I have a lot of thoughts and opinions pent up inside of late.

It seems like this grace stuff has messed me up. I'm not sure where I stand on the whole "identity" issue... I never really cared much for the identity thing, honestly.

If I renounce my faith in Christ, then I'm not saved. I hear a lot of people in this identity movement saying it doesn't matter if you deny him or not, you still have the identity as a child of God-- bull shit. The requirement for salvation is to persevere in the faith. It's not a one-time deal, It's an ongoing process. "The one who endures to the end will be saved."

And this whole self-righteous attitude of the identity crowd toward the legalistic crowd (ironic, isn't it?) is extremely irritating to me. I daresay a legalist is saved, though he doesn't fully understand God's once-for-all forgiveness.

But as far as a universalist, or someone who abandons all sound doctrine because he believes grace covers him... that person is out of their mind. Paul never says that a person has the freedom to believe heresy. Never. That person is free from the demands of the law, but he or she is not free to believe another gospel or whatever the hell they decide to conjure up with their own imagination.

I don't mind atheists or agnostics or pagans who spout bull shit. I can befriend them and enjoy their company even though they poke fun at my beliefs; I expect it from them-- but not from believers who know the Scriptures.

Grace does NOT give you the freedom to embrace heresy and still maintain your 'identity'. No where is that in the Scripture. God requires obedience, and that of faith. I'm laying no burden on anyone here. I'm simply entreating them to come under God's kindness through trust in Jesus Christ alone. I'm not spreading hate or disunity. Disunity is spread by those who willingly preach lies. Am I a someone who causes disunity because I speak the truth?

I've had enough. I think I'd rather go back to hanging out with the "legalistic" crowd.

I thought grace made things better, not worse.

I'm falling apart, really. I feel unstable and out of control of my tongue and my behavior.

I find myself repeatedly asking God and myself "What's happening to me?"

I'm so angry all the time now. I complain and I gossip. I lust and I hate.

I wonder... Where is God? Why doesn't he come pouring into my thoughts and emotions like that first day? I need something to strengthen me and renew me, but it seems like I'm waiting for something that may never come in this life.

I thought when I understood grace and believed it that things would get better, but I see myself getting worse.

It's sort of like I've totally ran out of energy to serve and to obey. I'm devoid of strength and will. I've lost the will to hold back the flood of selfishness and anger.

I'm just tired. I need to rest. I need a fresh revelation; a fresh experience of God.

I can't allow myself to be disregarded by God anymore. I need him to love me and care for my feelings, and to stay with me through them, no matter how negative they may be.

I really hurt.

Done

It is such a relief to just relax and to stop trying to make God pleased with me. I don't intend to do anything right now. If something happens, well and good, but if not, that's fine with me.

If I do anything, I want it to be joyful service to the one I love and not contrived.

I am absolutely done with refusing God's grace.

If nothing ever changes in my behavior, still I will hope in his grace and trust in it to work a good work in me.

I am resolved to be myself and to shed all pretense for the sake of gaining Christ's righteousness. I'll gladly give up any super holy image in order to be clothed with his holiness.

Being a "Good" Christian

My Christian life feels so strange now. It feels like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. These past 3 years of understanding and believing in the grace of God have totally destroyed an old, faulty, legalistic Christian paradigm and replaced it with a completely new paradigm centered around faith, hope and love.

No longer am I concerned with Christian niceties or making sure that my life revolves around endless sermons on behavior change.

Now, contrary to popular understanding, I believe you can be a liberal democrat and be a Christian.

I believe you can have the world's worst potty mouth and be a sincere follower of Christ.

I believe you can struggle with drug addictions, alcohol addictions, you name it, and still be a committed follower of Christ.

I believe you can listen to the crudest music you want and yet be a genuine lover of Christ.

I believe you can be a filthy, messy, screwed up, dumb ass and yet be one of those that will receive great honor and glory upon the return of Christ.

Why do I believe such things now? Because I saw that I had nothing to offer God under the supervision of the law. I am fully assured I could never accomplish any feat of holiness or righteousness by what I do or do not do. I was a law man.

Now, I am a faith man. Since the law could not accomplish what I wanted it to accomplish in my life, and since God demands faith as the channel through which we are made supremely right with him by the finished work of Jesus Christ, I figured I would be the best faith-man he has ever seen. I'll be the dumbest, most outlandish, insane idiot with a reckless faith in God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I will believe in his goodness and grace toward me even if it means dying. What else do I have to offer God except faith? Nothing.

