Thanks in part to my self-imposed sabbatical, I know three things for sure...
1. God expects me to fail A WHOLE LOT MORE OFTEN than I expect to.
2. Forgiveness comes BEFORE repentance.
3. I need to be HONEST WITH MYSELF...and thereby honest with God,
Honesty requires the truthfulness to admit the attachments and addictions that control or attention, dominate our consciousness, and function as false gods. I can be addicted to vodka or to being nice, to marijuana or being loved, to cocaine or to being right, to gambling or to relationships, to golf or gossiping. Perhaps my addiction is food, performance, money, popularity, power, revenge, reading, television, tobacco, weight, or winning. When we give anything more priority than we give to God, we commit idolatry. Thus, we all commit idolatry several times a day.
Honesty involves the willingness to face the truth of who we are, regardless of how threatening or unpleasant our perceptions may be. This steady self-confrontation requires strength and courage. We cannot use failure as an excuse to quit trying.
Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God. It does not distance us
from God, but draws us to him-as nothing else can-and opens us anew to the flow of grace. (Brennan Manning)
Honesty CANNOT separate us from the love of Christ...NOTHING can.And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:38
In being honest with myself, I'm starting to see Dale through the eyes of God. It's a slow process down a long road, but I'm making progress. I am a child of God, beautiful and righteous in his sight, and he thinks I deserve a better life than I do. I already believe that God wants what's best for me...I don't doubt that at all. And to be honest, there are a lot of things in my life that aren't even remotely good - much less God's best - for me. I'm being honest about these things with myself, and God is helping me to see them clearly. I don't pray for strength or clarity anymore...I pray that I will trust God.
“Lord you took me out of Egypt, now take Egypt out of me.
You delivered me from Pharaoh, now deliver me from me.
Lord make of my heart a promised land where the desert used to be.
You took me out of Egypt, now take Egypt . . . out of me.”
