I just want so much more. I feel empty, unsatisfied. No, I'm not worried about material things. I don't need money or things.... I've got enough to distract me. I need something more.
And the worst thing is, I know I can have it. I just need to reach out and take it from my loving Father who is holding it out to me.... wanting me to ask Him for it.
So, what holds me back? If I want it so much, then why do I keep trying to fill it with other things? Why don't I
feel like it? I'm like that child that C.S. Lewis talks about who is content to play in the mud in the slums, just because he can't imagine what a vacation at the beach is like. Why am I satisfied (yet not truly satisfied) by so little? Why do I fill up my time with these stupid things? Why don't I care about things?
I feel like I am in a stall.... knowing where I want to be, yet not containing the strength to get there. I just need a start.... a push... out of this rut, this mud. I just can't handle this.... Jesus, help me.
So, here I am, feeling alone and helpless. Maybe this is something like Paul felt when he wrote:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with
the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that
dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my
flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry
it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what
I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do
it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want
to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my
inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against
the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my
members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death?
Romans 7:15-24 (ESV)
Thankfully, he answers his question... and my question... in the next verse:
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Romans 7:25
Then, the sweet, sweet verses that begin Romans 8:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Isn't this glorious? Well, I've been encouraged.... even while writing this... hahaha that's rather crazy.... Anyways, maybe a quick prayer for me? I could use it.... and maybe ask me about it or something.... let's see what God will do...