The personal struggle of faith, religion and the flesh.
Matthew 26:41
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak
First of this is not a blog post convincing you to become christian or experience christianity as i have; I left my Bible bashing ways in primary school. I am writing and sharing mainly because I have been a lifelong (read as since 13) "bad" christian surrounded by exemplary good Christians like the kind that make you hate them because they seem to know the entire Bible by heart and always the joy of the Lord, and they know the lyrics of all the gospel songs and they seem to be God's favourites because they always have a testimony to share. This is a me problem, I am aware but maybe you will resonate, join me in coveting good christians lol.
As touched on above I have been in the Christ's fold for a minute now and as such I have experienced seasons of zealousness (of course as zealous as my personality will allow) and seasons of being Peter the denier or Thomas the doubter. There have been times when God had his loving hold on me and I wanted him to me f****g go but when the streak of rebellion had end I was so grateful for the blood that has been poured over me which can never be rinsed and the angels that carry me. There are times when the only prayer I can offer is silence, when I have no words whether due to shame, anger and resentment or shock. But I have remained in the house of the Lord even with my sinful nature whether out of fear, out of habit or true faith; but how can I exist, even at my most wretched state would, how can I exist without an awareness of the originator of everything.
Throughout this odyssey of faith that ebbs and flows I have learnt many things, these are experiential lessons so do not come for me theologians and religious scholars:
GOD IS A GOD OF FREE WILL
That is why the world is an can be the way it is presently, so different from God's nature, it is because from the time Adam was created we have had free to do as we choose. God may have a desired/planned destiny for us -in the case of Adam and Eve that they may not eat from the tree of knowledge- but it is not a plan we cannot deviate from.
THE ODYSSEY IS A DODGING GAME
Like those spaceships dodging asteroids in sci-fi movies, this spiritual journey is a dodging game. Dodging temptation, dodging sin, dodging situations that might lead to temptation and sin. Dodging having to dodge situations where temptation may arise, essentially guard myself, my heart and my spirit. It reduces the amount of conflict between the flesh and the spirit and the amount of endurance I need to exercise to aid my willing spirit to remain in the fold. That battle is exhausting and frustrating, so I try to minimise it. For me that has meant not listening to certain artists (not that I do not listen to secular music but there are genres, artists and themes I avoid). And being nice but not associating with people who have certain personality traits or interests.
THE ODYSSEY REQUIRES AWARENESS
That is awareness of myself, awareness of my surroundings, awareness of what is expected of me. To know what to dodge, I need to know what sin I struggle with and what triggers tempt me to sin or what triggers lead me to minimise my sin. I also need to know why I am dodging the things I am dodging, and what I should be doing instead.
THE ODYSSEY REQUIRES PERSISTENCE
We live in a world that is not conducive to a Godly life, at least in my experience and I have lived a fairly sheltered life. I cannot always be surrounded by like minded people with the same morals so it can often feel like I are going against the grain when we commit and live Godly lives, and to go against the grain I need tenacity, persistence. My faith sometimes requires me to fight for it, because doubt because chaos because drama because weakness, you get the gist.
THE ODYSSEY REQUIRES INTENTION
Faith is a daily intention which influences my smaller daily decisions. Read that correctly, I am not saying faith is works but faith influences or should influence my works. I think of relationship with God as "remaining in the fold", like the plastics in Mean Girls and their pink on Wednesdays thing and I am Cady Heron with my baggy pink t-shirt trying to so hard to fit in. It is my intended intention to try my hardest to fit in with God, with God not the church or a YA group, with God. Of course nothing I do will ever be enough but I cannot tell whoever will be asking the questions on judgement day that since God's grace was sufficient, I did whatever I wanted because I was saved by His sufficient grace which I am and it is sufficient but there has to be some difference in the way I live and move and have my being in this world.
WE WILL NEVER TRULY UNDERSTAND THE PLAN SO TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT, THE WHY & HOW COULD BE POINTLESS
I have a private struggle with overwhelming feelings of futility (which is why I fall in and out of love with life) and attempting to decipher and explain the reasons why God allows life happen the way it does unnecessarily feeds into that. So I try not dwell on questions of why things happened the way they did especially when it a negative event because my brain conveniently forgets that I had the free will to choose better which would have probably resulted in more positive outcomes, God becomes the solo bad guy in my internal narrative of victimhood. As for figuring out the how, that's often asking to live in a perpetual state of discouragement and despondency. So I take it as little as it comes, day by day or just minute by minute.
Cheers to uneasy spiritual growth
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