Failing at Faith

Day 2

2010-06-15T07:23:00.000-04:00

Today's reading is Matthew 2 and Micah 5. Matthew 2 is about how God protected Jesus from Herod by leading Joseph first to Egypt, and then to Nazareth to evade Herod -- and to fulfill two different prophecies about the Messiah.

Micah 5 is one of those prophecies, with referrence to the Messiah coming from Bethlehem. It also talks about how God will lead his people, and provide a faithful remnant of Jacob to lead the people.

The "extra reading" was from Richard Halverson, and it talked about how God doesn't just point us to where he wants us to go... instead he leads us. We just simply need to have the faith to follow him where he leads us.

I pray for a new identity today. I am struggling with letting my sin be my label, and not recognizing who I truly am in Christ.

Day one of a new journey

2010-06-14T07:29:00.000-04:00

I finally reached out for some help this weekend. I can't do this alone, so I've finally asked for some accountability from a good friend who has shared this struggle. He offered lots of encouragement and challenges, one of which is to make sure I'm spending time in the Word every day.

So yet again, I find myself trying a new "spending time with God" plan. I am making myself take 15 minutes in the morning to read and to pray.

Today I read Matthew 1 and Isaiah 7, which is the lineage and birth of Jesus and a corresponding passage of fulfilled prophecy. I always struggle with paying attention when reading long lists of anything in the Bible, but at least today I had Andre Peterson's "Matthew's Begats" in my head to help.

The second part of the chapter was on the birth of Jesus, and the events leading up. I always think it's interesting how nonchalant the Bible makes it seem when someone is visited by an angel. As easily startled as I am, I would be terrified, but the Bible just talks about it like it is something that happens every day.

I liked the reference back to Isaiah 7:13-14, talking about how "the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." In Isaiah 7, God (through Isaiah) tells this to King Ahaz when he is about to be attacked by two other nations. At first I didn't see how that was really relevant, but it dawned on me that this goes to show that Jesus birth and the redemption he brings affects everything -- he is Lord over everything, and there is no part of our lives that won't be touched by him.

The last part of my reading was from Terry Fullam that talked about the importance of the virgin birth in Jesus' maintaining his full deity and his full humanity. I get what he's talking about, but I struggle to wrap my head around big theological issues sometimes.

Prayer for the day:
God, please keep me focused on you. Help me flee temptation, and give me the discipline I need to follow you daily. Help me to realize that your love for me does not depend on how "good" I am.

I hate failing

2010-06-11T23:14:00.001-04:00

Here I am again. The cycle has started over.

Jesus, give me the strength to trust in you.

Catching up

2010-05-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

Been super busy the last week or so... 3 finals last week, new son born yesterday...

Somehow in all of it, I always remembered to pray to God for deliverance through whatever trial I had facing me... I prayed before exams, hoping I would know what my professors were asking; I prayed before the C-section yesterday, hoping that God would give wisdom to the doctors, and grant my wife and new child safety out of the surgery.

But somehow I always seem to forget to thank God when he grants me the deliverance I so desperately ask for. I really want to get to the point where I go to God for more than my wants, but also for my thanks, my contentment, and my fulfillment.

I've been reading a little J.I. Packer, and he has had some good things to say that have very pertinent to me. I didn't bring the book to the hospital, but I'll try to dig them up to share.

How do you overcome spiritual apathy?

2010-05-08T22:47:00.000-04:00

I have always carried a tremendous sense of guilt with my faith... depending on the severity of the sin, knowing I am sitting in the middle of sin is enough to make myself so sick at my stomach that I can't function until I confess. Maybe it's the Southern Baptist upbringing, maybe it's God really trying to work in me, and maybe it's just my own little neurosis. Who knows?

One thing that has never given me that sense of guilt, however, is a lack of time in the word. I mean, sure, I get a twinge of "should I turn off the TV and open my Bible instead" every now and again, but it's never enough to panic me into action. Instead, I have a good week where I read my Bible every day. Then I have a week that's not so good (like, maybe 2 days, not back to back.) Then, I get into a lull like I am now, where it's been months, and I honestly feel like I wouldn't know where to start, and doing anything at all would be doing it just to say I was doing it -- making it a checkmark on my spiritual to-do list.

The fact is, I have never been very disciplined at anything I've ever tried to do -- blogging, school, sports, time in the word . . . nothing at all. That lack of discipline has consistently manifested itself in two ways: first, I never follow through with things that I want to do for an extended period of time; second, I never can quit the things that I don't want to be doing for an extended period of time. It's the only time I can look at my life with any truth and say I mimic a character in the Bible: I feel just like Paul in Romans 7: I do the things I hate, and I don't do the good I want to do.

So, here's the question: how do you overcome apathy? Because that is really where I feel myself stuck. I know I should do things, and I know I should not do other things, but here I am, stuck in neutral, and I really don't know how to move forward.

Killer complacency

2010-05-07T10:17:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how easy it is to think that we're "doing fine" in our faith. Since starting this last week, I have "cleaned up" a little bit, and it's amazing how much better I can convince myself that I am doing. I'm still not spending any time in the word, still not praying (except in panic), still not loving others the way that I should.

