Day Sixty Six - Do You Hear The Words Coming Out Of Your Mouth?

I'd be willing to make the declaration that 99% of all people act like nicotine addicts, myself included. Allow me to explain.

Everyone and their brother knows that smoking is downright AWFUL for you. It can kill you. But quitting is a bitch. Quitting has to be motivated by will. If you don't want to quit, you're never going to. It's that simple. But the trick, at least in my limited experience, is that you have to CLING to that will, even when it dips waaaay low. You have to remember that you wanted to quit. You can't even give a craving the smallest foothold, or it will indeed defeat you. Because otherwise any puff of any smoke starts to sound like heaven on earth and every justification in the world will enter your head and convince you that what you need is a smoke. 

Except it's not just nicotine addicts that battle that. Its most of us. Especially those of us that struggle to follow God. Christianity, from the outside, makes very little logical sense. From the inside, it's the only thing that makes any sense to me, but I realize it took me years to get to that understanding. We're all confidence and hymns on the tops of the mountains, but we all struggle with the desire to jump ship when we hit the low points. But we have to CLING to that will that chose God in the first place. Suddenly God doesn't make any sense anymore, and justifications fill our head that all we need to do is walk away. 

Today, one of my dearest friends said the words, "I don't care what God says," in the midst of her pain and anger. I don't blame her. What she is going through is an emotional shit storm. And she needs a shoulder, but part of me wanted to whisper to her, "Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth? You don't care what God says?"

What God says is the only thing in this whole world that matters. With His word He created the known universe, with His word He created life, by His word we know He is faithful to deliver, His word sustains us. What He says is all that matters. And its hardest when we're hurting, when we're down, when we're bleeding, to still trust that He knows best. But He does. It was obvious to us when everything was great. We'd have told Him, we'd have sworn that nothing could change our confidence, that He could tell us all to jump off a bridge and we would, in blind trust, for He had proven Himself faithful. Just because life gets stormy and threatens to tear you apart doesn't mean that He is no longer faithful. It just means He knows you can handle more this time around than you could before. CLING to the knowledge that He is as faithful in the shit storm as He is in the sunshine. And don't give in, not even for the slightest moment, of entertaining the thought that because your situation has changed, that your God has. 

The question is not, even in our lowest, darkest, most painful moments, whether or not our God is faithful. The question is whether or not we will be faithful to Him. He'll forgive us and take us back, even when we aren't, but think of the joy we can bring to His heart, by clinging to His light even in the darkness. That is something to cling to indeed.