adoration.

I can't sleep.

So many decisions and so much opposition.

It's easy for me to see the people around me and focus on how different I am from them.  But I really am not so different. I've simply been forgiven for the sin that eats away at everyone's lives.  I face the same fears, follow the same trends, and eat the same lies.  I am a sinner.

Gracefully saved by the beautiful love of a Being that the world can't understand.  Why is it so hard to remember that in everyday life?

I focus so much on all the things that a "good Christian" does in my ministering.  But I wonder what would happen if I could sincerely portray my simple adoration for Christ in my conversations.  What if I talked about Him like I talk about my boyfriend? My best friend? Chocolate?  With that big-eyed, hands-flaring, ear-to-ear grin on my face?  What holds me back from expressing the passion I feel towards Jesus and His promises to others?

Fear I guess.

I was reading in Galatians and caught a verse that said, "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?  If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." (1:10)

I've been trying to discern the difference between "pleasing men" and "becoming all things to all men." (1 cor. 9:22)

Pleasing men, so as to win their approval, not God's, and becoming all things to them, (basically fitting in) so as to save some.  There's the difference I guess. But it's a tight rope we walk between who our Master is going to be.  It's hard on the life field to get "in" with the crowd and then pull the rug out from under it with some expression of righteousness.  It's hard because you suddenly sound arrogant.

I'm learning what works best, in all areas of life, is to gaze upon the face of God.  When I realize that God gave me the breathe to accomplish whatever act of righteousness I'm living out, my focus turns starkly from myself to my Creator. In my conversations, that can be as easy as following up a statement with a "because of God's grace" or "Lord willing."  Simply giving that homage to God instead of to my own efforts credits God as first in my mind.

Pray that I can be as in love with Jesus in the real world as I am when I'm home in my Bible, study books, and blog.

<3 Goodnight.