Struggle

I like this picture.  The dog is cute, and it looks as confused as I do about life in general.

I am reading a book called "The Struggle is Real" by Nicole Unice.  It talks about how we struggle daily in our lives between the ideal and reality.  I know I do.  I want things to be ideal but I live in the real.  We struggle because we don't have wisdom, which the Bible says comes from believing in God; believing that He is all-powerful.  I have to make a choice of whether I am going to believe God is omnipotent or not.  This choice is a choice between life and death.  There is no hope if I am not going to believe in God.  All the things in this world can't give me what I really want, what I really need.  And that is life. 

I have a hard time accepting and feeling God's love for me. I know He loves me intellectually, but most of the time I don't feel it.  But I know it is me that stands in the way of His love.  I have a wall of mistrust that stands between Him and most people on earth.  And if I want to have life, I have to let those walls fall down.  I know the truth of the Bible, but has it transformed me?  In some ways it has.  Although I still struggle with mistrust, I no longer hate the world or feel like the word owes me. 

I have a hard time forgiving myself.  I have forgiven some people in my life; it helps to try to understand things from their perspective. Finally, God has set me free from condemnation,  for as it says in the Bible, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  

This is what I have reflected on so far from this book.  On another note, I hate this feeling of being in limbo, of living in pain and having to wait for the cortisone shots to kick in, and of having to wait for another job to add to my existing one.  I know I need to be thankful, but sometimes it is hard to be patient!  I guess that's why I am so hard on myself, why I press myself so much.  I can't relax, and if I see a problem I want to fix it.  But there are some things I can't fix, many things actually.  And I will have to choose to trust the One who made me.