5:30–I am fine. With a smile on my face, I serve campers at dinner. That is where my heart is at.
7:00–I am crushed. Pressure has me laying on my dorm room floor. My heart is unresponsive to the screaming in my head. So I just try and breathe. Closing my eyes, I still myself.
If I was the same person at 5:30 as I was at 7:00, why were things so different. Why was control lost? Why was I so engulfed?
I have spent the past 3 weeks living at a camp as a Summer Missionary. Already God has taught me how to be patient with roommates, how to be patient with relationships, how to be okay with intimacy and depth of conversation, and how to be accepting of who I am. Yet, the weight of all of these new things has me running the opposite direction from truth. I’ve become more selfish in this process. It is as if I am prisoner to my own mind. I think about what I want, what I feel, what I need. I have neglected the people around me.
5:30–I was outside my head.
7:00–I was inside my head. And I couldn’t get out. I was enticed by self-pity. I was lured by selfishness. I accepted the guidance from sin. I gave sin the power.
We all struggle. We literally cannot escape the struggle because we strive to live by the Spirit while fighting the flesh. It is a constant battle. Our allegiance becomes skewed as we sift through what the world says and what God says. In those moments of confusion, our minds are burdened and filled with pressure.
At that point, we then decide how we use our strength. Having been redeemed by the blood of Christ, we have the strength to say NO to sin, but we let it have the power. We let it cripple us. We let it destroy our insides and leave us bare. We give sin the power to consume us and mute the voice of the Holy Spirit within us.
Is it easier that way? Sure. For a few minutes, it is easier. For a few minutes, we feel justified by our struggle and letting sin have the power. But how long can we hide the pain from wounding ourselves? How long before we bleed out?
Christ bled on the cross so that every day we can partake in the victory over sin. He died so we might live. He died so we don’t have to give sin the power anymore.
Comments