Realness

I just want to take a moment to inhale the sweetness of our Lord. I want others who don't believe to understand how hard it is to believe sometimes. I battle everyday with demons and sin and immorality. However, I'm not battling alone. I have a partner, a leader, someone who gives me strength, someone who demands respect, someone who comforts me, gives me rests and advocates for me. My Lord is more of a fighter than I will ever be.

Reading today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers I get it. I get that faith is hard and that the exact point of faith. Faith is ever struggling to produce more faith.
"Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children...The life of faith says, "Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I'm going to step out boldly, trusting in Your word."... Turning intellectual faith into personal possession is ALWAYS a fight, not just sometimes... the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us."

I have to say God is very real to me. I cannot even begin to describe the blessings that He gives to me everyday. This just makes me want to serve him more. I think of this as loving my parents. I love them, and by serving them, and respecting them I show them my love. I often struggle with this, as does anyone who is turning 23 in a couple days and is still living with their parents would. My temper flares easily among the people I love, and I hate it. I hate not giving them everything that is good in me. I hate that I cannot fully and continually show the love that I feel for them. So for God. I just I want to give him all of me. He understands my good and bad, but I hope to follow him more and truly and fully offer him all of me so that each day I will be made more in his likeness.

In two days I officially turn 23. Every birthday I look back at the years that have followed and see all the things that I have not done. It really makes my birthday almost something that I dread, because it makes my inadequacies and unsuccessfulness quite real. I know that I'm still young and even though my head is spotted with grey hairs I still have plenty of life to live. I just desire to have a birthday that I can look at the life that I've lived so far and be fulfilled.

salt of the earth, light of the world

I have found most recently that my heart is often in spiritual bliss. That sweet revelations are whispered into my ears. That His wisdom and knowledge meet my ignorance and selfishness. I have found that my soul is so quickly filled with joy and then so suddenly saddened by my physical reality. It's as if I'm in a trance, like I'm living in some sort of fantasy where sin and foolishness do not exist. And then it's as if the hypnotist snaps his fingers and says "open your eyes" that I'm reminded of this imperfect world, the inconsistencies, and the dirtiness. Salt of the earth, light of the world, salt of the earth, light of the world, salt of the earth, light of the world is all I can tell myself to keep me from being held hostage in this overwhelming dangerous darkness.