Things are blah and I still feel like I'm trying to live apart from Jesus. It doesn't work well but I try anyway. The sin isn't really worth it but when you're stuck in malaise, it is so hard to break out. Jesus is with me and forgiveness and restoration is a prayer away. God knows I am sorry and sad but obedience and a desire to fellowship seems beyond me — a lie of the enemy that still rings true with my heart.
As a friend said, just tell God that you love him and want him to do as he will so here it is. Lord, I love you and so desperately desire that you would change my heart and make me want to glorify you with my all of my mind, body, soul and strength, that I in my entirety and everything that I would do bring you Glory and that, in your grace, I would have relationship. Lord, I love you and need you to save me from this death spiral I find myself in — I know that your grace is for the sake of relationship and permission to do whatever I desire, something that I know is blasphemy.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Backsliding
Jesus, please have mercy on me a sinner.
Father, the past two weeks have seen me grow colder and number to you and your quiet voice. I've sought to worship other things — I've been absorbed by compulsion and false hopes. I've been distracted by the illusion of satisfaction in anything other than you Father. As horrible as it always seems, today is the first Sunday of the month so Communion is being prepared as I contemplate my sin and ask for forgiveness and yet seemingly never really change the way I act, never really try to be obedient. Father, you know where I'm at and you know it isn't my fault that I'm in this world that is so sexualized, that is so full of distractions. Yet, I am accountable for how I respond to this world, how I choose to reject or embrace the traps and the enemy that seeks to entangle me. I do not heed your warnings, I do not try to stay away from the thoughts, the things, the demons that lead me to death and destruction.
For all of this and more, I'm sorry Lord. I don't know what I do, I don't know how I desecrate my soul, I don't know how much I pain you when I sin, and sin, and sin some more just in a day. If I'm not overtly sinning by over-spending, over-eating, masturbating, entertaining lustful thoughts, and the like, then I'm being judgmental, prideful, and bearing false witness. Seldom O' Father, do I simply run to you and try to be in your arms, hear what you would have to say to me, retreat into your Word. Seldom O' Lord, do I seek to walk in obedience, service, and friendship. Change me Lord, make my heart bend toward you, may I realize a deep relationship in you where I surrender my whole heart, mind, body, and strength to your will and purposes, to obedience and love of you and your ways. Have your way O' Lord — may it not be about me but may it be completely and totally about you, about your glory, about seeing me lowered and you raised up.... From dust I have come and to dust I shall return, until that day that you shall call me to serve and worship you forever Lord.
Father, the past two weeks have seen me grow colder and number to you and your quiet voice. I've sought to worship other things — I've been absorbed by compulsion and false hopes. I've been distracted by the illusion of satisfaction in anything other than you Father. As horrible as it always seems, today is the first Sunday of the month so Communion is being prepared as I contemplate my sin and ask for forgiveness and yet seemingly never really change the way I act, never really try to be obedient. Father, you know where I'm at and you know it isn't my fault that I'm in this world that is so sexualized, that is so full of distractions. Yet, I am accountable for how I respond to this world, how I choose to reject or embrace the traps and the enemy that seeks to entangle me. I do not heed your warnings, I do not try to stay away from the thoughts, the things, the demons that lead me to death and destruction.
For all of this and more, I'm sorry Lord. I don't know what I do, I don't know how I desecrate my soul, I don't know how much I pain you when I sin, and sin, and sin some more just in a day. If I'm not overtly sinning by over-spending, over-eating, masturbating, entertaining lustful thoughts, and the like, then I'm being judgmental, prideful, and bearing false witness. Seldom O' Father, do I simply run to you and try to be in your arms, hear what you would have to say to me, retreat into your Word. Seldom O' Lord, do I seek to walk in obedience, service, and friendship. Change me Lord, make my heart bend toward you, may I realize a deep relationship in you where I surrender my whole heart, mind, body, and strength to your will and purposes, to obedience and love of you and your ways. Have your way O' Lord — may it not be about me but may it be completely and totally about you, about your glory, about seeing me lowered and you raised up.... From dust I have come and to dust I shall return, until that day that you shall call me to serve and worship you forever Lord.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Nice Photography
A nice flash video from The Dispatch. I hope to make some similar presentations and link them....
Friday, February 13, 2009
What's going on
So maybe I have more of a reason to update this thing given that I linked it to Facebook but obviously, it's just one of the million things striving for my attention. This week was fun including cooking for 30 on the same day I had a public finance midterm while within the past 48 hours I had a mild allergic reaction to my antibiotic (which resulted in an ER visit) and, well, lots and lots of being stressed out.
And so I have a list of people I haven't talked to that's a mile long. I have a thing at the church that I thought about going to tonight. I've scheduled sabbath times for the past 6 weeks and largely ignored them. I've got laundry in the wash that just ended that needs to be put in the dryer. I think I'm starting to get a headache. I'm supposed to watch Battlestar Galactica with friends tonight. I'm needing food and, well, needing to take a rest and hopefully it will be in that order.... I think I need to chill out.
