I’m 35 years old now and I’m at the apex of my understanding of who God is and what my role is in this world. However, I still have this constant nagging temptation that sometimes I want to just chuck all of this truth and go out and party.
Each day I wake up and I try to read my Bible, pray and go through life pursuing God, but sometimes I feel that I fall short and even worse, I feel that God falls short too. There, I said it. Sometimes I feel that my relationship with God has been one-sided. Like that guy in the poem Footprints in the Sand I feel that God is absent in times that are hard.
At 35 I’m still a virgin. The idea of holding out until marriage is still a struggle. At times I don’t think that I’ll ever get married and the temptation to fulfill my need for intimacy in the arms of some stranger is often very intense. Am I to die without ever knowing physical intimacy? Can God fulfill that desire in my life? What kind of life is it that is always filled with sexual frustration and guilt for having lustful desires?
For me, I feel like an ex drug addict that is constantly tempted to fall back into the sweet lulling arms of co-dependence and shut out the world of reality.
For years I had excuses as to why I would submit to the desires of my flesh. I would make excuses to look at pornography, I would justify my behavior and I would wildly abandon my morality for the sake of momentary relief from the pressure of just being me. But when I feel lonely. When I am despairing, I remember that Christ was tempted too and I remember these truths:
- Anonymous sex is not intimacy.
- Living wildly like the prodigal son will not satisfy me, after I have broken down I know that I will be ashamed of myself. I will have regrets.
- Everyone struggles with lust and temptation even when they are married.
- I am not alone.
- I am loved and needed and cherished.
- Life is more about me serving others than meeting my own needs.
- Because we live in a fallen world we will never be 100% happy with who we are.
- Placing unrealistic expectations on yourself is a sure way to stay miserable
- Learning to be content with how God made me takes time and is a ongoing process.
- Running to things of this world for satisfaction is my way of telling God that he does not satisfy me. He is not enough. He does not complete me.
- Feelings of inadequacy are lies from the devil.
- Most of the time when I feel inadequate it is because I have taken my focus off of God and placed if on myself.
I went to a counselor for about a year when I was 30. It was the best money I ever spent. He told me to journal how I felt after I had fallen into temptation – meaning when I had looked at porn and the shame that I felt after. He said when I was tempted to read that. It is a good tool to keep you from falling.
I don’t know who all is reading this site anymore. I rarely update it, but my goal is to use my words to convey transparent truth about who I am and hopefully you can learn from my experience and my mistakes.
I became a Christian at the age of 5 at Vacation Bible School but I remember little of that conversion. Shortly thereafter my parents became Christians and we attended a small Baptist church in the colony and began attending Word of Faith Christian Academy.
I honestly believe my conversion was real, but for most of my youth I believed that Salvation was something that could be lost and so I repeatedly prayed to receive Christ and “recommitted” my life to Christ at several church camps.
It wasn’t until I started attending Denton Bible Church in the 8th grade that I learned that salvation is a free gift that is not earned or deserved. Ephesians 2:8,9 It is not something that is given and then taken away. If salvation could be lost then it would mean that my righteousness was what was keeping me saved – and clearly that is not the case.
Salvation comes when we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus Christ is Lord. Romans 10:9, John 3:16
Encountering God is something that is life-changing and having received Christ at such a young age I often took his grace and security for granted. It has taken me years to truly begin to appreciate who he is in my life and my desire to attend seminary is to better understand him and his word.
I just read this and found it fascinating:
This is a piece of info from Wikipedia about Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”.
In a page in his diary headed Nice 22.01.1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:
“I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”
Perhaps he sensed the rocks crying out to God…
“There are lots of reasons why stressed people might over eat or gamble or chase after hedonic rewards. Unfortunately this new result reveals another one,” said U-M psychology professor Kent Berridge. “People who feel bad during stress cope in part by overeating or pursuing other incentives.
“Now it turns out a stress chemical also activates the same brain mechanism that goes wrong in drug addiction to make us excessively want pleasurable things.” – (Click here to read full article)
While watching “Madea Goes to Jail” I heard a counselor on the show say, “She’s a binge addict, meaning she can go weeks, even a year without using and then suddenly start using as if she never stopped.”
When I heard this definition of Binge Addiction I realized that it describes me. I’m constantly under stress that is normally induced by overcommitting to employers, friends, family and myself. I have unrealistic expectations on myself and others and when I fail at meeting what is required of me, I go into a funk. These “Funks” normally last about a month and during that time I gain about 10 pounds.
I will finally get out of my funk and start an excruciatingly difficult routine that requires intense discipline in all areas of my life. I pull my crap together in such a way that for a short time I feel invincible. Things will be going swimmingly and invariably something happens. A few weeks ago it was getting hit in the eye with a racquetball racquet. It was a blow that not only rocked my face, it rocked my drive and determination. I was on the bench for three days and amazingly I bounced back. I got right back in the gym and started hitting the weights hard and running and doing my 3 hour workouts without fail. Things were going awesome and then 4 days into it I strained my back. CRIPES!
For 5 days I could barely walk without excruciating pain. Getting out of the car or off the couch took minutes instead of seconds and all I wanted to do was curse God and die.
I have to watch myself sometimes because I feel the pull to question God and ask him what in the world is going on? It’s like my whole life I was taught that if you ask God for something, “He will give you the desires of your heart.” I’ve heard that sometimes his best answser is “no”, but I don’t feel that I am asking him for anything, I just need to stay healthy so I can accomplish some goals that are both physical and spiritual in nature.
I don’t think of myself as a whiny baby or someone that feels sorry for himself, but the number of times that I have been injured in the middle of trying to better myself is astounding. A broken foot 2 years ago, before that it was a couple of twisted ankles and then last year I hurt my back on a couple of occasions. During racquetball one day I hurt my wrist so bad I couldn’t turn the key in the ignition to start my car.
Last week I wasn’t feeling very good and so I laid down and woke up with a headache that had to be borderline migraine. I bought some medicine and it started to feel better and I couldn’t help but ask myself the question, “Why is this happening to me?”
I guess I wouldn’t mind these constant setbacks if there seemed to be a purpose. Do I need to be further broken? Humbled? Am i being taught some lesson?
The problem with my life is that everythin, obviously, is interlinked and connected. Things that cause me stress put a small chink in my armor – an armor that I have built up against the threat of myself. Perhaps its not gettng paid by a couple of clients that puts me in a financial bind or an injury, or something work related that I can’t seem to solve. Chink. Chink. Chink. And the walls come crumbling down. I’m defeated and deflated. I can’t cope and so I run to food and spending money to escape from the reality of life and the failures that seem to crush me like a flood.
I’m glad I finally have a name to go with my problem and perhaps now I can find healthy ways to deal with stress when things come into my life that cripple me and threaten to sweep me away on a tide of self-destrutction. But it’s a battle that I have been fighiting literally all my life and I’m tired, so tired of fighting the battle alone.
It looks like for the next few months I am going to be going to DBC again. That’s the plan as of right now. I love that church and I think I want to go back there to get my feet wet, maybe do a few skits, teach the kids how to do a Dance-Off, maybe have a Project Design contest against each grade (Because that building needs some jazzing up) and then I’ll leave and start my own church that features a carnival like atmosphere complete with booths and hot dogs and candy apples.
Wait, I got carried away there for a moment – you know what I mean.
For real though, this feels right and I am excited to get to work with Chris Wilson and to learn from his experience and share mine as well.