HELP.
You know, often I hear people saying stuff like “thank you for encouraging me” and “I love to read what you write, it really hits home” and to be honest with you all - sometimes I just don’t get it. I’ve always felt I learned very well from my mistakes, and it would be true that I write well from my mistakes. I don’t want to say “the problem with,” but I can’t avoid it, the problem is sometimes I just wonder if I’m acting this all out.
I mean, it takes courage and strength that I just don’t have sometimes, and it takes discipleship that I think I even avoid at times. I’m serious, sometimes I know exactly which direction to go and exactly how to get there but I just won’t do it! Does that not just strike you as absurd!? I’m not attempting anything here except honesty, I figure, it’s high time I stop running from the truth and just be honest about everything that I can be.
I wouldn’t classify myself as a liar (not so much anymore) especially in certain years when I’ve been so honest sometimes it haunts me; although I still agree it’s the best policy. Look, I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, and no I really don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into but I’m in it and I’m sticking with it. Right now, there’s no Plan B, God has got me where he wants me and at times it seems like I’d prefer to have nothing to do with him. But then his sweet grace finds me, at 3a.m. and he seeks me as if I deserve it or something. This is the thing about God, if he is there (which I assure you, I ask him sometimes, ironic right?) and I believe he is, why would he want anything to do with me?
What you may not know about me is, I’m not a virgin.
What you also don’t know about me is, I beat myself up.
You might not also know that sometimes I smoke (gasp.)
And those are just some things I’m willing to throw out into the open, the idea is, I’M NOT PERFECT! The most ridiculous thing is, I judge myself so harshly, and that in turn makes me judge others in a way I really have no desire to. I’m no better than anyone else, so why ever act as though I am?
You might be wondering, “why is he saying all this?” and the answer is, we should all stop running. As a christian, a Jesus-Follower, a man who wants so badly to live with integrity and resemble his saviour I believe we’ve got to stop running from the things that we are so afraid to let out. Oh you can run, but you can’t hide, and you shouldn’t have to. I am weary, and I need rest, but I need HELP more than anything because I can’t do this alone. Nothing I do am I capable of doing alone, and I’d be damned if I thought I could most likely. It’s not about the pretty face, the fake smile, the properly groomed exterior and sweet digs we’re wearing, we need to try to find the heart.
Some wonderful people have dug up mine, and I wouldn’t trade the difficult excavation for anything this world could offer. Stop being afraid of what people might think and be honest, the church needs to lend an ear before they slap the hand and I’m here to do so. I’m not condoning sin, but I am condoning imperfection because even a perfect Jesus knew that we would all fall short of the Glory of God. He knows, he walked in flesh, he’s felt abandoned and betrayed; “the son of man has no place to rest his head.”
Child, be just that, be a child again. There’s no one to impress, you may fall but you will get back up, and you need help. This is just as much a pick me up for you as it is for me, because I’m really struggling with some things that I just can’t seem to beat. For over a decade some of these things have had their way with me, but my God is bigger than any past failure and if I just believe and WORK then I can overcome. A beautiful revelation in my life happened recently when listening to an IHOP sermon and the sermon was regarding lust, and the excerpt that hit home to me was “God cannot do your part, and you cannot do His.” Don’t ask God for the absence of something, rather ask Him for the strength to overcome whatever it is that may be.
”Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” Matthew 11:28