Faith is all that God requires of me and since faith is all that I have to give, I will gladly be ruthless with it. I'll stubbornly set my face toward Christ, the cross and the resurrection. Nothing else.

When the end comes, and I stand before God, he will say to me, "Well done, well done! You are exactly what I've been looking for: someone crazy enough to believe what I told them!"

The kingdom of God is not a place that shuts out everyone but the 'righteous'. The kingdom of God throws a huge feast, and invites anyone crazy enough to believe that they're allowed in.

I hurt.

I'm sick of minding my p's and q's.

I'm sick of all the subtle or implied laws of American Christianity.

I'm sick of feeling guilty over everything.

I'm sick of sermons on behavior.

I'm sick of 'Christian' music. 99% of it sounds stupid.

I'm sick of being nice.

I'm sick of being afraid of people.

I'm sick of caring what others will think of me.

I'm sick of Christians expecting certain behaviors of you that have nothing to do with faith, hope or love.

I'm sick of facades, airs, and pretenses.

I appreciate honesty, and I believe God does too.

My First Words...

as a new born babe in Christ.

These are posts I found from an old blog of mine that have posts which show my sudden transition to Christ.

I am very ashamed and surprised to read the older posts before I came to Christ. I was extremely vicious and full of hate for my family. It was very strange reading them.

Anyway, here is my first post after becoming a Christian:


February 25th, 2006

"I am asking everyone who reads this to accept Jesus Christ. He died for you..Can you not just accept his gift?

ANYONE with attempts at criticism or belittling will be subjected to me laughing at them. Save it for the judgment throne, will you?"


February 28th 2006

"It's a beautiful day today, and it will be the rest of the week. It's 68 degrees and it'll be getting into the upper 70s. It's funny, I used to hate spring/summer for the fact everything was alive again. But now, its one of the most awesome experiences, to watch everything start blossoming and growing again. Being filled up with the Holy Spirit is better than any drug or drink man can offer. I hope all of you who read this also open yourselves up to the Lord.



God bless."

Empowering Grace

After finding grace difficult to continue in after seeing some sins of mine come to the surface, I realized that grace is not the cause of sin, but it is the cure. God's power works through my faith in his gospel. His Word (the gospel) will accomplish the purpose for which he sent it.

I still have to meditate on and begin to allow the grace of God to work into me every good work God has purposed for me. If I am to accomplish any feat of holiness or piety, it must be from the power that God provides, and that through his gospel.

"The gospel is the power of God to salvation for all who believe."

Washed Clean

It's such a relief to let go of all my rules such as not allowing myself to listen to certain songs from certain bands. I guess it was necessary for a season. With a lot of that music, the stain of who I used to be still clung to it in my memories and made me sick to my stomach. I absolutely despise that person I was before Christ.

That life was meaningless and without hope or purpose. I hated God and man. Day in and day out I lived out my life in envy, vanity, self pity and hatred.

Today I realize Christ has redeemed me and has washed away my sins. The music is clean for me now.

I was just thinking about the man I so desire myself to be. I have seen Christ in this way in other men and I want it to be seen in myself.

In some men, one of whom leads our Tuesday night Bible study, there is a loving strength from Christ in them. It's as though Jesus himself is touching you when you see these strong hands leaning over to lay hands on you and pray for you. There is something about that that gives me great comfort, peace and security.

I remember feeling this as a kid, not with my own father, but with a boyfriend of my mom's who I believe sincerely loved and cared for me. I remember on one occasion this man was carrying me up some high stairs in a building and I remember looking down to see how far up we were, and though I am scared of heights, I believed this man could hold me and keep me from falling no matter what happened.

I want to be a strong hand for those who need one. I want to be Jesus for those who can't see him. But when I look at who I want to be, it's like looking at a towering mountain I have to scale and I have nothing to do it with or any strength to even begin climbing.

I pray for strength from Jesus Christ.

I'm writing right now because I have a heavy heart that is longing for something, but I don't know what.

I've been having dreams about a particular person lately and it's probably the source of the longing and feeling of a desire that cannot be fulfilled. This person is an old friend of mine that I don't talk to anymore. I don't miss them at all, but I miss what we had. I miss being loved like that, which, looking back on it, seems so surreal now as though it were a very strange thing that someone should love me like that.

In these times when I desire something that, even if I were to attain it, it could not satisfy, it's then that I remember the scriptures that tell me I am not of this world; I belong somewhere else. And then I desire to leave and be in that place where I belong.

I hesitate to post this blog because this feels terribly personal.

