Clarity

I am always amazed at how I can complicate such simple things. I have a knack for taking the simplest problem, looking at it from every possible angle, and then convincing myself that there is no answer when the answer is staring me right in the face. I suppose that is why I get so frustrated with logic puzzles.

Anyway, here the last few weeks I have had a war within myself. Struggling over a question with which the answer has been obviously clear and yet I have managed to cloud it in my mind in every possible way. A struggle between what I want for my self and what God wants for me. Between living in this world and being of this world.

Obviously, there should be no question in my mind that what God wants is the best thing I could ever choose, even if it means that what I want has to be sacrificed. Yet, the desire to have want I want is so strong that it seemingly drowns out my hearts cry for the Lord. This fact has so frustrated and confused me. It has left me feeling isolated and alone. Feeling as though no one could possibly understand how a girl who's deepest desire for so long has been to serve the Lord with all she has and now feels as though she is wavering, being tossed about in a sea of questions, not being able to find a place in which to rest. Searching for something that seemingly can't be found.

Today, however, I have found that place to rest. I have found my comfort and my peace in the place it has always been, God's own words. I was reading in Galatians today, a book I have studied many times, but this time something really struck me.

Galatians 5:16-17 "So I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contraty to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want."

This whole war inside of me has been happening because the Spirit is within me. My sinful nature and the Spirit have been in conflict. I am not a freak of nature! The fact that I have been struggling is proof that I desire to live by the Spirit. This conflict is constantly occurring and is more pronounced when I stop striving to live by the Spirit. When I am not renewing my mind daily. Thank God for His grace and mercy because even when I stumble and fall he is there to pick me up. His Spirit is there to guide me and stop me from indulging my sinful nature.

"Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:1-2