Driving Blind

I watched a movie once where a woman was driving a car blindfolded. Her fiancé was in the back seat directing her through busy traffic, needless to say the scene didn't end well. By the end of the scene the man and his bride were angry with each other and there was a wake of destruction behind them.

As I sit here reflecting on my life these days, I'm feeling like that woman driving blindfolded. My back seat driver is my own expectations of myself, and behind me I've left a wake of destructive behaviors and attitudes, disappointments, and anxiety.

How are you feeling this afternoon? Maybe you can relate with me. Maybe you're feeling like the busyness of this life, the expectations you have, or the expectations others have for you-- have blindfolded you. Are you having a hard time seeing the road?

This morning I spent some time thinking about the people in my life who have been vulnerable enough to share their struggles with me, and I thought about my own struggles. The theme of the struggles I've heard, along with the pounding of my own heart,  is that no matter how hard I try, I am not enough.

My best efforts, are clumsy and inept at best. My inner script is punctuated with those words of disappointment. It's no wonder that I struggle with anxiety and worry.

I know that I am not alone in this, in fact, I'd venture to say that this is not a Erin problem, or a feminine problem. No, this is a human problem. It doesn't discriminate against age, sex, religion, social status or anything else. We do not measure up.

Even Paul, who many Christians argue to be one of the most zealous Christians in Church history, knows this struggle.

Paul writes in Romans 7: 14-21 that even though he longs and strives to do what is good, he still does what he doesn't want to do. There is a inner war being waged in your soul. The war between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. How do I win the war?

In my life, I tend to spend a lot of time focusing on all I did wrong. I replay my failures and shortcomings, over and over again. I think of all the ways I should have done something, all the ways I have not lived up. All that seems to do is spin me into a place of desperate hopelessness.

But what if I stopped looking at myself and start looking at the God who has already won the war.

This week, I've been reading of weakness. Specifically, how as a Christian I can have hope. Regardless of all the ways I fail, my failures show me something greater then all the success in the world.....

 I am loved by the God who is great. That love is not dependent on my abilies to earn it, or keep it.

God is sovergn and His plan for humanity is not dependant on my ability to be anything other than me.

This is Grace.

This the Power of God in me.

This gives me the hope to keep going. It gives me the supernatural ability to choose to do what is good over whatever it is that I want for me.

This takes off the blindfold.

It gives me eyes to see the road ahead over all the voices in mind telling me otherwise.

Do you want to see the road? Do you wish you knew where you are headed? Start by looking into the Grace God has for you.

Grace to fail, fall and flounder.

Grace to stand up and keep going.




Erin

Surrendering at the feet of the Great Healer

I have a problem. Good food. I love to cook, bake, eat and I love to share great food with friends. But sadly, food does not love me. I am allergic to nearly everything. Grains, dairy, yeast, some  fruits, some nuts, eggs....if it's creamy, baked, or delicious then I shouldn't eat it.   But I do eat it. It starts off small, a splash of cream in my coffee, a little cookie here or there. Surely this tiny drop in my nutrition bucket won't make a problem. Only thing is, it does. It makes a big problem. Because before I know what hit me, I've eaten 3 cupcakes and that little splash of cream in my coffee has become a peanut buster parfait from Dairy Queen and now I'm filled with regret and pain.

Life is filled with choices, tiny choices. Tiny choices that make huge differences in our life. 

Sin looks a lot like food allergies. Like food that I'm allergic too, sin is poison to the soul. Although small amounts of poison may not kill you, ingest that poison day after day and see where it leads you, it will lead you to death. My doctor once told me, as I whined about having to say no to what I want to eat, that the food I'm eating is poison to my body. You may think you're not affected by a little bit here and there, but those bits and pieces will catch up with you and in the end. They will kill you. Not quickly, but death is at the end of that road.

Romans 6:1-2

 "What shall we say? Shall we keep on sinning that Grace should abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?"

We who are Christ followers, have died to sin. The moment we surrendered our life to Christ we sacrificed our life in order to live forever in relationship with Christ. We died with Christ, so that we can live with him! (Rom 6) We have a knowledge that the world doesn't understand. We know that choosing sin will kill us, eternally. And yet with that knowledge, having experienced the freedom that came at our moment of salvation with Jesus Christ, we consistently choose to live in sin. At the beginning of my diagnosis, I stuck to the plan, and my symptoms dissipated over time. Saying no to what my flesh desired was the cure to my symptoms. As I got used to my new found symptom free life, I began to forget how trapped I was by my old ailments, and I began to cheat. As we live out our faith, we begin to forget how trapped we were by our sinful life before Christ. We begin to negotiate our sin. A little bit here, a tiny sin there, we know it's wrong but we just WANT to do it our way! Before you know it your old symptoms are creeping back in under the surface. Greed, lust, a stubbornness to be right, you've become less and less content with the way things are and more and more demanding that things start going YOUR way. 

If your reading this and getting uncomfortable, take heart. There is hope, and that hope is the Great Healer. I've struggled with my willingness to give up the foods I love in order to let my body heal. I've whined, I've begged for healing, I've prayed that God would magically take away all my food issues. All the while there God has been asking me to surrender. It's hard to surrender when you're holding tightly to your personal desires. A conversation with my Mom really hit me hard. I was whining about how sick I felt and that my symptoms are returning. I KNEW that I needed to give up sugar and go all out on the diet my doctor had suggested. I knew that if I did, my symptoms would disappear. But I didn't want to. It's TOO hard! I cried to my mom, I don't WANT to give up the foods I like! She understood, but asked me a question. "Erin, do you think that after all God has brought you through and healed in you. Just maybe Satan wants to keep you believing that you can't give up sugar?" I had never thought about God and Satan in the realm of my physical allergies. As many of us tend to do, I compartmentalized my spiritual life and my physical life. But you really can't separate them, they are one. I began to think about that and ask God if there was any truth there. It was clear to see that wherever my flesh is demanding and unyielding, something is happening spiritually as well. So once again, here I am, asking God to do something about these allergies. I'm asking him to let me give them up. 

