Drowning

Right now I feel as though I'm swimming in the middle of the ocean, slowly losing the energy to keep going.  Each day I feel a little more pull, and pretty soon I'm going to be completely submerged in the water.  The good news is, I am reminded of the story where Jesus called the man to walk on water, and he did.. but when he lost faith he began to sink.  Even after he had lost that faith, Jesus pulled him up before he could drown.  That story gives me hope, because that's like my life.  I have trusted God in the past, and with that faith I've been able to do great things.  And yet here I am today with no faith; drowning.  Therefore I know what I need to do.  I need to call on God to save me from myself and help me to walk on water again.  So many times I have pleaded with God to save me, but I put little effort into it myself.  Sure, I tell myself I'll change tomorrow.  But what about today?  Isn't the best time to change the here and now?  If I really want to be forgiven, if I'm really sorry, why wait until tomorrow?  So right here, right now, I am asking You to save me once again.  But this time I'm going to do my part as well.  I am going to work at this as though my life depends on it, because it does.

A Change of Heart

There are so many things I need to learn about who Christ is, but my goal for this next week is going to be to learn about his love. Both His love for me as His child, but also the way that He loves all people. I seem to really struggle with judging other people, but that also is stemming from me judging myself. I base how good of a person I am based on what I look like, and I support this by looking at what others look like and comparing. I want to begin to learn that who we are has nothing to do with what we look like, but more to do with who we really are as a person. Right now, I don't like the person that I am. But God put me on this earth for a reason, and I want to find what that is. I want to begin to see myself the way that He sees me, not only so I can love myself, but so that I can love others.

Today I learned a valuable bible verse:

Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

This is something I struggle with in many ways. But today, this applies to believing that I have been given God's forgiveness, and that he loves me no matter what I've done.

A New Life

Until now I’ve never really understood why some people have such a hard time coming to Christ, but I’m beginning to realize that a lot of the struggle is surrendering your life to Christ. It’s the pride that holds us back. We think we can run our lives better than God can. That has been me for the past few years. Even though it was small steps in the wrong direction at first, in the end I was running from God. So now, sitting here today, broken and scarred, feeling miles away from Him, how do I begin to bridge the gap that I’ve put between us?

Here’s my first step; admitting that I’ve been ignoring God and His plan for my life. It’s amazing to see what a mess I’ve made of my life because I haven’t been relying on Him. This step is also difficult for me, because in realizing all the mistakes I’ve made, it makes me feel as though I’ve been broken so many pieces that I can’t be put back together. I’m ashamed of the things I’ve done. Yet I am forgiven. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 says “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”