Chained

God woke me up at about 3:30am today… I guess I had been sneezing in my sleep because I woke up with the watery eyes and tingling nose as is typical after I’ve sneezed. It was very odd.

I have this strange thing with me that I typically have to sneeze in the morning before I am officially awake. It’s kind of a joke in my family, I may have been up for an hour – but once I sneeze, I either say “good morning!” afterwards or one of my family exclaims “you awake now?” or something else in reference to being awake. Thing is, once I sneeze, I’m up and alert – so I’m pretty certain I sneezed in my sleep this early morning because once my eyes were open, I really couldn’t shut them long enough to fall back to sleep.

So I got up, turned on my lights, and paced a bit to see if I could go settle down. After nothing of the sort happened, I thought there might be a reason for being awake and alert at such an odd hour, given my track record of rarely waking during the night until it’s time to get up. I figured God had a reason for it, and since internally I was feeling rather strange anyway, I decided to sit and write to Him and listen to some Praise & Worship music.

He had a reason alright… I began writing and listening to His music, just kinda wandering around in my head for the right words to pen. They gradually came to me and as I wrote more and more – the stranger I felt, the more I confessed, and the harder it got to stop. I don’t quite remember all of it now, but it’s personal and I have it written out.  I got to the point where I was bawling… God had brought me to a place where He was revealing some things in me – the major sin being, CONTROL.

I felt trapped and entangled within my sin and this nature I constantly battle. Basically chained down and in myself. My very blood, bones, and molecular structure just constantly grasps to hold onto this control. I’m in a continuous battle and competition with God Himself, because I have a Savior complex and somewhere think I can save or fix myself and others. The core of me is sin. The very nature of me is darkness. I’m in this vicious cycle and never-ending maze of psycho-analyzing, trying to WILL myself to change – rather than surrendering to His. Like a lab rat, I go round and round trying to find the exit on my own.

I begged and pleaded for God to set me FREE. I “know” so well that He is the only one that can rid me of my sickness and disease called sin, called SELF, called control, pride, manipulation, idolatry, and every sin in the book. My difficulty is transitioning from the “know” to the REAL. I’m filled with this toxic waste that just keeps accumulating and seeping into my mind, heart, life, and spirit… it seems the older I get and the more experiences or accomplishments I accumulate, the more I soak up, the more clouded and cluttered my heart becomes. I want a clean slate, to forget my life – to have my mind completely blanked out and blotted from its tendencies. The simplicity and innocence that I was once close to, because I simply adored my Father without questioning everything He did or I did. I try so hard to be “careful” with my motives, what I say and what I do – that I flip into that control and the worldly Christian philosophy then tells me it’s justified. When God’s Word says differently. I’m a slave to myself because I continue my cycle of the 20 question self-drill-down before saying or doing or acting towards something or someone – I check my heart, re-check, then triple check… then say or do, and not 15 minutes later I’m psycho-analyzing that decision again. Check, re-check, go back, re-evaluate what I could have done differently, triple-check, 20 more questions, etc. Will it ever end with me?!  Why must I try to analyze, explain and re-fix everything?  It’s a disease, it’s a sickness, it’s a sin, it’s control. I want to be free of it… my mind is the main contributor in all this, but my heart is also deceiving. I know how to use my mind very well, but it is also one of my biggest adversaries that Satan likes to use.

This morning may all be as a result of God beginning the move in. I talked to Him a few days ago and said “I want so much more of You. Less of me and my ideas. Hold me close to You. Get me out of the way. Keep breaking and molding me. Destroy my mind, kill me with kindness. To You be all the glory in my Life!”.  After all, He cannot dwell where darkness lies. So He’s likely begun the process of destroying what I think I know of “me” and my relationship with Him… bringing me out of my DENIAL creepy land once more and into reality of my nasty disposition. The darkness that surfaced this morning was more than I could bear, it’s chaotic and confusing – all of it. But it gives me more of a motivation to keep Cross-eyed. The compelling nature of Jesus is scary because of what He exposes… but I want to be with and in Him only, no matter what the process looks like to me.

Re-learning surrender and freedom in Christ. Haven’t gotten there yet… God has to take me into that freedom because the fabric of my nature is totally at a loss and chained to itself. He’s the only One I know who can untangle this web I’ve created for myself…

2 comments / Add your comment below

  1. Amazing. You write so beautifully. Please continue.

    Your heart is beautiful – and I know our Father will continue to mold you into His Image. I am assured by His word that He is faithful and as you continue to surrender your life to Him – He will guide you into His perfect Peace.

  2. Thank you so much for the encouragement and comment! :) I was quite hesitant at first to write and then post this.

    I really appreciate what you commented and the truth you wrote. He is definitely faithful and will guide each of us into His perfect peace as we surrender our lives and hearts to Him! So awesome! Then our lives become more and more about Him and not ourselves, since He is the Potter who molds us each into His image. He is SO good!

    God bless you!

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