Sometimes I become tired. Sometimes life seems hopeless, but most of all, sometimes I seem hopeless. I fall short of what I should be, of what I could easily be if I could merely muster the resolve. There is so much I ought to do. If I could just change, if I could just be struck with lightening from God and become perfect.
And yet, somehow, I find myself lacking. It is a rather depressing thing. And at the moment, I’m tired and looking at life rather blankly, if not bleakly. I find within myself a battle always raging, a war going on. I have not the peace of God within my heart, nor his light in my eyes. And that makes me sad, especially when I interact with people who do have such things. I wish I could be better. I wish I could just win the war and unify my spirit, my body: my soul.
I have a lot of emotions from a pretty wide spread of things tearing my heart and mind in different directions. Lots of little things and a few big things weigh now on my heart. And I really do feel inadequate. I feel inadequate for this thing called life. And then even the fact that I’m being rather emotional at the moment makes me even more sad. Tis a hard thing.
Of course, I can’t say that I haven’t grown and that I’m not growing. I haven’t lost my hope. But I don’t feel the joy. I don’t feel the peace. I can see them, and I do experience them now and again, but not continually. I think perhaps I’m slowly getting there. Very slowly. I really hope so. I know many things. I know of hope, love, joy, peace, compassion, mercy; I know of all these things and I embody them at times few and far between. And yet I am not them. And when I feel overwhelmed like I do now, I think I discover that the only thing left is to pray.
And God knows all too well I feel discouraged right now. And he knows I’m not what I should be. He sees all my flaws, better than anyone else does. Yeah, scary thought. But what’s truly amazing is that he loves me. And I guess I realize more and more that the core of my hope and belief is love. I mean… I know everyone says this all the time, but isn’t it unfathomable that God loves us? That God loves the world? That God loves… me?
Something Andrew Lazzo said really stuck with me. He said that D.L. Moody once said that he wanted to be known for and by his love for God. But then Andrew said, I want to be known as someone who is known for being loved of God. That really stuck in my heart. Not for me and my love of God, but as an object of God’s great and terrible love. One day I hope people can look at me and see me as the beloved child of God. I hope they can see that I love him back, but I hope that my definition is someday the beloved of God.
Father, may your will be done upon earth as it is in heaven. Watch over your children this night, grant us your rest. As we lie down to sleep, breathe your blessing upon our dreams. Strengthen our hands and our minds, let us partake of the body and blood of our Lord so that we may have life. In this manner give us our daily spiritual bread. Cleanse our hearts and clean our hands so that we might ascend your holy hill. Pour your blessing and bestow your blessed favor to your Church.
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Persisting to sin is something I know all too well, brother. We only love because God first loved us; since we are quite obviously unlovable we should work towards making ourselves lovable. I will be praying for you, man.
Thanks my friend.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with being emotional. I am emotional all the time, and maybe this is just a girl thing but hey. God answers through the crying and through all the emotion. It is just who He is and it is always a comfort to me that when I finally stop being selfish and arrogant and I realize that *He* and only *He* can save me, He is always right there by my side. NO MATTER WHAT!
Second, you already are a Child of God. You are His Beloved, even when you do not feel like it. I have definitely felt that way too, and call me inexperienced and still a child but I know God’s love for me and that I love Him too, though I could never love Him as much as He loves me.
A little while ago I felt like I was building things up. That all I felt was stress, even about Scripture and my faith! I felt like I needed to stress about ever conversation being about Him and converting the world and all that stuff. Now I am not saying there is not a place for all of that and I do not know fully where you are at right now.
The thing was that I had to realize that God has already made me a new creation, whether we like it or not. We are no longer stuck in the spirit of sin, we only still do it because it surrounds us and we are used to it. I think of it as a foundation, kind of like the shack on a rock parable. When we become Christians, Christ lays us a new foundation one that embodies the fruits of the spirit, but when things go bad we start building up stress and worry and all this bad stuff on top of our nice, clean foundation. By building up we are ruining the beauty of what is already there. What we have to do is strip the building off the foundation and get back to what God has already founded in our hearts.
Obviously there is room for building good faith, it is a tricky balance, as life often is, and I think that is why Jesus said stay away from all extremes, yet do not be lukewarm. We cannot live a health faith out when it has been tarnished by our own beliefs before the ones God has founded us with. I do not accuse you, I hope this is a gracious “nudge,” if you will, in the right direction. I hope this helps. I speak from experience in my own life, and it has not proved to be wrong since. If it is God will correct me. I am praying for you.
In the great words of Dory from Finding Nemo: “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. ”
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” (A light to see where you stand, and a light to see where you will go.)
Sorry that was a book.
No wonder my teacher gave a 97 on my English essay final. Such is the life of a writer. 
Around Easter, I was feeling an awful lot of that. One thing my RUF pastor, Sid Druen (You’ld love him, by the way.) said was this: God says of EACH OF US “This is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased” ….”wait, isn’t that what he said of Jesus? I’m nowhere close to Jesus.” To which Sid replied “Yes…but you’re covered in Jesus’ blood. God looks at you and sees the perfection of Christ”
That stuck with me hard, and I thought I would share.
Love you.
You have often said that I think your better than you are. Well, I think you have the opposite problem. I think you think yourself worse than you really are.
Hudson Taylor was a troubled man always trying to get more faith and falling short.” . . . . I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength. Sometimes I almost believed that He wold keep and uphold me; but on looking back in the evening––alas! There was but sin and failure to confess and mourn before God.”
Then, a friend of his sent him a letter which changed his life. His friend told him that faithfulness was about looking to the faithful one, not about always trying to do better. “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.”
After this, Hudson Taylor was a joyful Christian. He said he was no better than he was before, and he didn’t really want to be anymore. “And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! . . . I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ––ay, and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and “the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
But his was the exchanged life from then on.
I think peace will come to you, but it will just take time. Sometimes, we need something that we don’t even know we need to set everything right in our hearts. It can take a friend to listen and care. It can just take time to heal a wound. It can take a bit of agony. It can just take love.
My the peace which passes all understand keep you heart and mind through Christ Jesus.
Love and prayers!
LOL……you have so many what if, I say focus on WHAT IS!! Be whom you are, and continue to let the course of life explore you. But open your heart to hear the words GOD’S angels speaks to you, but don’t be afraid to agree!!