Fighting God

I've been fighting God lately. I've been fighting Him in the way that I think many people fight Him, which is through stubbornness, pride, disregard of sacred things, and apathy. Those are all selfish little retreats into my ego that take me deeper into my own resources of self preservation and farther away from God's providence for my life. 

It can suck to have surrendered your life to God because He holds you to your word. Not in a domineering way, but in a way that makes every other path away from Him less appealing and filled with traps and empty pits of my own destructive making. I hear Him say to me, from a distant place where I am meant to be, "come back!" He's attempting to guide me by His voice, but I find something else to do. I find some way to fill my time, so that I don't have to hear Him. 

"There are secrets I've got to tell you and words that you need to write," He says. But I find something to steal me away, something to numb my mind, something to make me feel OK away from Him. But I'm never OK. 

I've become masterful at ignoring my soul. I can ignore it for long stretches of time. And then there's some acting out I do. I begin to act foolish and make mistakes. I begin to self-destruct. And then I start getting angry at God for what I've become. "What are You doing!? What's the plan here? What's the good in this?" I become a grumbler. 

Suddenly, my apathy begins to hurt and it falls off like a callous, revealing a jacked-up heart beneath all my rowdy rebellion. 

My soul, long-forgotten as it was, starts to stand up for itself. It's propped up by the One who I'd surrendered it to. He fights for it even when I've left it for dead. "Why are you showing me this?" I hardly recognize the truest part of me through the mess I've made over it all. He shows me who I am, and I roll my eyes. He's so hopeful, and it actually irritates me. His optimism feels like deception. I've become fine with deceiving myself, but I don't like handing over control to another. Even if He is God. At least in my own pride I'm in control of my own destruction. I can choose the place to fall from. 

The end of the line, the end of my rope, the end of myself is the place where I admit surrender again. I say it mostly because I'm broken and I can't lie anymore. I can't say I'm fine when I'm clearly lying in a heap on the ground. I give up. "Breathe," He says. And I try. They're mostly shallow breaths. I shake a little and begin to feel newness, but I'm not strong and I'm not resilient. I'm a new shoot of growth out of the ground and I could be stamped out in a heartbeat. I need protection. I need help more than ever. 

I can't fight God anymore because He levels me, or, rather, He lets me level myself. I want to be hard and I want nothing to break me, but then I am broken and I've got nothing left to say but I'm sorry.  

  

...ramble on...