One day at a time

The sanity prayer:

God grant me the sanity to recognize the things I cannot change, the sanity to change the things that I can, and the sanity to know the difference. (no disrespect intended to the serenity prayer.)

I have a confession to make: I am waiting for life to get easy.  I am waiting, to reach that place where the right choices come naturally, and with minimal heartache, and I can truly know that I have "got it".  I didn't recognize how insidious this was until just recently.  I realized it was insidious, because I was subconsciously trying to make it happen now. 

It begins to happen very slowly, over time and through dissapointments as you begin to adjust your response to your expectations.  "this shouldn't be so hard" you begin to think "I already learned this lesson."  And then your response begins to shape your expectations! 

My expectations need to be shaped by the reality of God and my relationship with him.

The book of James, toward the latter part of the New Testament, tells me that I will have "got it" when my endurance is complete.  This is just the opposite of waiting for life to get easier.  This seems to indicate that the better my attitude toward suffering is, the more complete I am.  Well, I checked several other versions and it appears that this is not a misprint.  

I am alluding to recent experiences, however shameful, that were necessary to root out some dysfunction that was laid deep in my foundation.   I had failed to develop a 'consistent' habit of drawing on God for emotional strength; so, while the spiritual ups and down had smoothed out and I was drawing on God regularly, when the major identity Crisis hit last spring (Perhaps this will be the subject of a later entry, perhaps not)) I had failed to develop that habit of daily strengthening myself.  This gave a way for the humanistic self-centered philosophies about mental health that I am daily saturated in to become imbalanced against the word of God, and begin to erode the carefully laid foundations in my thinking. 

My confession is this, I am human and I need the mystery of Christ in me.  I find that I am constantly warring with my inner thought life and trying to keep it from leaking out of my mouth.  However, I have faith that God will restore quickly what has been lost, if I continue to be faithful in prayer and reading the scripture.  The desire for righteousness remains; however, and now the will must once again be bent to it.

 

   

It has been a long week and this has been a hard bit to write.  To my two dedicated followers I am commited to blogging at least once a week on this spiritual Journey.  This was last weeks so look for something mid week.  Thanks for reading.