Get to Work Monday...I had no idea what to write about today. Maybe I could write about how I'm reading a book that I have owned for a year and never read. Or how I'm going to watch The Matrix this weekend. Or how I spent 3 hours playing guitar yesterday and 20 minutes beatboxing (read: spitting and sounding ridiculous as I attempt to learn to beatbox). I could write about all those things but I just didn't have much to say about them. And so, it is nearly 11:30pm and I am just now posting.
Things are about to get really honest and really messy. So, turn back now or enter with grace please.
See, my heart is heavy. There has been a lot happening in my world lately and through it, God is bringing to light a thousand things in me that I'd rather not deal with. First it was my entitlement issues. I am the most "oldest brother" child of God ever. I compare my story to others constantly. And most of the time it leads to a place of, "I have done all I know to do to walk with you since I was 12 years old, and really, even before then. Sure I've made mistakes but I've never left. Even when I wanted to never see you again, I sucked it up, got over it, and kept serving you. So why does that person who has only been living for you for 3 years, who before those 3 years was spitting in your face...or that person over there who used to live for you but ran from you, took what you gave and spent it on themselves, and now is back...why are you blessing their ministries, giving them dream ministry jobs, fulfilling their desires? What has living for you ever gotten me? A job where I enter data all day? A life of singleness, not even a freaking date? All i have ever wanted are good things: a job where I can be who you created me to be and a husband to walk beside. What have I done to make you withhold things from me and what can I do so that you will love me the way you love those people?"
Sick, huh? It is so hard to admit that, even to myself. That attitude has the stench of death all over it. And all I am actually entitled to is death. God owes me nothing. The only reason I get to be a part of what He is doing, even in a part I don't enjoy like data entry, is because of His grace. The only reason I got to go to India? Grace. The only reason I have a guitar to play or for that matter fingers to play it with? Grace. A house? Grace. A voice to speak? Grace. He owes me nothing. No. Thing. And so I am learning. Learning how to be honest about my desires without turning them into demands. I am learning to weep over my pride. I don't think I have ever been so broken over my sin. God has been humbling me so much. It's good and it's hard and it's heartbreaking.
And now, He is bring another issue to light. And that is my self-protective tendencies. See, I am an idealist. What I mean by that is that I see in scripture how things should be and I think that they should actually be that way. But, the truth is people are broken and so things are not as they should be. But, I have a hard time accepting that. So, instead of moving toward the brokenness with grace and faith that god is bigger than it, I put up a wall and come up with a reason why I can't walk that direction at all. That is probably very convoluted but I just don't have the freedom to go into detail on this one. This is one for me and the Lord and some sweet girlfriends that will help me as I walk through the Lord undoing these things in me.
So, the Lord is getting to work on me. And my work in it is to believe. Believe that He does love me just as much as He loves the next guy. Believe that He does have plans to use me by His grace. Believe that He isn't withholding things from me as a punishment. Believe that He has already given me everything. That He can give me new vision to see correctly the gap between how things are and how they should be. That He is bigger than the gap. And that, by His hand, things really can be closer to what they should be than I have seen them be before.
And when I said I'd rather not deal with these things, what I meant was that I want to just be better. Kind of like how none of us want to exercise, we just want to be skinny. But it doesn't work that way. I won't wake up tomorrow and be over feeling entitled and over comparing my relationship with God to others. I won't suddenly be ok with risking my heart on things that could be but might not be what they should be. Tonight, Tammie Head said the sweetest deliverance happens slowly. It takes time. But when that last step out of bondage comes, it will be so sweet.
I hope some of this resonates with you. I hope that you are seeing God move toward you in your brokenness. He is good to not allow us to continue on in our pride and our false securities. Brothers and sisters, we are loved. Believe.
Happy Journey!
Erin
Things are about to get really honest and really messy. So, turn back now or enter with grace please.
See, my heart is heavy. There has been a lot happening in my world lately and through it, God is bringing to light a thousand things in me that I'd rather not deal with. First it was my entitlement issues. I am the most "oldest brother" child of God ever. I compare my story to others constantly. And most of the time it leads to a place of, "I have done all I know to do to walk with you since I was 12 years old, and really, even before then. Sure I've made mistakes but I've never left. Even when I wanted to never see you again, I sucked it up, got over it, and kept serving you. So why does that person who has only been living for you for 3 years, who before those 3 years was spitting in your face...or that person over there who used to live for you but ran from you, took what you gave and spent it on themselves, and now is back...why are you blessing their ministries, giving them dream ministry jobs, fulfilling their desires? What has living for you ever gotten me? A job where I enter data all day? A life of singleness, not even a freaking date? All i have ever wanted are good things: a job where I can be who you created me to be and a husband to walk beside. What have I done to make you withhold things from me and what can I do so that you will love me the way you love those people?"
Sick, huh? It is so hard to admit that, even to myself. That attitude has the stench of death all over it. And all I am actually entitled to is death. God owes me nothing. The only reason I get to be a part of what He is doing, even in a part I don't enjoy like data entry, is because of His grace. The only reason I got to go to India? Grace. The only reason I have a guitar to play or for that matter fingers to play it with? Grace. A house? Grace. A voice to speak? Grace. He owes me nothing. No. Thing. And so I am learning. Learning how to be honest about my desires without turning them into demands. I am learning to weep over my pride. I don't think I have ever been so broken over my sin. God has been humbling me so much. It's good and it's hard and it's heartbreaking.
And now, He is bring another issue to light. And that is my self-protective tendencies. See, I am an idealist. What I mean by that is that I see in scripture how things should be and I think that they should actually be that way. But, the truth is people are broken and so things are not as they should be. But, I have a hard time accepting that. So, instead of moving toward the brokenness with grace and faith that god is bigger than it, I put up a wall and come up with a reason why I can't walk that direction at all. That is probably very convoluted but I just don't have the freedom to go into detail on this one. This is one for me and the Lord and some sweet girlfriends that will help me as I walk through the Lord undoing these things in me.
So, the Lord is getting to work on me. And my work in it is to believe. Believe that He does love me just as much as He loves the next guy. Believe that He does have plans to use me by His grace. Believe that He isn't withholding things from me as a punishment. Believe that He has already given me everything. That He can give me new vision to see correctly the gap between how things are and how they should be. That He is bigger than the gap. And that, by His hand, things really can be closer to what they should be than I have seen them be before.
And when I said I'd rather not deal with these things, what I meant was that I want to just be better. Kind of like how none of us want to exercise, we just want to be skinny. But it doesn't work that way. I won't wake up tomorrow and be over feeling entitled and over comparing my relationship with God to others. I won't suddenly be ok with risking my heart on things that could be but might not be what they should be. Tonight, Tammie Head said the sweetest deliverance happens slowly. It takes time. But when that last step out of bondage comes, it will be so sweet.
I hope some of this resonates with you. I hope that you are seeing God move toward you in your brokenness. He is good to not allow us to continue on in our pride and our false securities. Brothers and sisters, we are loved. Believe.
Happy Journey!
Erin
1 comments:
I know that so often I'm too busy watching what He's doing in others' lives...that I completely miss what He's doing in mine....and what He WANTS to be doing in mine, if I'd only pay attention. But I compare myself all. the. time. I ask WAY too many why not me's? why her's? and when is it MY turn's? And I hate that.
The past few weeks have been so hard for me in this, so I've been praying something so specific: Lord, show me one thing...every day...that's just mine. Something You did just for me.
And that's kind of selfish...and He knows that...and I know that :/ but He's still doing it. AND it's got my eyes OFF of others and on His work in my own life....proof He can use my selfish, whiney motives for His own glory ;)
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