A Time to Rest

Honestly, it's difficult for me to be in a lot of today's churches as I'm sure I've mentioned before. Even though I believe works and activity are of vital importance for the Christian, I also think churches have too much of a fascination with works and activity. Some seem to be drifting asleep, subtly implying that works have some role to play in our salvation or in our experience of grace.

I think the church's unhealthy infatuation with works is going to be harmful to it. I think some people are getting wise to it and are looking for something else; something that will give them that original 'fire'. I think they realize they're becoming too preoccupied with doing that they forget Jesus.

Our works must rest on a solid foundation of rest in Christ's salvation. Until we come to a place of rest, we can do no work. I think leaders of most churches often neglect to stress the importance of having a sure foundation. They are indeed quick to say "faith in Christ produces good works" but they skip rest in Christ and move straight on to working. This is a serious mistake. One needs their roots to grow down into Christ and grasp a firm grip on his grace or else they will forever be in limbo.

We can't mature Christians at our pace, but we must let them first come to rest in Christ and allow the Spirit to work into them that which is pleasing in his sight. We forget to do as the apostles did when they, "waited for power from on high".

In an Old Covenant law, it was forbidden a man to leave his wife for war during their first year of marriage. They needed time together to enjoy each other and celebrate their union. The time would come for the man to battle and sweat, but it was not immediately. He needed a time to establish a solid relationship of love with his bride.

So it is with Christ and his bride.

He Seeks Our Glory

The road really is narrow.

Jesus is the only way and it's such a difficult thing to keep your mind set on what truth is and to live in the light of that truth.

I don't want to be a coward or a people pleaser. I despise the idea of me acting the hypocrite and behaving a certain way just to please others or to keep from being criticized or made fun of. In the past I have been accused of acting 'holier than thou'. Just because I make the decision to submit myself to Christ does not make me 'holier than thou', but if you feel guilty because I choose to submit to him, that's your problem. I don't mean to condemn anyone. The message I preach is one of grace and of judging no one.

Jesus judged no one while on this earth but he entrusted himself to God. He came in humility, knowing that the Most High would exalt him in due time and would make those who condemned him or spoke evil against him bow the knee before him on the Day when God will judge the world.

Press on. Entrust yourself to God. He will exalt you in due time and raise you above every thing you're momentarily suffering. Things aren't really what they seem to be.

"Keep your head way up in the clouds, and never let them get you down."

Fear God?

I feel like I'm caught between two worlds. I can't go back to legalism and I don't know how to move forward in the light of grace.

Believe me when I say I have tried to go back to fear. I have tried to be as afraid and anxious as I used to be, but since I have trusted in grace, I'm ruined. I can't get that fear back. But now I find myself in a position that I'm not sure is any better than legalism. I find myself in sins I never dealt with while living under constant worry and anxiety.

I don't want legalism, but neither do I want licentiousness. Grace isn't licentiousness, but I find it harder (yes, harder) to say no to sin now that I know my sins are taken away forever by one sacrifice and that I'm no longer under the law.

I feel like I've been duped. I thought when I began to live in grace, it would be easier to say no to sin. Paul said, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." Yet I find myself more prone to make the decision to sin rather than to obey and I hate it. I almost hate the freedom from fear that I have. I depended on the fear that I might be an insincere Christian to keep me from sinning.

Yet, I do understand there is to be a certain fear of God. Paul says, though I don't understand what he means, that all of us will stand before Him and receive back for what we have done, whether good or bad. "Therefore, knowing the terror of the Lord..." Those are exact words from Paul in the Bible.

Ought I not to fear God? I wouldn't say constant anxiety is what we need, but I believe in a healthy fear of God. The scripture talks about it often. Such as when fear fell on the church when Ananias and Sapphira died after lying to the Holy Spirit; so fear is not a bad thing I don't think.

But how do I get myself to fear God enough not to make the choice to disobey him?

Well, that's what I'm setting out to discover...

This evening is the evening I go to set up my class schedule. I'm praying this works out so that I can begin school without too much hassle and stress.

My FAFSA will take 2 more weeks to complete and I have until the 12th, two days from now, to get financial aid or they expect me to pay a certain amount up front for my classes. So I'm really hoping God will work this all out for me and I'm setting my thoughts on him to keep from being too worried about it. I need to start school ASAP. I've put it off for too long out of indecision as to which direction I should take in a career path.

I was listening to the Bible earlier in Luke and came to a place where it was said Jesus continued all night in prayer to God.

