Sustain me.

"Sustain me"

Psalms 51:10-12 " Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me"

I chose several years ago to commit this verse to memory and I find it is often one I'm brought back to when I'm feeling a drought coming on. Lately it seems as though I've allowed life to take me over and to change my priorities and now everything feels a little out of whack. Whenever I stop making time for God I stop imparting any sort of wisdom I've either learned from others or things I've learned in my times with Him. I throw any sort of "godliness" to the wind because I'm simply too busy. Which is the excuse I feed myself every Monday morning when the chaos begins.

I tell myself that with working 2 jobs, trying to maintain bills, making sure I still get my workout in, spending time with my boyfriend, keeping my house clean, etc, is just "too overwhelming" to even consider setting time aside for God. It all stacks up and then come the weekend (and mostly Sunday) I allow that time to be when I remember I'm also a Christian and need Jesus.

Ouch.

I've become the "only worship and remember Jesus on Sunday" type of Christian. That's uncomfortable to admit and yet it's become true in my life.

Then this verse comes to mind and while I'm thankful that at least one scripture stuck, it also brings me the necessary conviction that i need Jesus EVERY day, and not just Sunday. If anything I should be clinging to him when the hard times start on Monday morning when that alarm goes off. Somehow I only have enough Jesus to last me on Sunday but once Monday hits it's as if I'm on my own for the week!

That's not the case!

Which is why it's becoming increasingly clear how much and how hard I need to be praying through this verse. Because it's not just asking for restored joy, it's asking for it to last and last. And it requires a willing spirit for all of the above! It's easy to say "hey, God, gonna need some extra joy today. Hope this time it'll last till 5!"  What's hard is when you got grumpy people surrounding you, or your sensitivity is at an all time high and you're so easily aggravated at the slightest thing - how does that transition to a willing host for joy?

Running the race is hard, and maintaining the endurance for such a thing is even harder, especially when you're untrained and unprepared.

I think about the Rugged Maniac 5k race I just completed last weekend. I had 0 training, 0 endurance, and 0 skill. Which resulted in my walking away with every muscle hurting, bruises, fatigue, and severely winded. I wasn't prepared for what was ahead of me. Remembering my agony in that race also painted a picture of how my Christian walk has been going as of late. I'm trying to run the race with 0 skill on my side. I don't read the bible, I'm not a very good witness to believers/unbelievers I come into contact with, and I have little desire to do anything Godly.

While I don't have a very simple solution to this problem I've gotten myself in to, I do plan to impart some change into my life so that I can emit joy instead of the grump I've been allowing to shine through. I see my need for Jesus and his grace. I want to train more and make the time for what should be the most important thing in my life. Definitely going to re-prioritize and work to remember grace, mercy, love, joy, and peace. I want the week to approach and not cringe because of what's ahead of me. I want to see it, acknowledge the challenge, but then face it without complaints and a whole lot of Jesus!

Transparency

Of which, I'm learning, I. Am. Not.

God has been showing me just how many walls I have put up to simply try and block everything out. Block out negativity, block out pain, block out nonsense, block out everything - but it cannot block out Christ and with Christ comes all of the above. Because it is apart of life and I do believe He can use such things to grow you and teach you.

Now, I've never tried to apply the term "transparency" to my life but it is something that has come to mind at random throughout my days as of late. Basically I get the sense that I need to become more open. More humble. More willing.

In place of those mentioned above have been laziness, self-righteousness, and contentment.

Basically I've grown comfortable being comfortable.

Yikes.

All the while God has 100% been after me and pursuing me and calling me back. To that I say how wonderful is His love that He still calls us back even when we've wandered off the beaten path. Such grace.

And it's that type of grace I wish I could.. nay... I want to and will...begin applying to my life again. It isn't always easy for me to show grace, kindness and generosity. Basically living out the fruits of the spirit. It is far easier to sit back in my laziness and point fingers at the world for everything it is doing wrong. At the core of that is just someone, ME, who is driven by fear of actually pointing the finger at myself, doing some much needed internal examination, and fixing what is clearly broken inside.

So maybe my remedy is trying to be more transparent. Maybe the start of it is writing again, writing such things as this. Maybe it is getting back into old habits that have a history of being beneficial (i.e. reading more, sharing my life with others, being open about struggles, sins, etc). Maybe it is something entirely different but I am willing to make the change.

And this is Day 1