confessions.

I don't pray unceasingly.
I don't read my Bible every day.
I don't typically raise my hands during worship, sometimes I don't even close my eyes when I pray (especially if I'm driving).
I don't respond joyfully in all circumstances.
I don't always think of ways to serve others well...and even when I do, I don't always do it (I'm usually more concerned with myself, if we're being honest).
I don't always use the purest language or refrain from crude jokes.
I don't always trust God.
I don't always believe fully.
I don't often love well.
I don't always make God my number one priority.

These are my confessions.
There are more. Lots more. Lots more personal and specific ones, too. But, I think you get the idea.

Oftentimes I think that every other Christian out there is doing all of these things a whole heck of a lot more than I am...or at least they're doing them better than me. I've kind of been wondering if we all feel the same way about each other, though. That on the outside, it looks like everyone else has it all together or has figured out this whole 'picking up their cross' thing and we're the only ones still floundering around trying to get it straightened out. But maybe that's just my attempt at making myself feel better as I recognize how far I am from getting anything right.

When I look at that list up there, at all the things I don't do, I begin to wonder what I do do (yes, it's perfectly appropriate to snicker here)...and I wonder how much of what I do actually matters.

There's this balance that seems necessary in recognizing God's grace and how without Christ we are hopeless to achieve any of these things...but then to counter that with recognizing that in Him we are made whole, we are new creations capable of much through the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.

I guess I just want to admit to you that I don't have it figured out yet. And, I'm not sure that I will. I don't have a 12 step solution to maintaining all the spiritual disciplines, or the secret to upholding any sort of consistent emotional connection with the Lord.

What I do know? It's hard. It's inconsistent...because I'm inconsistent.
And that too often I get caught up in the doing versus the being. I'm not ever going to get it all 'right'. I'm don't even think that's the point.

The point is that He loves us...that He made a way for us, when we couldn't do it ourselves.
So while we're struggling and wrestling with the guilt that so often accompanies our inability to do any of this Christian stuff perfectly (or as good as we think the person next to us is...), I hope we fall to our knees in humility that we don't have to.

Live your life in such a way that the Gospel penetrates every aspect of it, not just to follow some moral code and be a 'good' Christian.

There's more.
And in the fullness of striving and failing...and striving and failing again, may we be constantly reminded of how necessary Jesus is. May we praise Him all the more for being sufficient.

I am thankful.

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