Prayer is essential for us. Prayer is my place of refuge from the stresses and worries of daily life. It gives me a clear head and helps me to refocus my eyes on the Lord. Jesus is the king, the president, congress, whatever. He has ultimate power in what goes on in this world. The government rests on His shoulders.

Sometimes I feel so pressured and weak. Vulnerable. Like this world is just too big for me.

I want to be good, but I just can't. I'm such a contradiction and I try to do good, but it seems like nothing I do makes a difference and that I'm always straining out gnats while swallowing a camel.

I haven't been as zealous looking for a job or following up on applications because I'm nervous about working a cash register, but I know I need to just suck it up and do it anyway and that if I get a job with a cash register, eventually I'll get used to it. But I'm just so tired of stepping outside of my comfort zones. It seems like I've constantly pushed myself the past 4 years to do stuff I didn't want to do and I'm tired. I just want to lie down and rest sometimes.

I want to be the man God wants me to be, bold and strong. But I'm not.

I know Jesus said when we know the truth, it will set us free, but I don't feel free. It seems like I'm getting worse rather than better since I began listening to the "Exchanged Life" teachings.

I want to start school, but it's being delayed and it may not work out. It has to work out. I have to start pursuing a career now. I'm almost 24 years old and have never even held a job because I foolishly took a job that was too much. No one will hire me and I keep trying to find jobs I'll be relatively comfortable doing instead of being bold and applying anywhere.

I'm scared of working at fast food restaurants because of the fast-paced, multi-tasking. I'm not very good at it.

He Chose...

I was thinking about the salvation we have in Christ while mopping the floor of our kitchen today and realized how insane God's unearned love is.

God created man for himself, and man disobeyed God, choosing to live apart from him. And so all men died and were thenceforth evil men, hating God and hating good.

But God, in His grace, decided that He would choose a people out of the world, for himself to shower his mercy and grace on, which would stand in stark contrast to his wrath reserved for the vessels of his wrath.

He didn't have to save any of us. He could have wiped us out and been done with it, but he chose to put on a body, live here for 33 years, and endure the torture and execution of a cross.

It made me think that love doesn't need a reason to love. Should love need a reason, it would cease to be love. God loves us simply because he chose to. It wasn't for who we were that he chose to set his love on us; it was his choice to do so.

He chose to love.

Paul Washer "I don't understand election."

I post this video not because I agree with everything Paul Washer says, because there are things I highly disagree with, such as what he says concerning being born again before faith in Christ. I believe faith in Christ must precede spiritual re-birth. We receive the gift by faith even though that faith itself is a gift.

Anyway, I just think it's good hearing him explain man's total depravity, because it's easy, being born in this world, to think men aren't really that bad.

According to the Grace Given...

I've haven't been doing anything the past two days except playing on my new laptop.

But I have wanted to start up my blog again and see if I can help rekindle the blogging community a little. I realize Facebook is helping a lot of people learn about grace, but with Facebook, there are so many people that it is difficult to get to know people and there are so many different opinions out there and people who do not know you, who are not going to be very gracious should they dislike something you say.

I am in a hard place at the moment, as you can see with a few of my more recent posts. I seem to have went back on grace, which isn't necessarily true. I have learned a lot from people like Steve McVey, Malcolm Smith and others. But, that being said, I do think there are truths and things about God that some people within the 'grace community' tend to overlook.

I am really sick of listening to people teach the Bible. Not that it's wrong to teach, but I myself have heard just about everything there is to hear and I've had a belly full. I want to begin to learn from the Scriptures myself and to learn directly from God.

In the 'grace community' there is a fear that someone may lay commandments of do's and don't's on them. Yet I see Jesus in the Scriptures giving commandments to His disciples.

In dealing with the Christians who tend to be more works-oriented, I simply get sick to my stomach when I hear people tell me what to do. I'm fine hearing it from Jesus, but hearing men tell me what to do makes me lash out irrationally (I pulled that line from the film "Santa Clause" with Tim Allen). Well, maybe I don't lash out irrationally, but I definitely don't like hearing men tell me to do what they think I ought to do.

The yoke of men tends to be heavy and hard, whereas when Jesus commands me to do something, He gives me the ability to do it. The Scripture says that His commandments are not burdensome. Paul says that in Christ, we overwhelmingly conquer because grace is given to each of us to do what God would have us do while on this earth.

Election

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all children of Abraham are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son." And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad - in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call - she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

When you are born spiritually dead, you are just that. Spiritually dead.

