“For 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 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 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 the sin that dwells within me.” -Romans 7:15-20
This verse seems to have been my montra for the past year or so. I do the things I don’t want to do. I do the very things God asks me not to do. But the things I want to do I just can’t. The things that I know are good and right I can’t seem to muster up the strength to do. Anyone else relate?
Last year there was a moment of choosing. God or my own way. God or what I thought I really wanted. I sat on my bedroom floor bawling my eyes out because this was a choice I did not want to make. A choice that felt so impossible and honestly felt like I physically couldn’t do. I had been struggling for months to let this past relationship go and I worked so hard and it seemed all my hard work was going down the drain in an instant. In one choice. Free will had never become more real for me in that moment.
I had to choose. God or this boy. God or my own pleasure. God or me.
And in that moment for the first time I blatantly turned my back on God. I said “God, this is too hard of a choice to make. I can’t do this. I give up.” And from that day I was lead down a road of destruction to my soul. Quenching the spirit inside of me. Everyday I woke up knowing that I had abandoned the Lord and that I chose somebody else over him. After all that he’d done for me I still couldn’t do what I knew was good for me.
Fast forward to today I am currently processing through that choice along with everything that happened last year and then some. A process that is a choice. A choice that I have to make everyday and sometimes fail to do. I know I’m not the same girl I was six months ago when that event happened, but I’m still the same girl who fights the Lord on almost EVERYTHING. Seriously I don’t understand how the Lord still tolerates me because I’m agitated with myself at the moment. It was a fight to put me on the race, it was a fight to start the healing process, and it is a fight to stay in the process.
My flesh fights my spirit so hard. But my spirit fights back too. And then satan likes to come into the picture and feed into my flesh. But God is also there feeding into my spirit. It is a constant battle. A constant struggle. And honestly I’m tired of fighting. Tired of resisting God. Tired of beating on his chest and kicking my legs and screaming and fighting him. But the cool thing is God doesn’t let go of me. He didn’t six months ago when I left him and he hasn’t now while I’m still struggling. God didn’t come down to save us so that we could struggle to be free. He gave us the freedom to struggle.
And still I struggle. Still l fight. But the cool thing is He gave me freedom to do so. He’s patient and tender with me. He allows me to fight him which I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY. Cannot possibly begin to comprehend how good and gracious he is to allow me to fight with him and wrestle with him. And I thought I would learn by now but I haven’t. I still fight. But my fighting shows me that I’m not giving up, not entirely. That I want whats good and I have to fight to get there. I have to fight to get to God, because God fights to get to me. He fights for my heart. He fights for my soul. He fights for me.
A lie that I’ve always believed is that I’m not worth fighting for, but looking back and seeing how God never stopped fighting for me, I can’t not believe it.
I AM worth fighting for. Because God fights for me. So, I want to fight for him.
