weakness

on days or weeks like this, it's hard to pretend like i'm strong or moral, or really have anything to brag about. maybe that's why the opening lines of the Heart of Worship seemed to go so far and resonate - "When the music fades and all is stripped away." though we only had a four day week of school this past week thanks to a fall break, i was consumed by various things.

my team lead was leaving and i was supposed to step up and fill the position. it was a week of transition and meetings and being afraid that i didn't have the competency or understanding to fill the role. at the same time, i was supposed to hear back from 2 companies as to whether i would go on to do on-site interviews in Austin/Madison, Wisconsin, and i was somewhat freaking out over my future and where i would end up. also, my hormones were honestly pretty raging. each night was a fight, a battle, and ultimately, i didn't win. i think i fought harder than i normally do or have to, but i didn't "win."

as i drove home to tulsa, i heard a sermon excerpt of a guy from Church at Battle Creek saying how religion is this idea that we can make the way or pave the path to salvation all by our own, and Christianity is unique because Jesus comes along and says that He alone is the way (as well as the truth and the life). and how, with the life that Jesus lived, He essentially made salvation possible. no one else really did that, or would have been foolish enough to do that. it's similar to me saying that i lived such a great life that i could save and redeem other people - not just myself, but others - regardless of who they are. and that people won't be saved for anything that they did, but for the life that i lived for them, on their behalf. that is an incredible statement, but that's really who Christians believe that Jesus is.

i don't feel qualified on any level. i don't feel right to say "this is what God has been teaching me," or that He has my whole heart. i really just feel like a failure, but from hearing some people speak and reading a book called Reason for God, by Tim Keller, this is because i'm embracing religion, rather than the true gospel. because religion is based on morality and how good i am and how infrequently i consciously make sinful choices, and that can only lead to depression and despair or pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness. but living based on the gospel is humbling because it acknowledges my own failures and inability to do anything about them or even to stop messing up, but it's also empowering in that i can have confidence that God's covenant towards me isn't going anywhere - it's stable, it's solid, it's already done.

and i have the fortunate experience of people around me telling me what a great Christian guy i am, that they really see God in me, and i hope that really is true and not something that deceives me and makes me puffed up. but i also have to wonder, what of all this struggling? and though i've repented and known my weaknesses and confessed them and wished that they would cease, do i not still seem to return to my own vomit? my old idols, the things i despised so passionately before, only to later act as if i needed them, desperate for their consolation, oblivious to God above me.

i guess my head is just a giant mess right now. i seem to have a bunch of conflicting desires - a bunch of conflicting, selfish desires. i don't often make the right choices, i don't often do what i know i need to do. and i guess, at the end of it all, no one will be saying that i had everything down. no one will speak of my morality or my character or my purity, for i really won't have any. praise God He sees the heart and not the outside. but please, God, rid this heart of everything not of You, everything that enslaves me to sin and keeps me from praising Your name and giving all of myself for Your name's sake. here i am, God, change me. desperately i need You, all of You, and desperately i acknowledge that i am just a ball of mess, of perversion, of sickness and weakness and inability. even on my best day, my best hour, i have nothing of worth to offer You or this world. i need to be rescued of myself and this world.