Hello, my lovelies. 🙂
It’s been a sobering day today. I’m struggling to get moving on the things that I’ve felt like the Lord has directed me to do for 15+ years now.
There’s so much that always seems to clamor for my attention, and serving physically is so much easier than doing the hard work of serving mentally and spiritually. There are 15 years of blockages I’m trying to fight through to work on this book.
The Big Guy has told me multiple times that He’ll help me through it and that what I write will be perfect in His sight. I just… still struggle to focus in, get over the hump, and really dig in. It’s so easy to get distracted by the good and better things and then to not do the best things–especially when I’m intimidated by the best things.
But then I feel like I have again and again, knowing I’m not doing what I’ve been called by God to do.
I want to face those hard things. I want to trust His promises.
That… trusting the promises… has been one of the biggest challenges of the last 10 years for me. He’s directed me to (trust His promises), and I trusted Him with one of the things I wanted most, and… it didn’t come to pass as I’d understood the promise to be.
And it took years of pain and anger and fear and doubt before I realized that I can’t walk away. I love Him. I miss Him. I think I do trust Him, deep down. I was just confused and hurt and lonely and angry… reeling from the seeming loss of what I wanted so badly that I never expected to have to put on the altar of sacrifice.
But I did have to put it on the altar of sacrifice, and I guess now I get to see that I’m willing, after years of fighting it, I can see in myself that I’m willing.
I give it to God. Come what may, I will love it, because I trust Him.
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
🐿️
Apparently, I squirreled. 🙃
So I want to let go of the good and the better and do the things that are best. I want to spend time preparing to write this book. I spent countless hours preparing back in 2010, and I worked on the book on and off until 2016, and now I’m basically starting over, but that’s okay.
That’s okay.
Though I think most of my perspective has remained the same, I am different.
And I’m gaining a greater insight, I think, as to what this book will be. I know the title. I’ve had the title from the very beginning–Education for Eternity.
I just need to write it. 🙃
The Big Guy has given me some very encouraging direction on how to approach it, so I should be able to do so in faith, but I’m still struggling. 🙃
Anyway, another thing that’s been pretty big for me today is watching myself continue to fight off the powerful desire to have other people look up to me, put me on a pedestal.
I’m so tired of having that desire inside of me. I just want to be able to be a quiet, humble doer of good with absolutely zero interest in the honor and praise of the world. I want my whole heart to be focused on spreading love and light, lifting wherever I can without a single iota of concern for my own reputation, and without a single expectation of reward–no strings attached whatsoever.
The reminder that I received of How deeply ingrained the desire is that I have for the honors and praise of men was humbling and sobering.
So profound were the feelings that I just called out to God, asking for Him to break me. Please… break me.
I suppose for some that might sound bad, but I want the pride that’s in me to be ground to powder, and to blow away from me like dust in the wind.
That is a deep and sincere desire of my heart, and I know it’s a good one, so I know that in God’s own time, He will bring to pass whatever is necessary to have that happen for me.
I expect that it won’t be easy.
In fact, I expect that it will require all of me–every particle of strength I have. And I expect it will require that again and again and again.
And as God gives me more strength, I expect the bar will be raised, and it will then take all of that strength.
And on and on it will go, the cycle repeating again and again and again.
It would be naive of me to say that I know what it will take, let alone have what it takes.
I don’t know what it will take (what it’ll look like), and I’m pretty much certain that I don’t yet have the strength that it will take to defeat my pride, to permanently destroy it.
But God has the power. And He’ll show me what to do. And at a pace that he knows is best for me, He will help me grind that mountain of pride into powder, and He will help me build a mountain of love to replace it.
Bring it on.
I’m other news, I didn’t do much again today work-wise. I probably haven’t done enough to maintain my payout level, except that I’m supposedly in a good range, so hopefully they can’t drop me to levels in one week, but it doesn’t really matter. My mission on this Earth isn’t to be an online mechanic.
I did spend a lot of time listening to/watching uplifting videos. I’m learning a lot.
I spent some time listening to some of my sacred recordings.
I spent a fair bit of time letting the horses wander around outside the pasture. River, surprisingly, misbehaved a fair bit, bolting for the open pasture twice.
Previously, I had extolled him as the one who was just content to just munch on the good stuff right there, and Fiona was the one who was more of a handful, but River proved himself otherwise today.
Not much else to say today.
I did reach out to a handful of people online, family and friends, just checking in and whatnot.
Chatted with my sister Heather for a bit and gospel stuff.
Good stuff.
Chatted with Cory a bit.
Gratitude:
- I didn’t include these first three last night, but I will here. I’m so grateful to be free of TV and movies.
- I’m so grateful to be free of sports news.
- And I’m so grateful to be free of the divisive news and podcasts and that kind of… stuff.
- I’m deeply humbled to be free of porn. I think there is a power that comes from that freedom that I haven’t had for a good long time, but I think it’s returning. Glory to God.
- I’m grateful to feel that soul-deep hunger to be completely free of pride.
- I’m grateful to be making progress with my physical health, eating so much better than I used to, exercising, etc. I have this gift, this one body with which to serve others. It’s already sustained damage from my carelessness. I don’t want to take it for granted any more.
- I’m grateful that God is love, that when I’m hard on myself, He’s encouraging me to look at the progress I’ve made and not to focus on the growth I still lack.
Success:
- I turned to the Lord in my extremity, humbled and hungry. May I be made equal to the labor in front of me. I know I will be, because that’s just who God is.
Improvement:
- Let go of the good and the better, and do the best. This has been my great failing for many years now, always finding the next good or better thing to do, usually with a service motivation, which is great, but still avoiding the best that God has shown me is my path.
Thought of the Day:
11 …I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God.
12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things…
~ Alma 26: 11-12
Hand of God In My Life Today:
I felt what I understand to be the Spirit today, and I’m grateful. 😊
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
Break me.
~ stephen
Lift the World 