A slave to sin, a failure, disobedient, walking continually in the flesh, never good enough.
These are some thoughts and feelings that have plagued a majority of my walk as a Christian since I accepted the Lord in college.
A lot of my spiritual walk has looked like a roller coaster. Mountaintops and valleys. The valleys usually consisted of complacency and disobedience to the Lord’s voice. Walking in a dry place of complacency that I have the power to walk out of, but choosing to stay in through my thoughts and actions, always led me to a place of self-loathing. I had the ability to overcome this valley if I just choose to walk out of it, but again and again, I would just stay there and disobey the love he was calling me to.
Here is an excerpt from my journal during a time (pre-race) when I was reflecting on why I am so prone to walking into valleys:
“When walking through a spiritual desert, some people might dig a whole to find a water table, they’ll walk/run as long as they need to in order to find water to sustain them, they’ll drink their own urine, they find whatever they need to in order to survive. After walking in the desert for a while, I lost all my interest in even looking for water, so I just sat down and began to drink the dust right in front of me. It fulfilled the role of filling my stomach, but it only made me thirstier and unhealthier. God would even give me small puddles in the desert, blessings that could’ve given me the energy to walk completely out of my desert. But I was so content to eat the dust that I would walk right around the puddles.”
This type of attitude of being content in filling my soul with anything other than the Lord would lead into a spiral of self-loathing, feeling like a slave to sin, like I can’t do anything right.
This was something that I walked through in the month of Malaysia and part of Thailand. Here’s another excerpt from my journal:
“The last week in Malaysia and being here in Thailand have probably been my worst days emotionally on the race, especially since coming to Thailand. I can feel myself starting to slip into self-loathing again which is somewhere I definitely do not want to be. I don’t even know what is wrong with me. I’ve shut out the team completely, I don’t want to contribute anything, I really want to isolate myself and not talk to anyone. I just feel a heaviness in my spirit that I don’t know how to fight against. I feel like sin has complete control in my life. If sin has lost its power, why does it have so much power over my life? I’m sad all the time and I don’t know why. I have no motivation to do anything. It feels like a dark cloud is always over my head. I feel like I am bound in chains by my own sin that will always be there.”
I knew the scriptures:
“You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
I wanted to believe these scriptures so bad, but I just didn’t feel them in my spirit. I didn’t feel like a slave to righteousness, I didn’t feel like a new creation. Why was it so hard for me to connect with these words and believe them for myself?
After reading my team that journal entry and having them pray for me, I was in a much better place, but something still remained: a feeling of hopelessness. How could I possibly not walk into a similar season again in my life? I am going to fail again because I am human, so what do I do when I slip into that valley again?
As I was spending time with the Lord on this, he told me that I needed to relearn the concepts of grace and righteousness. So I went to Romans.
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Romans 5:17 says “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”
Righteousness isn’t something I have to work for, it is a GIFT given to me and he made me righteous when he died. It can’t be undone or affected by anything I do or don’t do. I don’t’ have to work to be righteous. The sin that influences us is not YOU, it’s your sin. NOT YOU! You are NOT your sin. The true YOU is your spirit, not your flesh.
“Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Romans 7:20
My spirit, the true me, is a righteous creation. Feels good to finally believe that.
GRACE
“just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 5:21
Grace reigns through righteousness. Grace has power over sin because of the fact that Christ made us righteous, sin has no power over YOU. Therefore grace can come into our righteous lives and forgive us and give us favor because we are righteous. When we mess up, grace can still easily be given because we are still righteous. Grace reigns over sin. Don’t forget to give yourself grace because you are righteous. Not giving yourself grace gives more power to the sinful part of your being so give yourself grace to take away sin’s power.
GRACE & RIGHTEOUSNESS are so important in your new identity!
Why get baptized?
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.” Romans 6:1-7
“Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented.” Matthew 3:15 (Jesus talking about John baptizing him.)
To me, it was pretty clear what my next step was. I finally believed God when he told me he made me righteous, that I need grace, that I am not a slave to sin, that Jesus made me a new creation when I accepted what he did for me by dying on a cross. It was time to complete the next step and fulfill all righteousness and kill my flesh! I AM a new creation!! Praise the LORD!
Thanks for baptizing me, Ashley, you’re the best.
In other news, we have made it to our Cambodian destination: Battambang. We have also had a team change! My new team is called International Harvesters. We are ready to bring in the harvest that the Lord has prepared for us in these last 3 months of the race. This month in Cambodia, we are doing a ministry called ATL. ATL stands for “Ask the Lord,” meaning we are not with a ministry, but we have the freedom to do whatever we feel the Lord is asking us to do. We ask him what he has for us, and then we go do it! For the whole month! It’s gonna be awesome, our team is so excited!!
Long blog, thanks for stickin around and reading about my life. If you have any questions, concerns, comments, encouragements, or prayer requests, don’t hesistate to let me know!
