"Til the break of day"

I have been in a transitional period for some time now. I have not always been aware of it on a conscious level, but that doesn't make it any less real. I want to start this post by once again talking about Jacob and the wrestling match he engaged in. I have posted a few times about this subject in the past, you can review my thoughts here if you wish. ( to my Facebook friends, sometimes the links don't transfer, so if this link didn't then you will need to go to my actual blog to see the other post.)

Okay, this is going to be one of those whiny, raw, theologically disturbed ( not to mention mentally challenged) posts, just so you have been warned.

Jacob wrestled with a man, or so it starts. In life we wrestle with things, things we don't always understand but in so we battle. We often give our battles names or representations that we are familiar with, like Jacob labeling his conflict with 'man'. Jacob wrestles in the night, or more accurately, in the darkness. As the battle moves on Jacob slowly begins to understand it is not a man at all that he is wrestling (resisting), but now he calls it the Angel of the Lord. In the end Jacob gives up his resistance and in so doing realized that he was battling against God himself. As he gives in, the Morning Sun is rising. Jacob has battled "Til the break of day". Jacob is given a new name, he is a new being. He has succumbed to God's will.

What this text doesn't say is that after you, we, I have wrestled though the night and now you, we, I walk in the Light with Christ as our Saviour, we shouldn't have any more battles should we? The text doesn't warn us (at this point) that there are more battles yet ahead of us. Just when you thought it was going to get easier, in reality it is going to get much more difficult.

You see, before daybreak, the demons didn't worry about you much, you were no threat, you were theirs. God was working on you to bring you to Him. Now that we have entered the light, the demons are working on you all the time, deceiving you, misleading you, etc. However, the Holy Spirit is now convicting you as well, and just to add a little more to it, man shuns you as well. So much for easier......

I don't know about you, but I could have used a little warning that the demons are smarter than me. I don't know why I am surprised by this, but I guess maybe I am not as smart as I thought I was. I thought my main battle would be against man, and honestly, I couldn't care less. I read the scripture that warned me that man would ridicule me for my faith, that I would be hated because of Him and all that. Well, I feel like most people don't like me much anyway, so if they have a new reason not to like me, not much difference there. I was willing and I thought able to take on persecution by man. I was willing and able to wrestle the man. Well, like Jacob, I am slowly getting the point that once again its not man I am resisting. Seemed to me that this battle only was supposed to happen once, but I am learning that this is not the case.

Let us have a metaphor, I love metaphors. We have all heard, (most of us anyway) how once Jesus is in our lives as our Redeemer, He will walk with us and guide us through all things. We simply need to focus on Him to find our way. We have heard the poem called footprints in the sand. of how He walks with us. We also have been told He will guide us if we focus on Him, take the narrow path, not the wide path with the big gate. I feel like Jesus sometimes leaves my side and runs out in front me. Once He gets aways out in front of my path He gets down on His hands and knees and waits. When I come up on Him, one of two things happens, I either am focused on Him and stop in front of Him, or I don't see Him and trip right over Him planting my face in the sand. Of course, being a kind soul, He will AGAIN pick me up and dust me off. I know He only does this to alter my path back towards the narrow road, but geez I wish He would just send me a postcard with new Mapquest directions instead of knocking me over. Hmm, let me think about that for a minute. Maybe that is the problem, yep I thought about it, that's that problem.

The post card came in the mail, but I just tossed it aside with the bills I cant pay and didn't read it. That is one thing that has been missing for the last 2 years or so. I have to get back into reading the mail God sends me. ( for the slower folks, I need a daily dose of His Word which I have been too lax on for too long.) I opened my bible this week and have begun to read Mathew all over again. Its not that I don't know the story, its that God cant speak to me if I don't listen. He hates not being listened too as much as I do, ironic isn't it. Speaking of irony, the first two nights I tried to read I started reading in bed. Both nights I had to quit reading to change the sheets because one of our dogs decided to pee right in the middle of the bed. Damn demons will stoop to anything to keep me from figuring out what is going wrong. Well, take note, I didn't give up reading, and will not give it up this time no matter how much you pee in my bed !!

Have I gleaned anything new in the first 12 chapters of Mathew?

Yes............

Things like wolves wearing sheep's clothing, and know a tree by the fruit it produces. I can look back on my life and know that I have been a wolf, a sheep, and a wolf dressed as a sheep even. I can identify these things by the fruit. I can also now see some bad fruit, or lack of fruit, in some others. I wont go into that however, I am too busy trying to pull this plank out of my eye to worry about the dust in theirs.

One of the things that has happened lately is that we have left our church and have begun to attend a new one. This new church, LCC, is a church with an interesting twist. They are not concerned with or built around 'membership'. They don't care if you ever become a member or not. (sound strange?) They pray regularly that the Lord will send them people who have a need for something, something that LCC can provide for them. Sometimes people show up just for one sermon, something they needed to hear was spoken, and while they are happy to receive the word they needed, they go back to there own church, or whatever, the next week. Sometimes people need to meet someone, or need to have someone pray with them, or whatever the need might be, LCC strives to meet the need that God sent someone to receive. This is an interestingly new take on things as far as my ignorant self is concerned. We left our former church on a mission to find someplace that we could serve in either youth, children, or some kind of adoption ministry. After finding out that our pastor is adopted, and there are several other adoption situations around the church, maybe this was the place. But now I am not so sure I have this correct. Maybe I have again become confused about what I am supposed to do for others when its really what God is using others to do in me.

Again, from reading Mathew lately I can feel the axe and fork in my life. I am starting to see things differently, I am starting to see people differently, I am starting to see myself differently. Let me just tell you, I don't like it much.

One thing scripture tells me over and over again is that I need to put Him first. In Mathew Jesus says He didn't come to be a peacemaker, but to put mother against daughter. He is telling us that He MUST come first. (die to self, die to self) We are to keep our focus on Him, and He will guide us. ( die to self, die to self ). We are supposed to try and mirror His life and pick up our cross and follow Him. ( die to self, die to self ).

Does anybody else find this extremely difficult to do? If I give up all of me, who am I? If every last little thing that is me dies, haven't I died too? If I need to give up the things that make me who I am, then why am I me, and why am I here? Any answers, any?

I guess its time to shake things up again, change is good and healthy. (Right? uh, right.)

I try to do the things I am supposed to. I invite the righteous into my home because they are righteous, I take care of the widows and orphans, I listen and learn and help the little children, but again and again I am reminded, this is not enough, die to self and put Him first.... So as I sit here trying not to worry about tomorrow because today has enough trouble of its own, and thinking about the lilies and the sparrows, I have but one request.

Like Niecy Nash would say it:

Somebody pray for me::::::