I know my last post was full of emotion! It was just a really hard thing for me to deal with. Sometimes I just get so sick of what this world has become. It's aweful. If I feel like this, what in the world must God be feeling? His children are crushing His heart, and it's not just those who are unsaved but the very ones who claim to be living for Him. And I am guilty too!
I guess it hurts so much when someone you really thought you could look at like as a christian mentor falls and doesn't even see what's wrong. And it's so much harder when dealing with matters that aren't as easily laid out in Scripture. I know I can't control the choices people make, including those I look at as ones who will make the right ones. We can only control our own choices, our own attitudes, our own response.
As much as I try to not be a judgmental person, I still struggle with that so much especially when it involves a Christian I look up to. I mean I expect that a non-Christian will act in non-Christian ways. And unfortunately I can be really judgmental and condescending at times.
It's hard being a Christian these days. I have lost interest in my church. It just isn't the church I grew up in. I hardly desire to go anymore. I don't go to sunday school like I used to either. I'm not involved in my church. I have gotten involved in parachurch ministries instead. I still love the Lord so much, and do want to grow and try to. It's just my church that I'm losing interest in. And I have even thought about switching churches. But how do you leave a church you've been at since the day you were born? It's not easy. And how do you choose a new one? The good ones seem so hard to find these days. Besides doctrinal issues, there is so much that makes a good church. I think I would like a church that is small (mine is big) and that has a lot of ministries to be involved with or is interested in developing new ministries. I have such a heart for some deliberately un-reach people groups, and I would want a church that is sensitive and loving and has a heart for those groups as well. So where is this church? I'll let you know if I find it. But church just feels like a place to check into every week, and I don't want it to be that way.
It's hard to be a Christian these days but there is no other way I want to be!
Heavenly Father, Help me to not get discouraged by the choices made by those I love. Help to remember that while You have given us free will, You can and do still speak to human hearts and You can influence their thought patterns and help them to see right and wrong. Your Word says that a person makes many plans in his/her heart but only Your purposes will prevail. Father, I pray that Your purposes will be the only ones that prevail in my life and in the lives of those I love. Help me to be an example in word and deed. Father I know that if I have a judgmental and condemning spirit then Your light will not be seen in me. You ask us to speak the truth in love not in jugment, not in anger, not in bitterness, not in condemnation. Help me to speak truth in Your love and to show Your mercy to everyone, for none of us deserve it, including me! Father, while it's so tempting to pray "change my circumstances" and "change this and this person," my prayer today instead is change me and change my attitude. Make me more into Your child who reflects You. I know that nothing speaks louder than the way that I live my own life. Father help me to live my life in a way that honors and glorifies You. In Jesus' precious name I pray, Amen. |
