It continues

I published three day’s worth of journal entries in the last post. The journal pages I’m posting today are four days after the last entry (the one I omitted, rather). That gap is… Well, looking back I can say that it’s atleast interesting. I don’t want to explain much more on that topic, though – That’s another topic for another day. Second entry:

October 14, 2007

I feel helpless lately, but I know I’m not. Everything that’s happening to me I can take control of. I like to externalize these things by using clever wording like ‘around me’ or ‘to me’ as if I’m a witless, innocent victim. Not only can I take control of these things, it’s my charge and responsibility to. I have the choice to go out (in, rather) and change myself, and yet I choose to sit idly by. Right now I’m plateaued and backsliding, and what’s worse is that I’m totally aware of this fact. It bites at me. It’s a stinging sensation that I’m ignoring such a call – A call to me of all people from the intimate lover of my soul. Yet He created me as I am. Creative, a leader, strong willed, intelligent, and hard to change. Lately I’ve been so aware of God’s amazing love, His acceptance, His encouragement, His edification, His forgiveness, His steadfastness, His creativity, His faithfulness, and the comfort I can find in Him. Yet I’m still a despondent and apathetic sinner, fully aware of all of this and yet not accepting Him wholly and submitted everything I am to Him.

I’m lifted up constantly by all the people at church. I look up to them so much, they’re such blessings. The people around me, though, pull me down and seem distant from me. Maybe that’s my emo side ragin up, or maybe that’s a lie from the Enemy. Should I even give him the respect of capitalizing his name? I don’t know. That’s neither here nor there, however.

This morning we learned more about spiritual growth. Lately my youth pastor seems to be speaking directly to me, like he knows exactly what’s going on and furthermore what I need to hear and do. Spiritual growth is completely and totally a choice, and one that I’m not currently and fervently making. I’m choosing nothing, being lukewarm and distancing myself from anything remotely helpful… Especially from God, though He regularly and faithfully reaches out and comes down to me. I need to make a choice to grow. Here is a list of a few things that I need to know in order to grow:

• We should all be praying constantly. Not vain repetition, futile exercises that don’t gain anything, but conversation with an intimate father. Interceding, exhorting, edifying, and sharing ourselves with God. What more can you do than pray, to share your heart with God? Yet when you pray, whose voice is more important? Your’s or God’s? That seems obvious, yet rarely to we shut our mouths and open our hearts long enough to hear anything.
• The Bible is God’s word especially for us. Why would we not need that? God’s word is one of the most essential things we as Christians have. Studying it, taking it in, and hiding it in our hearts can only result in good fruit.
• Worship we need in our lives to speak back to the Father, to minister to Him and praise all that He is. It builds our spirit and gives thanks where it’s due.
• Discipline is needed because without it, we cannot perservere and endure through our trials, learning and pruning ourselves all the while. Without discipline we’re good-weather Christians, fellowshipping with God during the daytime but shrinking back to the darkness when the cold nights come.
• We need a plan for growth to tie this all together, to give us a direction, purpose and conviction. Steps! 1,2,3,4, or A,B,C,D, whatever they are, steps are needed.

My plan is that every morning and every night I will:

1. Get in the Word
2. Pray
3. Listen
4. Worship

And so now I’ve made a choice.

October 15, 2007

Condemnation is from the Enemy. He picks at me, calls me names, and pulls me down. He calls me by my sins while God has only ever called me by the name He gave me, lovingly reassuring me that yes, I am His child. Who to choose, who to choose… ?

I need peace inside. I need a righteous mind. I need a shelter, a provider, a healer of my heart. I need the Father.

I truly appreciate A and J. They help me so much. I respect A for her openness yet also for how she guards her heart. J is so encouraging, such a leader and such a woman of God. A consoles me and knows what I’ve been through, and she genuinely cares.

I have a burden for the hopeless, the lost, the broken and afraid. They who don’t know as I know that here’s a Lord for them who comforts, edifies, and strengthens. In my place of despair I call out to the Lord and He is faithful, but how dark must it be without Him! Alone in darkness, shaking and trembling a storm because of the strain and stress of self-sufficiency. He holds their wants, their hopes, their dreams and fears and strengths and weaknesses, yet they don’t know that. They flail instead of being secure in Him… I want to stand in the gap and intercede for them.

I’m so freaking tired of this sorrow and tiredness and loneliness. I want to lay it down. I want God to take my weakness and give me strength, take my sorrow and give me joy, take my wandering and give me purpose, and to take my loneliness and give me all that He is… No, he already is giving that… Now I just need the capacity and desire to have what He’s already offering me: it all.

I know that I know that I know that God is real, God is here, and God is now. I know he’s all that is and all that was and all that will be and despite all of my faults he loves me more deeply than I’ll ever know. I know all this and more about the character, the very being of God, but I want to feel it now. I can feel, I’m alive, and God’s reaching out to me, calling out to me, stretching Himself to my heart as if I were His own son… Yet I don’t feel that everlasting love that can only be from Him – I know it, I know it from the deepest parts of my being, but I want to feel it. Selfish?

October 18, 2007

I’ve been feeling good in general lately, and I’ve been trying not to interpret it as the calm before the storm. I’m growing and am encouraged and am getting there with God. I know a trial will come and I know God will take me through it when it strikes, but for now I’m basking. That’s no excuse to be lazy, though.

Rick Pino came and reaffirmed that we are in preparation. He told us that we’ve been plowing and watering the tough, rocky, loose, and absolutely dry soil that is Oklahoma, and that we need to perservere and not give up. Lately it has really felt like we’re losing ground even though we’re struggling harder then ever, and Rick acknowledged that. He said, though, that we just need to simply press in and seek after God. He also said that we will be one of the two spiritual gates in Oklahoma, and that from the hundreds of churches in Oklahoma that he’s been to, only ours and one other will open the floodgates of heaven.

October 19, 2007

I really want a dance this is for God and God alone. Something I can dedicate to Him. My voice can’t be dedicated to Him, nor my body or actions completely, but I’d like a dance that’s God’s alone, a way to praise Him that is only for Him.