Sometimes I feel that life, my faith, the walk I have with Christ, Christianity in general (if you will) is a vicious cycle. It's a cycle of ups-and-downs, of running from and running to, of falling and getting back up. I feel so many times that it is easier to fall and stay down than to get back up and keep "fighting the good fight." I was talking last week with a good friend about how it is so easy to feel defeated; how the enemy beats us down and holds us to the floor and it is so easy for us to think "Forget you God...your way is too hard...I'm doing this on my own!" And, honestly, the last few weeks I have felt like that. It's a combination of being overwhelmed by struggle and commitments, being frustrated with my poor health and not knowing what is causing it, and just being down right sick of God and his "plan." It has been so easy for me to find comfort in other things that are temporary and not really comforting. It is so easy to run away from God for a little bit and find peace and happiness in life's "crap," but in the end you still feel beaten, defeated, and can never really find the happiness we can find in Christ. It's a funny thing isn't it?

As I was talking with this friend last week we talked about how we have to be intentional in our faith. We have to do things on purpose and with purpose to "keep the faith." We have to have a plan and we have to work to follow that plan. And we just have to live with purpose! We have to be open and honest with other brothers and sisters. We have to love like there is no tomorrow. We have to be true and genuine and work with others to advance and improve and grow.

I guess I have just gotten really sick of letting my struggles define me. Of letting what I struggle against and fight with make me who I am. I am tired of feeling like I have to be perfect and have to not fall, and feeling that every time I screw up that I have to restart my whole faith journey. Isn't is simply astonishing how the devil makes us feel that when we screw up we have lost forever? That everything we have done and are doing and plan to do for the Lord is completely negated by messing up with sin? Not that sin is ok and that we should just simply disregard it, but I think that we, or at least I, have to realize that my sin doesn't define me! I am the child of a living God. I am a prince, I have my name written in the Lamb's book of life, I am surrounded by angels that protect me and pick me up when I fall, I am prayed for by the saints gathered around the throne, I have been saved, redeemed, and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth! How amazing is that?!?! I have nothing to fear! At the sound of the name of Jesus demons flee! I have been given power through the spirit to do great things! HA! Booyah satan...you have NO power in my life! So you might as well just get up off of me and keep going your merry way, because "you can't touch this!" It's always nice to give the enemy a little kick in the face, isn't it?

Well...that's refreshing.

:-)

Labels: fight, genuine, God, growth, purpose, refreshing, sin, struggling