Bad choices

  I had two dreams a few nights ago that were really interesting.   In the first one, I was a teacher.  A music teacher for advanced musicians. My room was at the end of a hallway and half of it was blocked by partitions and was being used for storage.  My half was open, I had the students desk all facing mine and mine facing them.   When they arrived, I was surprised that I was a teacher. I kept thinking "Me, the craziest person in this room haha"  I was being my normal weird self, and than I woke up as Justin was heading to work.   I fell back asleep, and had another short dream.  In this dream, I was a student.  I was taking a test and I knew I needed to write perfectly.  It was like the way I wrote was more important than the answers them self.  I was carefully writing my name, very very neatly, when I woke up to get ready for work.

  I walk to work, so I had some time to think about these dreams, and although there are parts of both I don't fully understand, I think I grasp most of it.  In the first, I was where I'm going to be, and in the second was where I was.

I feel like I'm being tested for what the next season is going to be like, and I'm not sure I've been doing so swell to be honest. I've been failing at some parts, making bad choices on everyday things and improvement seems to be so hard for me.  I really have been making pretty sorry choices for things, and I know they are bad, and yet I make them anyway, and afterwards I always feel depressed.   A pastor once told me Satan is with you through out the temptation process but leaves you when you've sinned, and that's why you feel so alone and down.   I actually think he stays with you, and THAT's why you feel so bad.  I think he not only wants you to mess up, he wants you to feel to bad to get better.  He wants you to settle.

  I know God still loves me, He is love and that's what He does.  His opinion of me can not and does not change.  I am still His child.  Yet I still need to step forward, I can not molest the grace of God, otherwise I manifest my love for sin is greater than my love for Jesus.  And Jesus will give me over to which ever I truly choose to love.   I can not have two masters, and eventually, I will choose one or the other.   The whole reason I'm writing this right now is to keep my self on track.   I'm choosing to serve Jesus.  I'm going to make less bad choices tomorrow.  And even less the next day.  And maybe I'm writing this hoping that one of you will read it and need to know someone is  broken and at the feet of Jesus just like you.  

  Our lives are alabaster jars.  Let's just all shatter them at the feet of Jesus and let him take the burden.  He wants to take it.  There is no need to labor anymore.   Let him take the struggles, the depression, and the sin.
I will make better choices tomorrow because I'm giving up on messing up.  I am walking with Jesus, because He will remain my one and only master.

Focus on the rest

Focus on rest


So, I was in a cold hearted season.  I felt no passion, it was hard for me to get into the word or worship.  I was angry, depressed, and struggling with things that I had not even thought about in over three years.  I was not just sitting around letting these things beat me up either.  I was fighting them full force WHILE they were beating me up.  I spent so much energy into fighting being depressed that when I continued to fail, I was even more tired and more depressed and had no energy for anything.  
 I DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO COUPON.   Anyone who knows me knows that if I’m too worn out to coupon, something is really wrong with me.  Of course, Justin was more than happy to oblige and allow me to take a rest from the couponing haha. After exerting so much effort into myself repair, I became even weaker.
  

I really want you to understand, I put every effort into fighting my sadness.  It was not until a friend messaged me and described what she was going through, which was exactly what  I was going through, that I realized all of the junk that was going on really only symptoms.   Symptoms of complacency, distraction, and ignorance.   I know that sounds harsh to say to myself, but what had happened is I just got distracted and the illusion of my past struggles sprung up as a warning sign that my attention was off focus.   I became ignorant of a fact that I cherish.   I’m restored.  Jesus died, and Jesus said “It is finished”  The works of the cross are already complete inside of us all, and there is no depression inside of me.  The struggles that rose up were just lies.   Jesus took my sinful nature into that grave with Him, but only Jesus made it out.  That’s not just my opinion, take a look at Romans, Ephesians, and 1 John, and you’ll see that the works of the cross are indeed 100% finished, and there is no more work to do, and you’re also see that our sinful nature was present, killed, and buried with Christ.  And it’s also important to note that only Christ made it out three days later.
 
   I got distracted from my identity in Christ.  From who I am and the wholeness that I have with the Divine.   I fell back into effort based religion, where I was trying to fight my way to a victory that was already mine.   And all the crap that I felt, it was only a light in the dashboard telling me to take a look under the hood. It wasn’t something that I needed to fight, or resist.  All I needed to do was surrender to Christ.  Fighting sin will do nothing for you, but there is victory when you surrender to Christ.