God is good! His holiness reminds me of just how sinful I am and always ALWAYS in need of more grace and mercy. I can't begin to imagine how I could live life without knowing the giver of peace, love and total satisfaction. Sometimes though, more times I relentlessly forget about seeking Him during my difficult times and as the past so thought perfectionist I once thought myself to be I rely on my own works, my own thoughts and try to solve problems through my intellectual reasoning and wishful thinking, but things never seem to go well.
Time after time, I am reminded to wait upon the Lord and approach God in prayer. After my latest experience of shutting myself down, ignoring someone I really wanted to witness to and missing opportunities to share my faith with others because I was so distracted by a few other individuals, I've learned that I have to PUT GOD FIRST in everything, in the smallest problem, in the biggest problem, when things are going great, when things are going bad and even when I find myself hurting so much that I don't have any words to express how I feel. PUT GOD FIRST!
So what now? I feel completely helpless and hopeless when I hurt someone because I fail to trust God and take things in my own hands. I have a bad behavior of avoiding and ignoring people, when I am trusting in myself and my own efforts to take care of things and don't really know how to deal with it. Ignoring has often helped me to not deal with things, but it also gives me an excuse for not admitting my sins before God.
At times I ignore because I know dealing with someone or some particular situation will make me more vulnerable and it becomes a power struggle of letting my guard down or remaining my guard up so that I control my own wants and desires and don't get hurt in the process of doing so.
The Christian life is a constant battle but thank God He has already won the victory. For me it's my flesh wanting to fulfill the earthly desires, my own self happiness, wants and needs and I know if I even give but a second of provision for it the temptations of life can really blurry my Heavenly vision. The Spirit wants to tell everyone that there is more to life than empty pleasure, through faith in Jesus we can live a life more abundant and after this life we won't have to fear the penalties of death or being judged on our works because let's face it, there is nothing I or anyone else can do that can ERASE my sins, but the Bible says that God knows this and so He sent Jesus as a sacrifice to die for our sins, that we whoever believes in Jesus will be saved. I believe this!
When I mess up, although the guilt of my mistakes and thoughts of how I could have done things differently flood my mind, I am reminded of God's grace and mercy and His forgiveness and so likewise I trust God and move on. It's going to be difficult to move on and even in my current situation, I trust that all I can do now is pray for this person and that he may come to know the love, forgiveness and peace in Jesus. Yes, I know there is no problem too big for God to take care of and He can move the hearts of stone and repair hurting hearts.
