This is an update on “The Race that Leads to The Race”.
Yes, it really seems like I am racing and fighting just to get to the starting line.
I went to the college bible study that I haven’t been to in months, and I fell apart. I didn’t go one week due to homework, okay i can miss one week because of homework. I didn’t go the following week because of a movie coming out in theaters and I really wanted to wait in line for midnight premier. I missed the next couple of weeks because I started to spend time with friends, then it started becoming that I was too tired, or I was getting dinner.
I missed one Wednesday night ministry because of a presentation that I needed to work on, then I started hiding out in the library until closing so I wouldn’t have to go because I felt awkward around the people I was serving with. It may have become awkward because I made it awkward by retreating into myself.
I was going to service Sunday mornings but then stopped because service meant driving 45 minutes and I started to get lazy. I started to stream the messages at the coffee shop .3 miles from my house, but even then I wouldn’t finish the entire message because if I did, that would mean that I only had t-minus hours before I would have to go to work and all I really wanted to do was just take a nap and not have to do anything.
I stopped reading my bible and praying due to the countless excuses I had let get in the way/ made up.
You want to know what happened after I pulled back from everything that was Jesus related?
The enemy moved in.
I have been dealing with spiritual attacks and old habits that are not glorifying to The Lord at all for the last couple of months. Spiritual attacks came in the forms of lies existing of:
- I am going on the race selfishly because what I really want is to see the world.The truth is that I want to see God wreck this place for him. I want people’s hearts to be renewed, for eyes to be opened, and chains be broken.
- You are bugging your friends and rely on them too much therefore you need to pull back and leave them alone. I voiced this and it ended up being the opposite and I knew that it would, but I let this lie in.
- You don’t really like school, the people are annoying and you don’t have anymore free time to sit and do nothing. When in reality I am one of those weird people who actually likes school and loves learning.
- And finally, Jesus is not going to provide for you and if you go, you’re not going to do any good.
I have struggled with depression in the past, and I don’t want to say that it is/was a depression, but there are/were days that I started to attack myself with old beliefs and habits.
The biggest thing for me is that I had allowed this amazing opportunity become an idol for me. I started thinking more about this trip and putting all my effort towards this, as oppose thinking and working toward God Himself. This was a harsh thing to realize and understand. It was a hard to admit to God even though I tried to hide it for the longest time simply by not voicing it, which is dumb because He already knows it.
I don’t want to make it seem like these things have magically gone away. No, not in anyway. But it’s definitely easier to deal with them and have The Lord work through once your honest and open about it.
I opened Colossians at the beginning of this week and took to memorize 2:6-10
“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus The Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up,established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of this word, and not according to Christ. For in him dwells the whole fullness of deity, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”
I pray that I be established and rooted securely in The Lord.
–Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It amazes me to see that people actually read these, pray for me and support me. But then again I went into this secured in knowing that God was going to bring this to happen, I just let that reassurance become cloudy.
