Twenty16: Not Introducing a New Me, but a Better Me, Through Him

Ready or not, the entire last year of your life has ended, welcome to 2016. I don't know about you, but I could write for an hour about things I did last year that made my life (and others' lives) more challenging than necessary. As I look back on 2015, every challenging moment, that sticks with me, was existent only because of something I had done or something I had chose to make worthy of my putting forth an effort to. If you missed it, that was all about me. There wasn't a lot of God involved in those decisions. Don't get me wrong, I pray. I read my Bible, I go to church at least every Sunday morning. If I am off Sundays, I put forth my best attempt to be present for the Sunday evening Bible studies. I attend our ladies' Bible study when I am off Thursday evenings, and I attend our ladies' prayer coffee when I am off Tuesday nights (it is Wednesday mornings dark and early at 0645). I absolutely love to be a part of these smaller groups, I thrive on them. I enjoy reading and studying more and more of God's Word. From the time I start getting ready, until I leave the event, drive home, and park in my driveway, all I can do is smile! I get excited to attend, and I always leave refreshed and having learnt something new. That is all God, and I thrive on Him!

And yet: when Satan is knocking on my heart or making his way into my mind and life...sometimes I don't even realize it, I let him set up camp and hang out for awhile. That has come back to bite me. Things occurred in my life in 2015 that I have vowed to myself, and others, will never ever happen again. I seriously hurt a friend of mine emotionally, and that was never my intention. I have never in my life planned to hurt someone, as I suspect most people don't. Sometimes it just happens, we make decisions everyday: I did not always make the appropriate or best one. I believe good comes through every mistake God lets us make in our lives, I have learned my lesson, harshly (rightly so), and with consequences (rightly so), but nonetheless learned. I sometimes pride myself on being a good person, (though that alone is already a sin) I do believe I have a good heart, a heart set on being kind to others and building other people up, but we all make decisions, simply put, I made some wrong ones.

Being a Christian, I am aware that the sins I commit will be forgiven, in fact, have already been forgiven. That is not why I sin nor is it why I continue to defy God's commandments and will for me. I am human, I was born with sin. Though I now have been washed clean by the blood of Christ, He still gives me the right of choice. Daily, I have to make a choice to live for Him, to do everything for His glory. Sometimes I don't stick to that initial choice. Sometimes other emotions and things in life come in and fog my vision, and the path I chose when I rose out of bed may now be less clear or less desirable to me (enter Satan stage left) Sometimes the higher road requires some work and discipline, and sometimes I choose to not be cut out for it. I shouldn't, I have no excuse to do so; God has provided me with all the tools I could possibly need to fight the devil off and continue down the right path each and every day. Yet I opt out of trusting Him, out of using those tools to fight my way down the path that may require more work that day, for decisions and opportunities that make me happier in the moment, choices that were easy to make incorrectly because the devil made them more appealing and the struggle less overwhelming. Trusting God and praying is the most important thing I can ever do when being faced with a choice between right and wrong; nothing I do will ever be easier than praying to the One that is always listening. In addition to His omnipresent self, the Lord has also blessed me with a way-beyond-fantastic support system of believers all around me; a quick drive, or a couple touches on my phone screen, and someone will be there for me. 

The Bible says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" {Romans 8:31b}


So why do I fail so easily, so often?


The Bible, in the book of John says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." {John 10:10 NIV} 

I have quite brutally suffered from letting Satan come in and try and run my life because of the decisions I have made, but not anymore! I gave that to Jesus, and have tried my best to not be that person anymore! I do not believe that today I am a totally different person from the person I was on December 31st, 2015; it being a new year does not make a new person. But throughout the past few months, God and I have been working together to bring a better me to the playing field, a better me to show His love to others. God has pushed, poked, and prodded me, using His Word, family members, friends, and my church family, to help mold me into the person you would find within me today. I can only pray and continue to strive to be an even better person, because even still at this moment, my past mistakes lurk, and sometimes steal my joy! But I must refuse to let Satan win! I will fight the good fight with the One who can never be defeated.  Going to church, attending the extra activities that my church offers, that is not what makes me a Christian, it is my believing in Him and what He did for me dying on the cross for my sins, and me living my life for Him that makes me a Christian.


Strangely Dim by Francesca Battistelli ---> hear it here!!

Greater by MercyMe ---> hear it here!

#letgoandletGod #easiersaidthandonesometimes #praypraypray