"What's goin' on inside of me?"

Sitting in my room this afternoon processing through the royally butt-kicking sermon that I heard at church this morning (more on that in a minute), "In the Light" by DC Talk, came on my roommate's computer and hit pretty hard with how much it sums up a lot of what I'm thinking/feeling right now.

"What's goin' on inside of me? I despise my own behavior...The disease of self runs through my blood, it's a cancer fatal to my soul. Every attempt on my behalf has failed, to bring this sickness under control."

There are a couple things I've been doing lately that I know aren't pleasing to the Lord, and despite knowing that and feeling guilty of the sins I'm committing, I've kept going with it anyway. In the moment, I know it's wrong but I don't care because I'm finding a sense of belonging, and yet, afterward, I feel miserable. I know that I have blatantly disobeyed God, and I tell myself that I won't do it again, but without fail, opportunity presents itself and I fall right back into the same pattern. It's frustrating and I get so angry with myself! I find myself living up to the lyrics of the song, "What's goin' on inside of me? I despise my own behavior." In a way, the sermon given at church this morning answers that question.

The sermon was entitled "Lasting Growth" with the main scripture being Luke 6:43-49.

"For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, ⁴⁴for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. ⁴⁵ The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? ⁴⁷ Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: ⁴⁸he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built ⁴⁹ But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great"

It's pretty easy to take the first part of this passage (v43-45) and make the assumption that if you don't see fruit in a person's life, they aren't a Christian. Also, the passage can often be something that we use as motivation for sanctification, but in doing so, we are placing our salvation on our own shoulders and saying that our salvation is based on works. If you look at the passage though, it says none of that. Instead, it very simply and straightforwardly states that what we do is a result of who we are internally, at the deepest part of our being. According to scripture, our heart is the center of our being and it is from our hearts that our true self is shown.

^"10And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person...¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person." ~Matthew 15:10, 17-20

Our actions don't determine who we are, it's our heart that determines our actions. Basically, we are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. Our hearts are not pretty things.

"⁹The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" ~Jeremiah 17:9

If our hearts are deceitful and desperately sick, then based on the passage from Matthew 15, we are deceitful and desperately sick people. We may not always do bad things, and many of us may seem like genuinely good people, but deep down, our hearts are a mess. In heated moments of anger and frustration, the things we say are often hurtful and spiteful. I've never heard of anyone angrily yelling, "I love you so much and I want to serve you!!!" but rather "I hate you and I want nothing to do with you!" It is from the overflow of our hearts that our mouths speak.

Going back to my original thoughts from the DC Talk song, "What's goin' on inside of me? I despise my own behavior," I can now answer based on the realization that my actions come from my heart, which is a wicked and evil thing. I guess that sounds a bit depressing, BUT, there is hope!! God cleanses us and restores us! He takes out our hardened heart of stone and replaces it with a new heart and the Holy Spirit.

^"25 from all your idols I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and I will cleanse you. ²⁶And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." ~Ezekiel 36:25-27

On our own, we can't do anything, but if we allow the Lord to work in our lives and don't sit back in fear, afraid to take a look at the condition of our hearts, He can cure the sickness of our nature. The more we are willing to spend time with Him in prayer and in His Word, and the more we let Him work in the deepest corners of our hearts, the stronger our foundation in Him will be (referring to the second half of the original passage in Luke) and the more we will be able to stand strong in life's storms.

Time to Stop Running

It tends to be a habit of mine to run from things that I either don't want to deal with or am not sure how to handle. It's kind of a reoccurring theme in my life anymore. I'll get some thought or idea stuck in my head and I'll jump head first into it, but as soon as it gets tough and reaches a point when I feel like there's a possibility for me to mess things up or fail, I panic and run as far and as fast as I can in the other direction.

Lately, I've been making decisions that are changing my life a great deal. While I'm excited to be taking some time away from school to work on developing my personal ministry and to figure out where I'm headed with life, I'm realizing that this decision means that I need to learn how to grow up and deal with things. I can't go back and retract the decisions I've made to get to this point, and that scares me. I feel like I don't know how to grow up. I don't know how to be an adult. I have to figure out how to come up with a budget, and stick to it. I have to pay rent and pay my phone bill. I can't mess this up, but I'm so afraid that I somehow will. Everything in me wants to turn around and run, but I can't. This is my life now, I've made the decisions that have brought me here and there is no turning back, no matter how freaked out I am. I came to this decision because I felt like it was what God was calling me to do, and when I started to panic before even actually making the decision, the Lord took away my back up plan...I know this is where He wants me and that I made the right decision, but I'm nervous and worried. I guess this is where trusting the Lord comes into play, and I know that I've already seen His hand in this whole process and that He will work things out, but apparently my faith is pretty small and my ability to trust Him needs a lot of work. I pray that I learn to lean on Him and trust Him rather than trying to do it all on my own.

