Fallen

What do you go to when you're down? It tells a lot about you. I have gone to many things over the course of my life and each has failed me, even myself. Especially myself. So, when something goes wrong where do I turn? If you asked me I would say with sincerity, God. I turn to Him in prayer, I look to Him for strength, and I trust in Him for guidance. But what I say is not who I am. As I'm in this ongoing struggle, the struggle to deny myself, the struggle to follow Christ, the struggle to live as God has called me, I am finding more and more how much I honestly have no idea. I don't know where to turn. I don't know how to turn to God. I don't know. It's both the easiest and hardest thing for me to admit. I've always known, even though I know I don't know. Yeah, saying it out loud makes it sound just as stupid as it actually is. I've always held to the fact I know how to look to God for strength, I don't. I know how to ask for His help, I don't. And I know how to follow His lead, I don't.

That's really hard, to realize you don't know something. How do you deal with it? How do you struggle past something you don't know how to change, how to move? I didn't know. Ha, see that? Yeah, that's the writer coming out in me. Change one word and everything changes :P

I was confronted by a friend and this inability to know even what to do was magnified so much. I already knew I didn't know how to deal with my sin. I'd tried all the things I knew I didn't know. It didn't make a difference. Then I get called out and that's when it hits me that I am so much more fallen than I ever want to let on. I'm so much more inept than I want to own up to. And I am so lost that I didn't know which way to turn.

"But God." Possibly the best words in the entire Bible. So much in those two words. Not us. In spite of us. By Him, Through Him. For Him. His power. His strength. His glory. The list goes on... The rest of Ephesians 2:4-5 paints the most powerful picture of our frailty, the most amazing depiction of our ineptness, and the most encouraging charge to stop. Stop sinning. Stop trying to do it ourselves. Stop being condemned. Stop heeding the flesh. Stop. Simply, stop.

But that's only the second part, what God impressed on me as well, not the whole. I was floundering, wondering where do I turn to change, how do I extricate myself from this situation, and how do I not fall again? A verse, God's words, were imparted to me. He told me to put aside the old man, to be renewed, and to put on Christ. As I read Ephesians, though, He gave me one verse that was special at that moment. My light in the darkness. He showed me the way to change in nine words. He made it so I now know, even though exactly how is still up in the air. He showed me hope.

"just as God in Christ also has forgiven youJoshua." - Ephesians 4:32b

Standing to fall, and stand again, all through Christ,
Joshua