I Have A Confession.

I've got this war going on inside of me.

I'm not sure if I can really explain it, but I'll try.

It is a war between my "flesh" and my soul. It has been going on for a while now, and it's painful. One day I wake up, and all I want to do is simplify my life. I want to live out in a little cottage house in the country, have our own little garden, sit out on the back porch sipping iced tea as the sun goes down and talking about my favorite songs and scriptures. I want to give all I have away and not look back. But the next day, I will wake up and think about how much I want to go shopping, where I would love to go on an extravagant vacation, what is coming on t.v. that night, and how I can cram more stuff and more entertainment into my day than I could possibly imagine. And one part of me longs to be patient and forgiving and an absolute optimist. While the other part is in such a rush, always finding the cup half empty, always coming home "too tired" at the end of the day to take time out for study or prayer.

In other words, there is a part of me that is seeking such fulfillment in the way I'm living, and then there is a part of me that wants to deny myself and let someone else live in me. It is something I constantly struggle with. Some days, I'm incredibly materialistic... but most days, I just want to be plain and simple. Meek and lowly. Humble and modest. I feel it in my soul. And most days, the sad part is... I let it stay there.

But I have to remember -

"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me." - Galatians 2:20

I'm sure there are a lot of people in the world who think that those of us who have put away the old man, and given our lives to Christ are kind of weird.

And they're right. We are.

We've been called to be a peculiar people. Set apart from the rest of the world. Strangers in a place that is not our home. So when you see the way we worship, and pray, and strive to live our life in such a way that would Glorify God, you might not understand.

We choose to lose our life, in order to LIVE.

If only I could stop this war inside me and truly deny myself.

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."- Luke 9:23-24

Yet God forbid that I should boast about anything or anybody except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, which means that the world is dead to me and I am a dead man to the world.- Galatians 6:14

So please pray for me with this struggle.

Of course I want to live comfortably and to be able to take care of my family. But more than anything, I feel it in my soul, I want to simplify my life until God is the only thing left. And then add to that my blessings. Not the other way around. Not where I find myself engulfed in desires of this world until I'm filled to the brim, and then add God in where I can. I want to deny myself all of the pleasures of this life and take up my cross. I want to lose my life so that I may save it.

"Bind up these broken bones, mercy bend and breathe me back to life...

but not before You show me how to die."