Desires

Have you ever sat back and really taken the time to think through what the one thing that you want most in life is? Are you ever afraid that you'll never get that one desire? I know I am. I know what I want, and there are times when my longing has me on the verge of tears, despite the fact that at this point in my life, if I were to get what I want, it wouldn't exactly be a good thing. I would be ecstatic, don't get me wrong, I would be completely elated, but I know that I'm not in a position capable of dealing with having what I want. Yes, I realize that I haven't stated what my deepest and most heartfelt longing in this life is, and I don't plan to either, it's just on my mind even more than usual right now, and it keeps coming to mind that I may never get what I so desperately want. That's not necessarily the best feeling. It's a painful realization and a bit depressing too, but no matter how much I want it, if it's not in the Lord's will, there is nothing I can do about it other than accept that He has other plans. I don't know that He doesn't have it in mind to eventually allow me the privilege of have what I want, but I guess I have to acknowledge that He may have other things in store for me. That's a difficult fact for me to swallow, but in a recent conversation with my cousin, as she was telling me about something that she desperately wants but is afraid she may never get, she mentioned a verse that has really helped her. I think the verse fits for pretty much any answer you might give to my first question, but strangely enough, my cousin and I have the same desire...though it makes a lot more since coming from her than it does from me. My cousin is someone who I really admire, and being able to see her trust the Lord in the situation is so encouraging and really cool. So, as an encouragement to anyone else who may be in a similar struggle, no matter what the desire may be, this is the verse she shared with me:

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart"

Psalm 37:4

Trust

I want to trust the Lord, but most days I feel like that's impossible. I so often find myself fighting to do things my way and in my strength, on my terms and according to my own time line, and inevitably, I fail. I know that I need to hand things over to God and let Him work things out His way, and I try to do so...but it's only a matter of minutes before I'm right back to wanting to make sure that everything is done all my way again. I look back over my life and I can see evidence of the Lord in so many places, even in times from before I accepted Christ, and yet I tend to forget His goodness, grace, and mercy. I know that He has a plan, that He can do ANYTHING, and that He loves me and wants what is best for me, but I just can't seem to let go of my grasp on control. Why do I look back over the past two years and 29 days of my life, seeing all that God has brought me through, all the changes that He has made in me, and still doubt?

Not only have I been saved from my sins, but I can say with utmost certainty that had the Lord not gotten a hold of me when He did, I'm 99% sure that I wouldn't be alive today. I was an absolute wreck, a total and complete mess of drinking and partying and even a few drugs. I relied on physical relationships and drunkeness to save me and help me forget, and all that ever did was cause me to hate myself more. I hated my life, I hated myself, and I so no point in living. I planned out my suicide multiple times, even tried it (failing obviously) a couple times. I hurt to the core, not physically, but emotionally, and I didn't know how to handle that. The only way I could find to help myself feel was cutting. I hated what I was doing but I loved it at the same time. As long as I was cutting, as long as I was drinking or getting high, as long as I was having sex, for those few moments, I could forget how much I loathed who I was and be happy. But an hour later, or the next morning, whenever my stupor had worn off and I realized what I had done, my self hatred, the anger and pain that I had barricaded inside myself all came tumbling back to me. It was a cycle, a vicious, ugly, painful cycle, but I didn't know where else to turn. God brought me out of all of that! I have scars, but cutting isn't an issue anymore. I don't plan out ways to kill myself, and those crazy nights of drunken hook ups are all in the past...I could have NEVER made those changes in my life without the Lord. I see what He's brought me through, I see Him working in the lives of my friends, I take a walk and see the beauty of nature, and yet I still struggle to trust Him. Why do I see His work and still doubt? Why do I say that I want to trust Him, that I want to turn everything over to Him, and then minutes later take it all back into my own hands?

I want to trust. I am so tired of carrying everything around on my own, trying to do it all alone...and I want His help, but my head says it's too far of a fall, and honestly, while my heart is a little more trusting, it's not so sure about taking that leap either.