So I haven't really posted much of anything in the past several months. The last thing I wrote was a re-post of something and that was way back in October 2011. It is time for me to get off my butt and write again. Not because I necessarily want to...but because I need to. I have many friends who have taken up daily writing and I see the impact and response they get and it brings me back to the times when I wrote because it was a passion. Life circumstances have really snuffed the fire out of me when it comes to writing and simply expressing myself in general. But now it is 2012. I am determining to change.
Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking. I guess that's what happens when you change to major to a major in Philosophy. Haha. Anyway, something has really been weighing on me, though I have spent long months putting it off and ignoring it. My encounters with sin have changed gradually over the past several years of my life.
I remember a day long ago when thinking a thought of hate alarmed and unnerved me. Now it is all too easy to mutter curses under my breath without a second thought. I remember when the idea of adultery sickened me. Now my personal life and social experiences are plagued with it and it has become more normal to me.
Sin, in almost every way, has crept into my lifestyle and has been welcomed openly. Whereas, I was once openly opposed to the idea of sitting in my own misery and filth, it is now all too easy to resist it with my words while embracing it with my actions.
Simply put, I remember when my encounters with sin were conflicts. Now it is more like a family reunion. There is not much battling with sin any more...it is more like a massacre. Sin kicks me around and puts my head on a stick and I stand by dying to my convictions without a sword in my hand.
But now I have determined that needs to stop. I have just recently turned 20 years old. I am not a teenager any more. I cannot afford to be childish or ignorant. What I do with my life matters and I can't continue to trash my life now assuming I have my whole life ahead of me to fix it and do what I need to do to be doing.
I have come to the realization in my heart, not just my head, that Christians are sinners too. The only thing that is different about the lifestyle of a Christian and someone who has yet to accept Christ is not the sin itself. It is the conviction. Someone who lacks Christ lacks conviction for their evil because they are not guided by the Holy Spirit. Someone who has embraced Christ and His lordship should feel that conviction.
As time has gone by, I recognize a significant loss in conviction over my sin. My anger can fly off the handle very easily though I hide it fairly well. My pride and arrogance...my need to be right...blinds me from learning from others though I pretend to respect them more than I do in my heart. This is not the way of a Christian.
I have absolute certainty in my salvation. But I have come face-to-face with the shallowness of my faith. God has become distant. Because He moved away from me? No, because I have drifted. I have allowed myself to love others things, desire other things, believe other things, and fall prey to a desperation of not relying on God for contentment and purpose. This much is obvious to me when I examine the low level of conviction I feel about my faults and sins.
But I cannot go on living this way. I have wasted so many opportunities. I have turned my back on too many people, even if they never realized it. I have not been the man I was trained and raised to be.
Now God is re-teaching me what it is to be a man of God. I am remembering how it feels to go to battle again rather than flirt with my temptations.
One of my dearest and most treasured friends told me not too long ago that she always saw me as a warrior who fought for what I believed it. A man of conviction and strength. But the weakness I was displaying and the attitude of giving up on being who I was supposed to be and settling for a lesser and more miserable person really caused her to lose respect for me. That struck me hard enough to land me on my face and really shake me up.
I guess what I am trying to say with all this is, I can see a period of time in my life over the past few years where I have veered away from the man I was created to be and settled for a lesser creature. I am a shell of my former self and have become distracted and brought down by my own despair and frustrations. My willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to guide and convict me has faded over time and I have been letting a lot of people down on a daily basis.
That is not the man I intend to be any more. I have seen this side of the fence. I like to think I have been through hell, but mostly I just stuck my face in the dirt and cried about it. I got bruised and pushed around a bit in battle and gave up and sat down, allowing the enemy to claim my position on the battlefield as their own...meanwhile, I have been remaining inactive and refusing to rise again.
It is a new year now. I have grown and have enough years in my life to look behind me and weep at the despair I have caused for myself. This will not continue.
Today, I am re-engaging in my war against sin. I have forgotten what it feels like to grasp a sword again, but I know I am not alone on the battlefield and am not without purpose. God has been standing by, my marching orders in His hand...waiting for me to finish my pity party and return to Him.
This day, I return to the battlefield. There will be no more massacres. Though I realize I will not win every battle, I know that my commander has already won the war. I will persevere by His side until He takes the victory He has already claimed and takes me home away from war.
I have spent long days in a pit of misery, refusing to represent my faith. I have been called up out the pit and back to battle. Today, I am answering that call. I pray that each of you who reads this will keep me accountable to that call. I only have one life. I cannot afford to live it going backwards.
