Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time wrestling with not only myself, but also God. And I actually stayed back half a day from ministry so I could take some time to talk it out with God and figure my mind out.
And when I tell you I’ve been wrestling with God, I mean it in the most literal way possible. I’ve been tired, annoyed, and generally not having it. At ministry I’ve been annoyed and overwhelmed to the point of tears because I’m in a different country where I don’t always understand what’s going on. And it’s hard.
I may post only the good parts of life on the Race, but it isn’t always good. Sometimes I don’t want to keep doing it. Sometimes I don’t see God’s hand or hear His voice. Sometimes we get sick or injured. It isn’t always this amazing picture of living for God.
Anyways, I’ve been battling this inward struggle of knowing that I have idols in my life, but not wanting to admit them. And so I went through the ugly process of rooting through my past, what events shaped me, and how I move past them. And it wasn’t easy.
Being honest, I have a big idol of sleeping in my life. I love to sleep, and I never feel rested. I’m always tired. So why not sleep?
And because of this mindset, I never spend time with God, because I only really have time to dig into His Word in the morning. And in the mornings I sleep until the last possible second instead of saying,
“God is worth the effort to get up and spend time with Him.”
Which is what I want to be saying. But when the time comes I never actually do it. I want to dig deep with God so badly, I want the hard things so bad that this urgency fills me every time I think about it.
Therefore I decided to make a commitment to Him. Another one.
That He’s worth so much more than I can offer. That He deserves so much more than just the time I spend with Him. But that I’ll spend my life fighting against temptations that try and keep me from Him.
Today we had a time to go and talk to God after a teaching today and after a time of baptism, if anyone felt like God was asking that of them.
I’ve already been baptized twice, so obviously I didn’t need to. I was good.
But as time progressed my heart started pounding. And someone asked if I was going to get baptized, and I said no, I’ve already been baptized.
I also just didn’t want to get my jeans wet. I just washed them. And then I got really pissed off at myself and asked myself,
“Why am I letting a dislike of wet jeans keep me from making a commitment to God?”
Not even five minutes later I asked my squad leader Katy to baptize me and found myself sitting in a tub and my team praying over me as I got my head dunked.
And after the hugs and celebratory cheers, I realized that my heart had calmed. That after giving God absolute control over every fiber of my being, I finally felt calm.
At one point in my life, years ago, I wanted to die. I just wanted to stop being tired and alone. I even held a knife contemplating whether or not to just end it.
But today, I’ve never been more grateful to be alive. To feel joy even when life is looking bleak. I’m so happy to have friends that are like family. To live and feel God and see Him in everything.
Dying is easy, living is harder. And God calls us to do the hard things. And I’ve never wanted to life the hard life more than this moment. And I pray that this mindset is renewed every morning.
