Day 2

If there's one thing I've come to dislike about myself, it's how easily I retreat into myself when hurt. I was thinking about that during my drive to work this morning. If the right weak spot is hit, it just takes one blow to cause immense devastation. Where I don't feel like eating, hate music, am lethargic, and just want to be alone. Crazy.

God doesn't call us to deal with our pain like that, though. He calls us to give it up to him, "for His yoke is easy and His burden is light". He isn't asking me to inflict this on myself. When stuff like that goes down and people run away from their problems without giving them up to the Lord, I can't help but wonder if maybe deep down some part of them feels like they deserve this pain. Hmm hmm hmm.

I will end this with a quote from Stef Chappell, the area director of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship. "There is no sanctification in isolation." Aka, hiding from all of this is not going to bring you (or me) any closer to the goal of being more like Jesus.

Hmm, post one

It's been a lonely night. I hate to say that, knowing that I do have great friends, but it just has. The devil likes to strike at me through relationships, and while not the jealous type, certain actions get under my skin and make me start to doubt whether people actually want to hang out with me, or just feel obligated. Because unless I'm randomly there for the planning of something, I usually don't get invited. Then I get weird, and do things like almost delete my twitter. Haha. So ridiculous is the drama caused by the internet and negative thoughts.

I've been reading a lot in Hebrews lately...it's both encouraging and somehow simultaneously terrifying haha. It talks about how Jesus understands the temptation of sin, because he too was tempted. The fact that he refrained? Very encouraging. I know that I'll never be sin-free like Jesus, but through His blood I can be. I don't want to take that for granted, no matter how much of a struggle it can be to refrain. On the other hand, Hebrews 10:26-31 is quite scary...

New International Version (NIV)

 ²⁶ If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^[a] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”^{[b] 31} It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

I mean, dang...It definitely puts into perspective how dire the consequences are for sin. The wages of sin are death, and it's death that we deserve. But I pray that as I grow even closer to God, that I will come to despise sin in the manner that he does. Food for thought.