Whoppas,

Brothers, I have to tell you that recently I have experienced some of my hardest days since coming back to Blacksburg. I'm not battling a "depression" like I was last fall, but it is a time where most everything is failing me. Why? I'm not sure. I've wept more in the last month than I have in a long time, part of that is good because I'm actually being truthful w/ where I am. Work is a painful, intensive experience which wars against my soul and who I believe my personality to be. I describe it as short breaths, the ones where you're hiking up a mountain at 13k ft and you wonder if you will ever stop panting, gasping, reaching for truly full lungs. It is in these moments where we want to sit down and rest, or hide from the pain. The peak is in sight, the prize is there, but I want to sit down. Sitting gives you altitude sickness and immobility, sitting prevents you from survival, much less the goal.

Its hard not to look at myself and say "you're screwed up, missing something, sinful,a failure, or incompetent". I've had the privilege of receiving the answer to that question tonight: that is exactly true. I am sinful, incapable without His grace, I have no rights of my own. What is this time? What is it for? Can I begin to look at this suffering as good? Can I view my God as powerfully loving in this time? I want to say yes, I need to find that truth again. To escape the legalism of performance, to escape the lies that the devil says you should be at this level and this powerful to consider yourself a good child of the Father.

The success the devil has had is in saying I'm disqualified, im inadequate. Well I am and always will be. If I get to far away from that I own my own righteousness, and I think I've been there before, it doesnt bode well.

This passage has bothered me for years, mostly because I know this is not my heart.

7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
(Phillipians 3:7-10)

That is probably why I'm here. I'm sick of hating the refiner's fire. I need to jump in, and receive it as love, from the Father speaking life to the full into me.

In my newfound vigilance to find truth admist this confusion and heartache, I came across this passage in Larry Crabb's (yes colt u can laugh) Inside Out. I think this speaks to my heart over the past two years. I think its time for me to embrace this and live in the fact that I don't need to perform for you guys or for the Lord. To accept his refining fire and not forget He is good:

"When we reflect deeply on how life really is, both inside our soul and outside in our world, a quiet terror threatens to overwhelm us. We worry that we simply won't be able to make it if we face all that is there. In those moments, retreat into denial does not seem cowardly, it seems necessary and smart. Just keep going, get your act together, stop feeling sorry for yourself, renew your commitment to trust God, get more serious about obedience. Things really aren't as bad as you intuitively sense they are. You've simply lost your perspective and must regain it through more time in the Word and increased moral effort."

I cant just keep going and ignore it or blame it on something. Does it include my sin, of course! Is it the greater love of the Father, Yes. I need to hold on to that. What do I appreciate more, men's view of my righteousness, or pruning by my father to true righteousness through the cross. I wanted to say hey, this is where I am. I love you guys and I need your prayer. I put it on the blog cuz, well, hey its the truth. Why hide from it?