Reprieve

I know it's been a while since I've been on here. Spiritual growth, things have changed a little and I've gotten some added responsibilities.  

Mostly though I shut down for a bit. Not "I'm going to hide from the world " just...with winter and everything hibernating I lost the urge. 

I was about to say "if you know me you've noticed a change " but the truth is I don't know what other people see when they look at me.  I only know what I see and I see changes.

1st was my back. God healed me of that affliction and I don't have very many days when I'm not reminded of how blessed I am. 

Then God healed my not good enough. I didn't think it was possible to kick it. It had been a part of me for so long.  Remembering something so painful that I had just blocked it. 

And now I'm free from it. 

Oh sure, there are times when something comes around, whispering in my ear that I'm still not okay. The difference is now I have the tools to fight it, I have a mighty God who walks me through it. 

Then there's the more subtle shifts. 

Realizing that people hate Christians because they think we're supposed to be perfect.  It's not about perfection.  The only perfect man was Christ, God gave us himself in human form to be the perfectly clean sacrifice. To die for our sins so that all we had to do was ask and believe and we could be forgiven. 

A lot of people scoff at the thought of Christ,  even though they've proven he was real,  "well he was just a man". And I get it. Why would a perfect God sacrifice himself for us? 

Because he knew we couldn't do it on our own. God's only goal is to get us to see that we need him and that through that need and reliance we can obtain a life most never have. 

We can't do it. 

The creation needs the creator. 

Once you get that, once you get in your heart that we're all equal, we're all flawed, we're all struggling,  we all need our heavenly Father.....

It just gets easy. 

My job is to study God's word, to pray to him and talk to him, to invite him constantly into my life and decisions and heart so that I hopefully mess up less than I did yesterday and grow where he wants me to grow. 

To try.

That's my job. 

No where does that imply perfection. 

Perfection is impossible, I am not Christ. 

I am me.

God knew our names before we existed.  Our names are indicative of our walk, of what God wants for us.  I was told this before but never really gave it much thought. As a kid I hated my name, partly because of my own self loathing.  

I understand now.

Who I was created to be, who my family was created to be.  

Follower and warrior of God. 

That's me. 

So how does one go from meek, timid, self hating,  peacemaker,  people pleaser  to warrior?

That's the beauty.

God loves opposites.

He loves taking someone self conscious with a speech impediment (Moses) and making them a leader of a nation. 

Why not take a mouse and turn her into a lion?

What better way to show people what he can do for them than to do it in the extreme? 

It's funny. 

Spent most of my life with the expectation that somehow I was supposed to be perfect, something I could never achieve. 

Now I understand that I don't need to be perfect,  only faithful and obedient, and the bulk of the world expects perfection simply because I'm a Christian. 

And you know, that's okay.

I'm not living for anyone else's expectations. 

The freedom in that!

God's opinion is the only opinion that matters and he always tells me what he wants of me. 

This is the most open I've been since I can remember. 

I'm just sorry it took me so long to get here. 

God created us for wonderous things.

Then this imperfect world gets its hands on us and we spend our lives trying to get back to that wonder.

People don't understand sometimes why God "lets" bad things happen. 

Because we have freedom of choice. 

God isn't a rapist, he doesn't force his way in. 

You have to ask, invite, open the door. 

So often we let other people's choices affect our relationship with God.  We blame him for repercussions of choices made by others as if he will just cancel out free will. 

It doesn't work like that. 

He will walk with you through any fire if you let him but he won't always save you from it, especially if it was set in the name of free will. 

We can't have it all. 

But there's the beauty, if you look for it. 

How many fires have we set in someone else's life? 

How many mistaken words, attitudes,  actions have we committed that hurt someone else? 

We don't want to suffer but we've made others suffer. 

Thus, we are all equal. 

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. 

Sifting through what's God and what's not. 

Working on being a better person than I was yesterday...