You cannot accomplish any feat of spirituality. Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." and "You did not choose me, but I chose you." I cannot even repent and believe of my own accord. It is all a work of grace by God.

So then, the natural question would be, "If it's all up to God, why doesn't He just save everyone?" That was the question I asked when I first heard about election and I found absolutely no solace in the answer I received from Scripture...

"What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"

Another answer from which there is no comfort for me...

"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to it's molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory..."

But reading this, you would think God is cruel and doesn't allow someone to be saved who wants to be saved. But if you go back to the case of Pharaoh, Pharaohs heart was hardened and if you had said to him, "The reason you are not letting the Hebrews out of their slavery is because the God of the Hebrews has made it so." He would have said: "No. I am Pharaoh. I am sovereign and am doing what I want to do, so I have free will." And he would be right in saying he has free will, but he is only exercising the will that God gave him.

Look throughout the Old Testament and see the real-life stories that are symbols and shadows of Christ and tell me that God did not orchestrate all those events by working through human's wills.

UB40 - Swing Low Sweet Chariot

Matisyahu - Jerusalem (Out Of Darkness Comes Light)

"I fell at His feet as a dead man."

I want to go back to the time when I constantly spoke with God and sought for him, whether out of fear or obligation, to me, it's irrelevant. but I want so much to go back to the first year I was a believer, anxious and afraid though I was, I miss those special times when I was outside at night all by myself, praying, gazing at the stars, trembling before such a beautiful, terrible God.

The God I met at the first was a God with a violent passion against sin, so much so that he poured out his wrath against disobedience and wrongdoing on his own Son. The God with the apparent conflicted feelings of wrath and love. Wrath for the sin, love for the sinner.

I want to stand before the one true God, not a God I have made up in my own mind by my own theology. Who am I to think I can understand him and his ways? Why does God choose to save some and not others? I don't know! He doesn't give me an answer. He simply replies through His servant Paul, "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?' "

I can't say I understand this God at all. Nor can I say He doesn't frighten me. He does.

I want to worship the God I met in the beginning. The one before whom I stood in awe and fear of. I don't want to create a God in my own mind who looks at sin with the attitude of "boys will be boys". I want the God of the Bible; the God of Jesus Christ.

Renovating the Mind

For the past year I have been absolutely miserable. My Christianity seems a far cry from what it was the first year I became a believer, and I look back at that first year with n extreme longing for things to be the way they were before I committed myself to the message of the "Exchanged Life" or "Grace Walk". Though I believe I, myself, am to blame for my recent turmoil much more than the teachings I have been listening to the past two years.

I have seen things missing in the grace community, such as the exhortation for good works, renewing the mind with the words of God in the scriptures, constant prayer and vigilance and the need for endurance.

I have long since concluded, though I have been hesitant to speak boldly on it, that the idea that someone is once-saved-always-saved is a bit misleading. I agree to an extent, however, I do not agree that one may trust in Christ at a single moment in time and later, by persecution or what have you, renounce his faith in Christ and maintain his salvation. That is a lie.

The one who endures to the end will be saved.

The greek word for witness that is mentioned in Revelation is an interchangable word also meaning "martyr". One must never renounce his faith in His Savior and Lord; that would not be faith. Faith overcomes. Jesus said, "whoever loves his life loses it" and "whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple". A sincere faith requires sacrifice. Sacrificing this world for the next, and this life for the life of Christ.

I have sunk so low in the mire that God is now pulling me out of it by his power, giving me the desire to know truth from the scriptures. I've had it with books and what men tell me to do or not to do. By the grace and power of God, I will begin letting the Scriptures be my source for truth and the Holy Spirit as the revealer of truth.

I am sick of myself and others criticizing other Christians for petty differences. Jesus Christ DOES have commandments. He commands that we trust in Him and love each other just as He has loved us. This involves an act of the will on our part. We must be intentional in fanning into flame the gifts of God, keeping our minds rewnewed and encouraging one another on to love and good works. These things keep our heads way up the clouds where they ought to be.

I'm not so sure that one can be too heavenly minded and have no earthly use. If one's mind is constantly tuned into heaven, one has an easier time fighting temptation, submitting himself to Christ, and loving God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.

We must be active. It's vital to our Christianity and our relationship with Christ. We must press on doing good, not growing weary. Definitely not from a desire to earn our salvation, but to keep up the transformation process and to have endurance.

Update

As some of you know, I recently was re-hired back at West Marine, and, as some of you know, I was forced to quit a second time because of the damage it did to my leg, and due to the fact that I start college this August and I can't balance a full-time job with classes; especially waking up at 2:00 in the morning for work and working at least 11 hours a day.

