole life, He who is the author and perfecter of my Faith.
As I inwardly struggle with this, a struggle that has beset me all week, that last line there is my comfort from Hebrews 12:2, and something that He reminded me of as my soul cried out.  Oh how I find my rest in God alone!