ImNoBetterThanU

     The removal of weeds within my soul is a painful thing, but ever so worth the freedom it brings and the healing that follows. Progressive sanctification is such a beautiful thing. There are many different ways people reference this work of the Lord. The "peeling of layers like an onion" and "softening the heart and removing scar tissue" to name a couple; in this case I am using the analogy of removing weeds from our lives. Just as in the physical realm when you takeover a rental property that was not maintained you will not eliminate all  weeds in one attempt without further damaging the lawn. My soul was full of overgrown weeds and other garbage because rather than stewarding my body, soul, and Spirit as a gift I treated them all more like a rental property for a number of years. In the same way God will not remove every weed in our life at once whereas we would likely not survive such an action from such a glorious being. He will remove som...

I think most of us know the saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." Well, I allowed myself to be fooled numerous times over the last couple decades. Primarily this occurred in allowing my emotions to control me in circumstances. I was one who would "blow up", become irate, and express anger in very unhealthy ways. Do not believe me? Just ask ex-girlfriends, family members, friends, or other random victims of my behavioral patterns from my past. I assure you it was bad. In fact I love this quote from Marvin Yakos: "Anger repressed becomes rage when it escapes, or if never allowed to vent, extreme depression." With that being said I want to make it clear that anger in and of itself is not a "bad" emotion. The ways in which we control (or by allowing it to control us) anger is when it can become unhealthy. You may ask where I am going with all of this. Well... Let me give some examples from the last few days showing immen...

So just over two years ago when I began attending my current church I would go in, mingle, worship, listen to the message, take notes, etc. Then I would leave and go about living just as the world lives. Then the conviction began, notice I said conviction and NOT condemnation. At that point I began trying harder to stop doing the things that I knew were sinful behavior and and damaging myself and putting a wedge between myself and God. I kept failing so I tried harder! I might go a few days, then maybe weeks; but all in all I would still fail miserably. So I tried even HARDER! It was so frustrating. Whereas the distance between those times would increase it was so tiring to work so hard to "be good". Then one day... Finally one day I surrendered. I gave over control. Not to say it was all instantaneous and I had no more failure, but it became less tiresome. I gave my heart to God.  You see it is all an issue of the heart, nothing external . Some will disag...