Not my Own

Take a picture of this life, take a few, heck, make a pretty scrap book. Now, add the story. Tell me the past, the present, and the probable future of those people. Will you be right? Or will you be totally off? Totally wrong?

If those photos were of my life I don't think there would be an answer, a proper reading of this life. Because there is all that 'out there', and then there is all this, 'in here'. I'm not living a double life, duh. But I am living something dual. And it ain't super fun. There are moments of pure joy that, in those moments, I would not trade for any kind of normalcy or predictability. But, there are also other moments.

I hate my brain. I hate that I cannot turn it over to God and let Him control me absolutely. I hate that I have to try.

Here we are, in this crap-hole of sinful existence, with sin all around us, over and through us. A million hands of sin, always reaching and trying to subvert what Christ has accomplished. I should be able to slap those long fingers of sin away with a simple swat, a simple piece of the Word that will shut it down, no problems.

And, I do that. I can do that. Rather, I can allow God's strength to overcome my own weakness, and I get over myself.

But, every once in a while, I feel like I am too exhausted, too engulfed in the realization that I am coming up so short of the Glory that God deserves heaped upon Him- so, so, so short. So disappointing, so miniscule in light of Him. That He chooses to use me, that's pretty much a terrible, sad joke.

Usually, when I feel God pushing me more than usual, I also feel a pull from 'somewhere' else. The bad pull. Lately, the push and pull is such that...I don't want to move. I can't move. If I don't move, I won't screw up. But if I don't move, I don't do what God has planned for me in advance. Standing on the edge of myself- either take a fall, or let God lift me. Or, stay where I am and peer over. What a wimp.

The reality is that I am not running things. I do not have control over my life. Either I let God, or I let sin. There is no middle. Right now, that is killing me. Killing me. Killing me. I'd say I should just sleep through it all- but that would be letting sin. To ignore God? Yeah. That's not morally gray- that's pretty clear. I'll wind up inside a whale.

My prophet-buddy Ezekiel:
14-15 The Spirit lifted me and took me away. I went bitterly and angrily. I didn't want to go. But God had me in his grip. I arrived among the exiles who lived near the Kebar River at Tel Aviv. I came to where they were living and sat there for seven days, appalled.
16 At the end of the seven days, I received this Message from God:
17-19 "Son of man, I've made you a watchman for the family of Israel. Whenever you hear me say something, warn them for me. If I say to the wicked, 'You are going to die,' and you don't sound the alarm warning them that it's a matter of life or death, they will die and it will be your fault. I'll hold you responsible. But if you warn the wicked and they keep right on sinning anyway, they'll most certainly die for their sin, but you won't die. You'll have saved your life.
20-21 "And if the righteous turn back from living righteously and take up with evil when I step in and put them in a hard place, they'll die. If you haven't warned them, they'll die because of their sins, and none of the right things they've done will count for anything—and I'll hold you responsible. But if you warn these righteous people not to sin and they listen to you, they'll live because they took the warning—and again, you'll have saved your life."


You see that line I made huge and dark and italic? : The Spirit lifted me and took me away. I went bitterly and angrily. I didn't want to go. But God had me in his grip. THAT is every day for me, sometimes. I do not want to go. I'm a grumpy prophet. Grumpy grumpy grumpy.

But that is what goes on in my head, and every so often, peeks out into this fleshly existence. And then I'm seen as a bi-polar crazy person who should be committed or put on mind-altering psychotropic drugs. Depressed. You can't cure spiritual warfare with a pill. If you could...would I be first in line to take it? Maybe some days.

Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. And that is Truth. When it doesn't feel that way- that is my fault, not His. I just need my heart to catch up with my head, sometimes.