insomnia

*This will probably be a garbled mess- however, since I can't think of anyone who would appreciate a call at 4 AM on a Saturday morning, this is where I'm going to sort through some things. Hopefully you as the reader hear some echoes of the voice of God through this.

4:39 AM. I've always said I'm more of a night-owl, but this isn't exactly what I mean. For me, a night of insomnia generally means that I am/have been seeking out something more to fulfill my current situation. What silliness; what more could I ever need than the developing relationship with my Lord and Savior? And yet somehow, that human nature gets in the way, and all of the sudden we find ourselves going down paths that are subtly (or obviously) off the path that He has set before us, and we end up emptier than we started. I say "we" because I assume I'm not the only one who experiences this. It doesn't matter what it is that we are seeking- money, power, acceptance, stability, higher position/roles, love- it is always with a selfish motive, no matter how much we might try to convince ourselves that it is not. And it's ugly. If you are a believer, then you probably understand the struggle of wanting to become more Christlike and yet somehow still having to fight with the inner sin nature. For me, it's like. . . I've made the choice, isn't that enough? Unfortunately, no. Sometimes I think that we begin to work out our salvation, and then God starts to work in us (see here), and as soon as that happens, we figure we have "fulfilled our obligation" and expect God to carry us the rest of the way. He didn't make it easy on any of the "Big Bible names" (Moses, Joseph, Abraham, David, nor His Son Jesus, just to name a few). In fact, now that I'm actually thinking, I know that this has been my approach, although maybe I haven't been conscious of it until now. The other part is that there are the forces of evil working against anything and everything that might lead others to Christ. This might be the 5 AM talking, and I don't know that I can explain this any better than to say that I felt earlier tonight that there was some kind of evil presence in my apartment. I can't claim that for a fact, but this wasn't something new, and I've noticed a similar feeling before (on nights that I've had sleep paralysis, for example, or other nights where I've fallen away as I have tonight). Awareness is key I think in spiritual warfare. My question (for myself mostly) is WHY IS MY FIRST RESPONSE SOMETHING OTHER THAN PRAYER AND SEEKING OUT HIS VOICE? Probably because it's easy to shrug off. We don't really live in a society that (for the most part) accepts the idea of actual spiritual presence in our everyday lives. In some ways, I think tribal peoples have a better situation because of that- I can remember hearing a story from a missionary about demon possession, and while it is easy to laugh that off or say, "No, that doesn't really happen anymore," the fact of the matter is that if we believe in divine presence of God, we are in the wrong to assume that fallen angels and Satan aren't just as real.

I've been reading John the past few days. What an interesting book- quite different from the rest of the Gospels. This passage is encouraging to me, and somewhat related: "If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."(here's the entire chapter).


This is somewhat stolen/modified, but I think it's a great way to wrap this all up: God may love us as we are, but He also loves us far too much to leave us where we are.