It really is funny how easily we can allow ourselves to limit our faith to merely "being good" or "not being bad." It's like we tell ourselves "as long as we stop sinning, God will love me more!" In truth, nothing we can do will make God love us any more -- or less for that matter.

I pray today for the desire to pursue God with all I have, and the discipline to keep pressing on when I don't feel like it.

Thinking myself out of sin -- and losing

2010-05-03T19:34:00.000-04:00

So, since I started this blog last week, I've been trying to THINK my way towards God. "I can put myself in better positions to do things I know I should do, and not put myself in positions to sin, and that will work out."

How dumb.

A couple weeks ago, I read this post by Jon Acuff over at Stuff Christians Like, and at the time I read it, I thought: "Man, he is dead on. Why do we try to logic our way out of sin?" Fast forward, and here I am doing the same thing.

Another thing that strikes me as... I was going to say funny, but it's clearly not funny, so I'll say sad... is the fact that in the 4 days since I've been severely convicted and had all of this really weighing on me, I've only picked up my Bible once. Here I am knowing that I am struggling through a few days, and I can't even bring myself to turn to Scripture.

I feel like one of the people Screwtape talks about: think about things a lot, but don't ever do anything.

Fatherhood and Faith

2010-05-01T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'm really having a rough go with my son right now. He's two and a half, and he's at the point where Dada just isn't his favorite person in the world. It's not that he doesn't like me -- on the contrary, when it's just me and him hanging out, we have a great time. It's just that if any of the people he likes more than me is nearby (and that list seems to be growing by the day), or if he gets overly engrossed in whatever it is he's doing at the moment, he pretty much forgets I'm around.

I'm not gonna lie... it's pretty painful. I want nothing more than for him to know how much I love him and how much he means to me, and how much I love spending time with him. He has an infectious laugh, and I can draw it out in ways that nobody else can -- I love to make him laugh. But most of the time, he just ignores me, or tells me he doesn't want me to be there because he's holding his Mama, or tells me that I can't have the "night-night hug" that I desperately want.

Sometimes, I end up having to take something away from him because it's not safe or good for him, and he gets mad, pouts, and runs to his Mama to make him feel better.

In the car on the way home tonight, I was struck by how much my son's relationship with me mirrors the hot/cold nature of my faith relationship with God. Sometimes, God is the most important thing to me -- I want to please him, I want to bask in his love, and I want to spend time learning and growing in my relationship with him.

Other times, I am way more interested in other people (or more accurately, other things). Sometimes (most of the time), the thing I'm most interested in is myself. I see God there, waving at me, talking to me, telling me how much he loves me and wants to spend time with me . . . but I'm too busy being entertained, or giving in to temptation to treat people poorly, or to disrespect them.

And I have a vicious cycle of "God has told me something I don't want to hear, so I'm going to run further away to the very things that God doesn't want me to do to try and make myself feel better," only to end up even more empty later on. (That part of the comparison loses its validity when my son runs to my wife to make him feel better, but, it's the best I've got, so roll with it.)

I can't imagine how much worse the actual rejection I throw at God feels than the fake "rejection" my son sends my way. He's not rejecting me for empty things that will leave with a bigger void than when he found them... at least he's going towards things that are pure and good for him. I leave God for fleeting moments of self-indulgence and personal satisfaction or self-importance . . . thinking I can fill the void that only God can.

If nothing else, maybe I can use the hurt and rejection I feel from my son as a reminder of how much I hurt and reject God.

Self addiction - I am my own worst enemy

2010-04-30T23:18:00.000-04:00

The biggest thing I am struggling with right now is the whole concept of "dying to self" that Paul talks about in Romans. To be honest, I don't want to die to self. In fact, I LOVE myself... too much. That's my problem. I am the most important person in my world -- my comfort and my entertainment are what tend to drive me.
I was recently reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, and he had something in there that stopped me cold in my tracks. It was as if the paragraph was written for me to read.

I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.

That's how I feel most of the time. I don't get the shakes, but I definitely get panic attacks when I give in to my habits. And as bad as I know the habits are for me, I chase them all the same... feeling the high of the chase, then feeling the low of the self-esteem crash.

I think our strong desires are a gift from God, but I'm 99.9% sure I have mine focused in the wrong place. I can't imagine what my relationship with God would look like if I spent all this energy chasing him, instead of chasing myself.

Spiritual Self-Realization

2010-04-29T23:39:00.000-04:00

At some point in your walk with God, you eventually come face to face with your brokenness. I mean, really fess up to it — look at yourself in the mirror and see yourself for the fraud you are.

That’s where I am.

I don’t like myself. I don’t mean that in some self-loathing, emo cry for attention kind of way. But when I’m honest, I don’t like who I’ve become.

I don’t like how the struggles of my youth have become my horrible character flaws of middle adulthood. I don’t like how I don’t trust God — not truly trusting him. If I did, I wouldn’t try to fill my life with so many other things instead of Him.

I have felt spiritually empty for a while, and this is my attempt to try and sort it out.