I have a good friend, Ronnie, who is willing to let me do some intern work for his business, building websites. This will definitely help me out as I plan on taking classes for web programming this Fall.

I have an interview tomorrow with Dunkin Donuts that I'm hoping goes well. One reason being that I plan on getting a Macbook laptop, which I now have justification for buying since I am looking to make a career building webpages.

And please, don't try to give me any 'advice' on my career path or your bleak outlooks in starting a career in building websites. I'll delete your comments and pay no heed of them whatsoever. So leave me alone, smarty pants and allow me to learn for myself.

That's all for now. Ciao.

I feel lonely and angry.

I'm tired of being by myself all of the time. I'm tired of being dependent on people, not knowing how the world works.

I'm tired of preachers who talk about nothing but behavior and what a 'true Christian' looks like. Have a dose of your own 'medicine'.

I hate Christian songs that remind me of all of the anxiety I went through just a few years ago as a believer. I hate songs that say "I will worship" or "I will do this and that". Then worship already and quit boasting about it.

I'm short and my balance is fragile. I don't think I will ever feel as though I am a man here on this earth.

I want to be selfish right now and I don't care.

I'm a Christian with a solid faith in Christ's finished work. That faith is constantly given to me as a gift by God, but I still get sad and angry and frustrated with this current life.

For the first few years as a Christian, I tried to change my behavior and even my personality, but I'm sick of all of the tweaking and correcting. I need to be loved as I am and not as I feel I should be. For too long I have believed that it was okay for others to receive unconditional love from God, but that it was selfish for me to believe in it. Allow me to indulge for just a while. I don't care if the world thinks I'm a bad Christian for it.

I'm tired and distracted.

I'm worn out from an old mentality that is repulsive to me now. The thought of even trying to do anything is nauseating and tiresome.

I need a job. I need to take care of myself.

"Deliver me from sinking in the mire...

Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me.
Answer me, Yahweh, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your son; for I am in distress; make haste to answer me."

I'm not the person I imagine myself to be.

I feel so vulnerable and weak.
I don't know everything.
I don't know much at all.
I'm not all that wise.
I'm just a kid.

There are so many times I want my Father, but I run to broken cisterns.

It isn't a guilt thing. I just wish I always chose what I really and truly desired.

It's strange. Sometimes I desire my relationships here on earth so bad, but I also desire to be with Him.

I feel pulled apart at the moment. I'm just writing for the sake of saying how I feel.

Consider This

"Take away the stone!"

"Unbind him and let him go!"

What It's Like

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming

A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world with you

Unbelievable sights
Indescribable feeling
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling through an endless diamond sky
A whole new world
Don't you dare close your eyes
A hundred thousand things to see
Hold your breath - it gets better
I'm like a shooting star
I've come so far
I can't go back to where I used to be

The Dubliners - Lord Of The Dance

I danced in the morning when the world was begun I danced in the Moon & the Stars & the Sun I came down from Heaven & I danced on Earth At Bethlehem I had my birth:

Dance then, wherever you may be I am the Lord of the Dance, said He! And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He! (...lead you all in the Dance, said He!)

I danced for the scribe & the pharisee But they would not dance & they wouldn't follow me I danced for fishermen, for James & John They came with me & the Dance went on:

I danced on the Sabbath & I cured the lame The holy people said it was a shame! They whipped & they stripped & they hung me high And they left me there on a cross to die!

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black It's hard to dance with the devil on your back They buried my body & they thought I'd gone But I am the Dance & I still go on!

They cut me down and I leapt up highI am the Life that'll never, never die!
I'll live in you if you'll live in Me -I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!

Relax.

I used to think that God was very concerned with the cleanliness of my house. I believed I needed to clean EVERYDAY. I stressed out a lot if the house wasn't freshly cleaned.

I really don't think He is all that concerned with whether or not your house is spotless.

Do you ever feel stressed when the house isn't clean to your standards because you feel dirty? It could make me feel dirty and stressed because I felt like it was all falling apart. What would happen then!? What if it does fall apart? It will. You can be sure of that. Our homes and everything in them will pass away.

Ease your stress by realizing with full assurance that this earth is NOT your home! What a blessing! We are strangers and aliens! Pilgrims! We're just passing through!

Don't stress out too much about this place.

If you feel stressed because the dishes are not washed, the laundry is piling up, or whatever...just relax. Remember, you're an alien here. Don't get too comfortable here.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53)