Disclaimer: I have not gone back to check grammar or to see how this flows. Good luck!
I've been looking into how I can step back into the front line of God's on going spiritual battle and realizing that I have three major components that need to be working together in order to be able to take one step after another to get there. From the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:37-39 We are called to love god with all our heart soul and mind. Which is harder than I realize because they are all connected and also easier than I am making it out to be if I were to trust God with every step I am trying to take. I've been there before but with how much I have gotten in to the world, its like I need to go through Rehab to try and learn to walk again. But I know this, God will be my Spiritual Therapist.
As I start to think about the heart, soul, and mind, I realize how connected mine are. I can think to myself what I need to do to get something done but with out the motivation and passion from my heart, and yearning for purpose from my soul, my thoughts have no force. the emotions from my heart cause my mind to be over powered and so my soul is confused. Like scripture says, guard your heart for it is the well spring of life. So I picture these three lining up like children do in elementary school. The Heart is the first in line. followed by the mind and then by the soul. The heart is the easiest to be affected by and so needs the most guarding and if the heart and mind are not in sinc, then the soul is confused. This allows follows with my distress about my faith. I have done little to protect my heart from the influences around me but my mind is staying tuned to the teaching I have grown up with so my soul is more or less lost between the two, however, as they become disconnected, I find comfort knowing that God is holding me in those times.
I have done little to keep these three things in line but now that school is not strangling my schedule, I have more free time to relax and let the more important things float to the top of my day dreams. Needless to say, I haven't had my priorities straight all semester.
All this is coming out due to the excitement of being in Japan and away from my life in Stillwater. Stepping out of Stillwater, I get to take just myself over to a place where the only purpose I have is to serve God and his sheep and maintain my health through eating and sleeping. Its the best spiritual rehab I could ask for. Though I am there to serve, I know that I will be transformed from the service so its getting two birds with one stone.
Listening to my thoughts as they are being typed out, I don't feel very selfless...
___________
I listened to my campus minister, Matt Mills, give a message on "Shadow Boxing". My mind jumped to a shadow box that you put memorabilia into and hang on a wall but I was wrong when he described his topic as the punching of the air to prepare for a boxing match. He compared this to being a christian struggling with sin. You're in the shadows fighting with nothing but yourself all the while, you could be in the light fighting a battle bigger than yourself. By shadow boxing with your sins, and getting nowhere, stepping into the light allows for forgiveness so you can step past them and start helping others that need it by spreading the light to other places.
He pulled up the passage that talks about lighting a lamp. When you light one, you don't put it under a bed or cover it up, you place it where everyone can see it to shine and expose the dark places so nothing is hidden from sight.
I'm not sure who will ever read this but I don't want to hide my thought. Getting them out allows me to be true to myself and help me work through things that I would still have jumbled in my head. I usually think of a magician pulling a string of flags out of his hat: before they are shown tot he audience, they are crammed together in the hat but as they are pulled out one by one, you see them individually.
Light is to righteousness as darkness is to sin. If you are committed to shining His light, there will not be room for darkness because as I previously stated, light exposes the darkness. This brings me to another topic that i heard discussed on Wednesday when I sat with a group of amazing followers of Christ. The topic was commitment which lead to defining passion. Whatever your passion is, you usually have little trouble committing to it as we discussed. But emotion and passion are two different things but they go hand in hand with each other. The best example i have is soccer and porn. A soccer player doesn't always want to go to practice but does because they have a passion for the sport. Their emotions can be love for playing and irritation for practicing but the passion remains the same. As for those that are addicted to porn, they wouldn't passionately tell everyone that the watched porn or looked at it but they are emotionally wrapped up in it because its an addiction. Which brings me back to the heart, mind, and soul. Faith and being a follower requires passion and emotion and a little more, your soul. The words "earnest" and "desire" go well together when I think of actively following Christ. An earnest desire to follow Christ is just a peaceful and beautiful thought to me.
I'm lead to the thought of the scripture that talks about storing your treasures in heaven because where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. It goes on to say that the treasures of the world will waste away but those of heaven will be ever lasting. If my heart is in heaven, how much easier is it to protect it from the world which is wasting away! ^__^
All of this feels good to write out but it does me no good unless I practice what I preacher so to speak. I have a growing desire to be back in the front of the line where all the action is taking place. Where to sweat on your brow feels good and you sleep heavy because you have done good work. I have a strong feeling Japan will be where my Rehab starts but where I find myself back on the front line at the end of six weeks when it time to come home and face the real world.
That's all my thought for now.
-Aeriel <3
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