The "Feeler"

I'm again just going to take this time to write out things I'm feeling that I know aren't true. I'm just trying to harness my thoughts.

If I am not spending most of my waking hours in conscious prayer or meditation on God, I feel insincere. I struggle to believe I have God's Spirit inside me, because I struggle with seeing my own faith in Christ's resurrection. I find myself worrying that I never really put faith in Christ's resurrection because I try to see my faith. I'm easily deceived into thinking I am the only person that goes through these attacks. I feel that if I really had faith, I would be some super Christian or I would at least be doing more than I am now. Why? Possibly because there is so much emphasis on obedience.

People have emphasized the importance of their service to Christ. But just the other day, Jesus' very own words came to my mind... "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many".

I want obedience; I just have a big problem with slavery. I've told people before that if I could love God as much as I loved my ex-girlfriend, I would be the best Christian in the world. The best? How can I be better than Jesus? If every believer has His righteousness, then what qualifies as a "good" Christian? When I worry about my performance or my faith, I lose faith in Christ and my faith becomes directed towards my faith. I start to try to put faith in my faith and not in Jesus Christ. The enemy is very deceptive. I seem to fall for it every time...Though I am learning to stand my ground even when the feelings of condemnation and accusations are constantly crashing into my mind. When I give into this, I seem to be running in circles.

Day after day I sin. I'm slowly growing in grace. The accusations constantly seem to try and snatch away the seeds of the gospel so that I may not believe and grow. I can sometimes feel something stirring inside me, groaning, wanting to be released. This body often feels like a cage that prevents me from being completely free in the love of God. Sometimes I feel like I'm drunk. Like I don't really understand things very clearly. Especially God's grace. When I used to get drunk, people could mess with my head and really make me depressed. I feel sort of the same way with the accusations.

I struggle with living by faith that God has made me alive. I'm struggling to articulate exactly what tries to worry me. Sometimes I will hear something and it will cause my heart to sink. I'll feel an attack. I wonder how I'm suppose to habitually live by faith that Christ has made me alive. To habitually commune with Him.

I'm just expressing somethings inside that I don't really understand myself.

Legalistic?

Alright, so maybe I'm being legalistic, maybe I'm not.

I can get on Xbox Live playing Halo 3 sometimes and someone says something crude or whatever and I'll have the "giggles" and laugh at it. Or simply playing the game alone makes me feel guilty. I'll start to goof off and cut up and I feel like I'm my old self. Not that I get crude or anything..I just goof off. I guess it's the pride in me that wants to act holier than thou and be very reserved or whatever.

One of my main concerns is that I will listen to a grace message or I will be refreshed in my understanding of it and in my excitement the first thing I do is run off to play a game, or whatever it may be. Then I feel guilty. I feel I squandered what I've just learned. I feel I should have used that time for prayer or meditation. But the reason I do this is because once I have filling of grace, I don't really know of anything else to do to experience God more, so I run off and do "secular" things. I think I may just be legalistic about this and hard on myself. I might need to lighten up, but one voice I hear is the parable of the four soils quoted to me about the Word being choked by cares, riches, and pleasures of this life. This makes me nervous.

What am I to do in order to have more of God? Pray? It's hard to slow myself down enough to pray when I get in these moods. I feel like some 8 year old kid diagnosed with ADHD who has juice around his mouth and sticky fingers.