For those I haven't seen for a while, know I love you and I'm very busy and freaking out. I dropped my second major, am trying to graduate in the Spring, which means I'm taking comps and going to APA while one of the courses covered in my comps will not be completed until after I finish comps (slightly freaking me out as if I fail comps, I would be delayed in my graduation). The meds I'm on right now aren't really helping any of this and on that note, I think I'm going to take a break.
I had a good counseling session on Tuesday. I really think I might have made more of a breakthrough and its pretty sweet. I've got three healing prayers to share.
1) Soccer: I remembered feeling different and inferior at a soccer practice. We're standing around and I just really felt like something was wrong. Jesus comes into the memory and lines us up. He starts touching boys on their heads and they look up to him and he moves down the line and he touches me and tells me I am just like the rest of these boys, I am loved and valued by Him.
2) Lunch Room: I felt alone and separated from the group. Jesus comes to sit down next to me and starts to weep for he knows how lonely I feel. I feel that I know Jesus is close and that he feels my pain. He tells me that he has been there and that he is with me.
3) Stepping out of the gunk: I have a vision of myself standing in wet concrete up to my mid-calf. Though Jesus has at times asked me to step out and in other times has picked me up and pulled me out of the concrete, I keep getting back in. I felt like the concrete was something that I poured around myself in the hopes that it would get hard and I would be prevented from escaping it and following the Lord. I felt like it was the result of the anger and hatred for God that erupted in my life during the depression and faith crisis that swallowed the end of the summer of my Junior year. Closer prayer revealed the concrete was really some other stuff. I looked at it and I thought it was porn. My counselor who was praying with me thought she saw snakes (yes, freaky). She leads me in a prayer to encourage me to step out of the stuff and I do. After this prayer, I feel light and free and like something's really happened. My counselor sees him lead me to a picnic table with my future wife. I hear him say that He desires to use me to bring hope to the captives and to free the prisoners. Absolutely powerful and amazing.
Those are some updates and I wish I could say more but I have laundry to do...
And so I have a list of people I haven't talked to that's a mile long. I have a thing at the church that I thought about going to tonight. I've scheduled sabbath times for the past 6 weeks and largely ignored them. I've got laundry in the wash that just ended that needs to be put in the dryer. I think I'm starting to get a headache. I'm supposed to watch Battlestar Galactica with friends tonight. I'm needing food and, well, needing to take a rest and hopefully it will be in that order.... I think I need to chill out.
For those I haven't seen for a while, know I love you and I'm very busy and freaking out. I dropped my second major, am trying to graduate in the Spring, which means I'm taking comps and going to APA while one of the courses covered in my comps will not be completed until after I finish comps (slightly freaking me out as if I fail comps, I would be delayed in my graduation). The meds I'm on right now aren't really helping any of this and on that note, I think I'm going to take a break.
I had a good counseling session on Tuesday. I really think I might have made more of a breakthrough and its pretty sweet. I've got three healing prayers to share.
1) Soccer: I remembered feeling different and inferior at a soccer practice. We're standing around and I just really felt like something was wrong. Jesus comes into the memory and lines us up. He starts touching boys on their heads and they look up to him and he moves down the line and he touches me and tells me I am just like the rest of these boys, I am loved and valued by Him.
2) Lunch Room: I felt alone and separated from the group. Jesus comes to sit down next to me and starts to weep for he knows how lonely I feel. I feel that I know Jesus is close and that he feels my pain. He tells me that he has been there and that he is with me.
3) Stepping out of the gunk: I have a vision of myself standing in wet concrete up to my mid-calf. Though Jesus has at times asked me to step out and in other times has picked me up and pulled me out of the concrete, I keep getting back in. I felt like the concrete was something that I poured around myself in the hopes that it would get hard and I would be prevented from escaping it and following the Lord. I felt like it was the result of the anger and hatred for God that erupted in my life during the depression and faith crisis that swallowed the end of the summer of my Junior year. Closer prayer revealed the concrete was really some other stuff. I looked at it and I thought it was porn. My counselor who was praying with me thought she saw snakes (yes, freaky). She leads me in a prayer to encourage me to step out of the stuff and I do. After this prayer, I feel light and free and like something's really happened. My counselor sees him lead me to a picnic table with my future wife. I hear him say that He desires to use me to bring hope to the captives and to free the prisoners. Absolutely powerful and amazing.
Those are some updates and I wish I could say more but I have laundry to do...
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Linked to Facebook?!?
So I know this information is accessible and recorded for posterity and I worry not because I have nothing to hide. Though this is the case, for the second time, I'll have a blog connected to facebook or otherwise findable with my real name. This is a little scary given that a) relatives found my last blog and freaked out that I might want to be pastor (I know, a really crazy thing when they're dems who know not God), and b) I need to get hired at some point. To be fair, the link is available so friends (with some exceptions) can find it but maybe I won't just write for nothing — that is beyond Jesus who I am sure reads my rambles.
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