Sunday Morning

Amazing how fast life can change. One moment you are wrapped up in the safety net of the familiar, the next day, all the carefully woven cloth of your life can be unraveled simply due to one hanging thread that catches on something.

That thread in my life has been the relationship that I started with Jesus Christ a little over than four years ago. Now, before you think this post is going to go all "God" on you, take a moment to consider the fact how difficult at times it is to share bits and pieces of my life here at times. My spiritual life is a valid part of my story and I try to share it as I can, even though it is harder to talk about with strangers than sex, love or what I ate for dinner the night before. Someones personal journey is always difficult to understand, but I hope you will walk with me a bit.

Lately, I have been personally challenged to start living out many of the beliefs that I hold, or thought that I held in my heart and mind. The thing that I finally realized, that faith, without works is dead. I could tell God how much I loved Him, how much I wanted to serve Him, how important He was to me...but then daily, I made choices that seemed to be in direct contradiction to the few simple truths that I have learned in the last few years. There are not convictions that were handed to me by some organization, or a group of people, or learned from some self help book found on a shelf, but instead, are feelings I have deep in my soul about what is right and what is wrong for me.

I am learning that the heart is a fickle and unstable thing at best, but when harnessed to a zeal and determination for the good, nothing on earth will stand in its way.

Looking hard at myself over the last few months has been a challenging and daunting process of self examination. It involves a long hard look into the mirror and calling the facts of reality for what they really are, not a self delusional cursory examination of the evidence, quickly forgotten when the urge and emotions have long since passed.

The truth of the matter is, there are and continue to be many activities, actions, choices and desires in my life that I cannot live with in peace. My house is not right and that idea sits uneasy with me. Simply put, choices had to be made.

And I am making them.

As a follower of Jesus, as Gods kid, as one who is called to be set apart, the harsh reality of my actions belie the name which I carry. I remember once, as a foolish young teen, my Dad telling me quietly and firmly to either, "Change your ways...or change your name."

I am choosing to change my ways.

Not for some idea that in doing good I will become good. Or that I can somehow appease my conscience with nice or better works, or that in the changing of my life I will somehow become a more worthy person and more deserving of His love, but rather, my love for Him compels, calls, exhorts and demands a difference. I can tell someone I love them, but when my actions fly in the face of that statement and say other wise, then who the Hell do I think I am fooling?

I am tired of grieving Him. I am sick of returning to old things that used to bring me comfort, peace and enjoyment. Like a song I love says, "I keep longing after broken cisterns that do not satisfy."

So I have been choosing life over death, peace over calamity, simple over complex, truth over lies, actions over excuses, discipline over license and grace over bitterness.

What does all this mean? I will put it bluntly. All of the selfish and self gratifying choices I am making with my dick and the money God has given me need to change.

I cannot avoid my eyes in the mirror any more and I want some peace to reign in my heart. I am tired of being a slave to this stupid body and all the desires and wants it continually clamors for. I have never learned to tell myself "No" not even for an instant. I was not even adept at saying, "Wait". I have lived as a selfish child long enough. There is much more in this life to be had than simply satisfying my desires, my wants, my needs, my aches, my cravings. Me, me, me, me...must end.

What does success look like for me in all of this? I don't expect to attain perfection. I am still Daemon, a man, a slave in many ways. But I am also His kid, His beloved Son, a Heir of all that is His to give. I am starting to live like it. I cannot compromise the integrity of my heart and faith for the simple pleasures that this world offers and gives me so freely. There is always a cost, a consequence, a thinning of the soul.

And what a price it has been.

I chose life.