My Refuge & Strength

I finally recieved the letter I wrote to myself during our Labyrinth in Czech. And what was my response? “Uuuhhhggg” pretty much sums it up. Here’s why:

Remember last summer when you wrote yourself a letter, saying things needed to change - but they didn’t, did they? You still fell. You still struggled. You still did hardly anything to change that. Why? Because you were tempted to do other meaningless things and didn’t have any desire to resist them.

So here’s what we’re going to do: you aren’t going to fall into the same pattern you’ve been repeating all of you life. Follow these five steps to living a life that you were meant to live.

My steps were as follows:

• Pray. Pray that God would give you the strength to avoid temptations, be self-deciplined, and not think of excuses.
• Do. Praying is easy. But holding your end of the deal is not. Read your Bible. Read it for more than five minutes. Spend time with God. Spend more than five minutes with Him. Pursue God. Love Him in everything. Do what you’ve never done before.
• Avoid. The things that keep you from living the life you were meant to live are not good! Avoid them! Cut the time you spend on the computer and in front of the TV down. Spend more time doing than wasting.
• Fast. If certain things become too hard to avoid - cut them out altogether. Fast from them, for as long as you really think you should.
• Pray. Again. Give thanks to God for allowing you to have such an ideal life. And thank Him for giving you the strength to make it through.

Why do I have to be so darn wise? No, but really. This was the most annoying thing to read. Who knew you could annoy yourself?

But, adding fuel to my “Wow, I Suck” fire, the next night at Bible study, we were sharing prayer requests. A girl who’s still feeling around the whole Christian business asked for us to pray that her faith would really develop, because right now she has all these questions and doubts and is feeling more discouraged than encouraged when going to Campus Crusade and study. So a lot of us took some time to try and build her up and reassure her. And I took that time to be extremely honest, like saying things I haven’t even said to myself honest. Things like how lame my relationship with God is and has always been. Things like how my life has always been this perpetual circle of realizing I need to change, trying to change, and giving up after a brief attempt. Things that I still struggle with, if not outwardly then inwardly.

Afterwards, I could not understand where those words had come from or why I shared them with others before even sharing them with myself. I don’t know. But it broke me.

No one is ever going to be the perfect Christian. But it sure is an awful, awful feeling when you aren’t being the person you know you should and can be. I need to change. Part of me doesn’t believe that’s possible, because I’ve lived a life of laziness for as long as I’ve been alive. But I hear God saying clearly to me, “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. Nothing is impossible through Me. You just need to give it to Me.”