Give Me Faith

Give me faith...to trust what you say....that you're good...and you're love is great...I may be weak...but you're Spirit's strong in me...my flesh may fail...but my God you never will.
                                                                                                                     -Give Me Faith by Elevation Worship
Thank God that's true.

This song came to my mind today while reading my Bible, which is something I admittedly haven't done in a while. I haven't been myself lately. And when I say "myself", I mean my true self. Not the selfish, people pleasing, angry, lazy bum that I resort to. I mean the selfless, people loving, joyous, determined, and content Lottie - the me God created me to be.

I'm reading a pretty awesome book right now called "The Me I Want To Be" by John Ortberg. He talks about how there's the person we are, the person we think we should be, and the person God wants us to be.

Here is the good news. when you flourish, you become more you. You become more that person God had in mind when he though you up. You don't just become holier. You become you-ier. You will change. God wants you to become a "new creation". But "new" doesn't mean completely different; instead, it's like an old piece of furniture that gets restored to it's intended beauty.

I'm gonna be honest. When my spiritual life is at a stagnet place and I refuse to read my Bible, pray, or desire to be this person I'm meant to be, I find myself become more angry, frustrated, uncontent, and fearful. Extremely fearful. Like I said in a previous post, we fear the one who leads to death. And boy, am I afraid of death. I don't need to be at all. But when I'm spiritually lacking, I fear it all the time. Ultimately, that fear is stemmed from lies that Satan likes to feed me. And I KNOW this. For "God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind" (2nd Timothy 1:7). But, do I actually know this?

Here I am again, in that wavering stage.

Satan puts doubts, fears, skepticism, and unneccesary worry into my mind. Keeping me from fully flourishing and become the woman God intended me to be. I hate this, and I KNOW it's happening, yet I don't do anything about it. I want to be this amazing, unique person but I can't seem to get there. I go back and forth like I can't make up my mind. Why?

Guess what, the Bible relates to exactly what I'm feeling! As it usually does.

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who did it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
- Romans 7:21-28

Ah, see? Paul relates so well to me. This passage made me feel pretty bad about myself, but then BAM! God hit me with a powerful truth:

"Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" - Romans 7:29

Love it.

It's funny.  I know God is my only source of peace and happiness, but that makes me angry (atleast right now) because when I can't get back to my flourishing self and don't "feel" like praying or trusting God, I know that I won't be happy. I can't be happy without God. I just can't. So when I'm being lazy and let my circumstances keep me down, I get even sadder because, truth is, it's up to ME to get happy again. God's always been right there. I'm just to lazy to seek him. That's why I'm angry. That's why I'm sad.

A friend once told me that you can tell a lot about a person by the music he (or she) listens to. I guess this means that if you looked at my iPod, you would definitely be able to tell that I delight in wavering between loving God and loving the world - story of my life. One time, I pressed the Genius button to create an automatic playlist and it came up with two: rap and contemperary christian.

Probably not a good sign.

In my mind, rap symbolizes my old self that I mentioned before and the christian music symbolizes my new self. I've recently been adding more and more christian songs to my iPod because that's the me I want to be. The rap music is slowly getting deleted and isn't taking up all the space on my "recently played" playlist. Example of the "more of God, less of me" concept in the Bible. My iPod is the greatest example of my wavering life and that also saddens me. But I need to stop being lazy, sad about the way am I, and actually DO something about it!

I obviously do not know all the answers yet on how to fix this. However, that's why God gave us the Bible and told us to pray for wisdom. "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking." (James 1:5). I will get out of this slump. Here are some steps I'm going to take to get there and if any of you relate to this, hopefully these steps will help you as well.

1) Stop being lazy! "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied." (Proverbs 13:4) It's time for us to act on what we believe and not on what we feel. Feelings get us nowhere. Faith gets us everywhere. (I made that up myself).

2) Claim my authority over Satan. "Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you." (Luke 10:19). God already defeated Satan. Even though Satan likes to lie to us and make us think otherwise. The battles been won. We can make Satan flee from us and stop feeding us lies. We just have to rebuke him. Gosh, I hate Satan with a passion..

3) Get back in the flow.  "Do not give the devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:27). "Come back to your senses, as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God -- I say this to your shame". (1st Corinthians 15:34). By being angry, lazy, spending excessively, gossiping, unkind, etc. we are just paving the way for Satan to ease back into our lives. Don't give him any room. Don't let your guard down. Pray without ceasing, love others, forgive, and stay in the Word. The Bible gives you a peace of mind and gives you all the answers. Don't spend time out of the flow, out of sync with God, get back in! (This concept is talked about in the book I mentioned above).

4) Boast in my weakness. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2nd Corinthians 12:9). I always though people were crazy for being joyous in times of trial and trouble. But now I get it. God is literally so good in these times. I'm better off in hardship because I'm left with nothing but to come to God, plead for mercy and forgiveness, and time and time again, He shows his love. I grow more, learn more, and become a better person.

Thank you God for times like these and for working through me to help others with the same problem. Thank you that I "have nothing, yet posses everything" (2nd Corinthians 6:10). Thank you God, that I may be weak, but you're spirits strong within me and that my flesh may fail,

but, my God...
you never will.