Midst darkest shades, if he appear,

My dawning is begun;

He is my soul’s bright morning star,

And he my rising sun

Lord, reveal thyself to my poor backsliding, languishing spirit. Revive me, O Lord, for one smile from thee can make my wilderness blossom as the rose.

"Jesus has left the building!" I have these types of moments. Moments where I simply want to leave Jesus at the door, walk in and do what I want to do or more like rule the way I think is fit. This usually happens when I am upset and want to hurt someone physically. I feel angry or hurt or I feel like injustice has been done. I feel what I know is true; I have no control over the present situation. In those moments I want to open the door to my heart and kindly ask Jesus to skooch out for a few minutes, "please turn away, and let me do some damage and I will be more than happy to let you back in after I'm done."

Jude1b (The Message) Relax, everything's going to be all right; rest, everything's coming together; open your heart, love is on the way!

As I get ready to face the journey home I have mixed feelings and emotions. I'm ready to go but at the same time it is hard to leave. I can worry and get anxious. I can be easily agitated or angered and forget who I am. I am Gods', His workmanship and He is telling me to relax and trust in his love, wait for it. I can want to do what I think should be done before I leave, I want to right wrongs or finish what I consider unfinished.

v3 I have to write insisting—begging! —that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.

When I become works oriented I leave faith out. It's funny how easily I can forget things, lessons taught before, signs sent that I did not head. So now as I stand ready to leave I pray that I do not forget the lessons learned here and accept all the outcomes. I must fight with everything I have for faith. If this call (v3) is here to me that means two things. Firstly, I will have to fight with everything I have to protect something so precious. I definitely feel that I have had moments when I have had to fight with what felt like my last ounce of strength because I had nearly let go and forgotten of the true value of what I had been entrusted with. Secondly, if it requires a fight that means there is opposition and it won't quit until it steels my gift.

v5 I'm laying this out as clearly as I can, even though you once knew all this well enough and shouldn't need reminding.

I'm ashamed to say that I constantly need reminding. Yet, encouragingly enough God knows it and spells it out all the time, sends warnings and reminders constantly.

v10 But these people sneer at anything they can't understand, and by doing whatever they feel like doing – living by animal instinct only—they participate in their own destruction.

On the one hand, there are people who will not accept what I have to offer and although it is sad to watch them self-destruct God has warned me about their behavior and there is nothing I can do about it. It is in His hands. On the other hand, I must be careful not to become one of those people by going on momentary emotions and "instinct".

V17 In the last days there will be people who don't take these things seriously anymore. They'll treat them like a joke, and make a religion of their own whims and lusts.

I can easily stop taking things seriously when the fight gets hard. As I read these verses I realized they were written to Christians who had forgotten, who had stopped fighting, they were written to those who had fallen or where in danger of falling. Yes, there are those who will chose not to understand but there are those who will understand and chose to turn away. When I want to leave Jesus outside, even for a moment, or worst, when I do leave him outside and follow my whims, I'm not taking Christ seriously and I'm not an example to others.

1 Corinthians 10:12(NIV) so, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

Its amazing how little control one actually has over one’s own mind. The mind is an absolute battlefield of forces all seeking their own intentions.

What room is left for freedom under such tyrannies? *Hah.

Once, a fox discovered a vineyard. It was completely enclosed by a wall, except for one small hole. When the fox tried to enter the hole, he discovered he could not. It was too small. So he decided to fast for three days until he became thin enough to enter through the hole. He began fasting and, after three days, was scrawny enough to make it. He entered the hole and found to his delight that the vineyard was a virtual paradise. He ate and ate until he became sleek and fat.

But when he wanted to leave, the fox couldn’t get through the hole. So he had to fast again until he was thin enough to get out. It took three days before he could make it. He finally exited the vineyard just as thin, scrawny and hungry as he had been nine days before.

So it is with life. We struggle so hard for things that don’t bring lasting satisfaction. We work long days in order to be able to purchase things that break within the month. We wish and long for things we soon grow tired of. Remember that as fat and sleek as we may become in life, we will leave just as naked and scrawny as we came in.

He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be stripped of everything when I die. The Lord gave me everything I had, and the Lord has taken it away.” Job 1:21

Sometimes I'm aware that being fully who I am is the most spiritual thing I can be.

But this is only true if I'm aware of that false part of me, that pretend part of me, that not-real-me part of me and moving away from that and toward the truest me.

Sin separates me from my true inner heart and my true inner life. I separate myself from these things as I put on my mask, cover my real feelings with stuff, wear my personas, and otherwise try to be more or different than I who truly am.

Jesus reconciles me and brings me back into full relationship with Himself; and He also brings me back into full and right relationship with who I truly am: my made-in-the-image-of-Christ self. Me. Just me. Raw me. Wholly me. Alive me. Passionate me. No-pretense me. Full-of-all-kinds-of-feelings me. Simple me. True me.

Does this make any sense? I don't leave myself to become spiritual. I do die to the false parts of myself but this brings me into the freedom to live out of and be my true self. Fully myself.

Somebody put it this way:

"Sanctity lies in discovering my true self, moving toward it, and living out of it... While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements, and the adulation of others, the true self claims its identity in its belovedness. We give glory to God simply by being ourselves."

I get so weary when I try to live out of the "impostor." Even worse than the "imposter" is the "spiritual imposter." How draining and hypocritical. How foolish to think that I have to be more than I am in order to be alive, free, or precious to God. How I need to remind myself that God gave His life so that I would live-- and simply be the true person that He created. It is my truest self that is His beloved, not the other false parts of me that I put on. It is the "real me" being "fully me" that is the object of God's infinite affections. He longs for me as I really and thoroughly am--add nothing.

It is being fully me that He thoroughly delights in! Who I am is thoroughly enough!

Today I want to give glory to God by adding nothing to who I am. I'm such a simple person. A simple desire to be a lover of God and a lover of others. No rank, no status, no position, no role. Just an alive-to-the-world person and, by His grace, an alive-to-God person. I'm nobody, yet I'm magnificent (in His image). I'm nothing, yet I'm the beloved of the Creator. I'm unique, and it's just, simply, plainly, who I am that brings glory to God.

“A man asks his rabbi, "Why does God write the laws on our hearts? Why not in our hearts?" The rabbi replied, "God never forces anything into the human heart. He writes the word on our hearts so that when our hearts break, God falls in."

It turns out the best instrument for absorbing God is an unguarded broken heart.” – Author Unknown

Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV) I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.