You probably don't have food issues, but I'd be willing to bet that there is something in your life that you are holding on to with a grip that would challenge the strongest man in the world. Maybe God wants you to just let it go. Maybe, like me, you've forgotten what it was like to be free from the symptoms of your life before Christ. You're a Christian but you've let your life be marked with bits of sin that have began to infest your life. You can't remember the freedom that came when you gave your life to Christ. To you I say, come home. Your Christian walk is work, salvation is free, but living out your faith comes with a great cost. The cost is to give up your stubborn desires and unyielding heart and let God's grace give you the supernatural strength to conquer the desires of your flesh. 

I hope that you are encouraged as well as challenged by what you read here. I pray that as you read this that you would feel God's gentle pleading. Come home. Let it Go. Surrender your physical and spiritual sickness at the feet of the Great Healer. He loves to heal, after all He didn't come to save the found, and heal the well. No, Christ came to save the lost, heal the broken, free the captives! 

If you need prayer, or if you have been encouraged or challenged I'd love to hear from you! Leave me a comment in the comments section, I'd be happy to pray for you. 

Blessings, 

Erin 

With Great Anticipation

December started off busy and exciting in our home, my children woke up the day after Thanksgiving looking forward to the Christmas season. We started the month by planning all the festivities, parties and celebrations that would occur this month- all leading up to the great event of the year, Christmas day! As the month flew by, our days were filled with making decorations, eating yummy treats and thinking and talking about the great Savior that came to set us free from sin. We talked about how the angels sang praises in the fields, about the star that shown so brightly leading shepherds and wise men to come and see and worship the baby Savior and King. We read from the Old Testament of how Emmanuel would come to the earth, about the virgin birth and His lowly entrance into this fallen world that He came to save. All of creation up to this point had waited and watched for this moment in history to come to pass.

About a week prior to Christmas, my daughter came to me and sat in my lap. "Mommy, I don't want Christmas to come....." She whispered to me. "But why not?" I asked in surprise. "Because, then it will all be over...." Such anticipation for one day of excitement. I began to think about that sentiment. I wonder if Mary and Joseph had a moment of let down after the shepherds headed back out to pasture and they were left alone with a baby and no real plan. The Jewish nation waited for so long to see the coming of the Messiah, and although many missed it, those who caught glimpse of the promised one, what did they long for after they saw the Savior??

My life has been marked by waiting for the next big thing, that somehow attaining something new, would make all that had been,worth the time and energy it took to live through it. Perhaps you can relate. Life will be better when.....fill in the blank. I get that other job, we move out of this house, we have a baby, our kids are older, our car is better, my family is closer or farther away..... Why is it that we live out our life never being content with where we are, but always longing for some future event? Could it be, perhaps, that we are created this way, but that our longings are misplaced?

Since the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden, man has longed for a better future.

January 1st comes with great expectations, all around me I see people thinking and planning new years resolutions, promises that are made to be broken it seems, as January 3rd brings to reality the ineffectiveness of our will power. What are you longing for? Perhaps next year brings with it the anticipation of new and glorious adventures! Or perhaps the new year marks the passing of yet another year of struggles, pain and loneliness. Perhaps you have resolutions to get out of debt, or lose that extra weight, or buy that new thing, or stop that bad habit. Making goals is a great thing, but what is it that motivates your goal making. Do you think life will really be happier in a size 6, in a new house, or with a new man? Or maybe underneath all that stuff you really have a longing for something greater, a longing to be a part of something that matters, or to be witness to something spectacular.

Paul and the apostles were anticipating the return of Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of Heaven. They lived their life with one resolution: to welcome their Savior, and to invite as many as they could to the great feast that awaits them. This year, I have no resolutions apart from one:  to walk where God leads me, regardless of where He leads me. I have a great longing to be a part of something great,  I want to be apart of God's redemptive story.

Can I encourage you today? Can I challenge the reasons behind what you long for? If you, like me, find yourself striving towards the future and dreaming of better days ahead, maybe it's a warning sign to stop and think about what your heart truly longs for. Maybe you long for comfort, less bills to pay, or a better lifestyle. Could is be that you really long for the great Comforter? God has promised to give us His supernatural comfort in the midst of worldly discomfort. Maybe you long for better friendships or better marriages, could it be that you long truly for the intimacy of having a friend who knows you better then anyone else? God longs to woo you into a relationship that is so fulfilling that it surpasses anything this worlds friendships have to offer! Perhaps you long to be better, do better, break that bad habit or stop messing up that one thing. Could it be, perhaps, that you truly long for forgiveness and that you desperately desire to shed the guilt and shame you hold on to and that controls the way you live your life. I have hope for you by friend, and his name is Jesus.

I write these things to you because I know them so well. I understand the pain of regret and guilt, I know the pressure of striving to be good enough and the devastation that happens when once again you can't uphold your own promises. That's  the beauty of Jesus, he doesn't desire perfection, or will power, good financial standing or great personal relationship skills. He is the savior, he came to save us....from ourselves.

As you look forward to 2014 with great anticipation, I pray that you find your longings satisfied, and that the great God who sent his son to earth on that glorious day 2000 years ago to save us, would be your greatest desire for the new year.

Blessings my Friends.
Erin